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Posted by: Jan Grenci
When looking for images of winter warmth and light for a recent Flickr album, I went off on a searching tangent and happened upon a group of photographs that piqued my interest. All the photos, from the Harris & Ewing Collection, date from 1917 (though contemporary newspaper coverage dates the event in the photos to …
Posted in: Flickr, Photographs, Posters, World War I
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The Winter Olympics are in full swing and many are tuning in to watch the figure skating competition, which prompted me to look back into our collections for images of ice skating from years past. I particularly enjoy the photos of Washingtonians enjoying ice skating on the Reflecting Pool, which stretches between the Washington Monument …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
Images from the Prints & Photographs Division’s collections help to illustrate the sustained contributions of Black Americans to the United States through military service over the course of the nation’s history. We hope you can join us for one of two “Finding Pictures: African Americans in the Military” webinar sessions this month (details at the …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
One of the most fascinating and enjoyable aspects of research with visual materials is the wide variety of information you can learn from a single image, from the obvious to the unexpected. A photographic portrait, for example, has a primary job of showing you what someone looks like. But beyond that, you could learn about …
Posted in: Architecture, Photographs, Visual literacy
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
We are pleased to announce the publication of a new guide describing the Prints & Photographs Division’s large and varied collection of cartoon and caricature art. Martha H. Kennedy, now retired Curator of Popular & Applied Graphic Art and author of the guide, describes the appeal of this collection material: “The Library’s vast, diverse collections …
Posted in: Drawings, Prints, Research Guides
Posted by: Jan Grenci
The collections of the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress include thousands of photochroms. These early color prints were photomechanically reproduced so they weren’t photographs in the traditional sense. I spent some time looking through the photochroms, most of which date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while working on …
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The following is a guest post by Hanna Soltys, Reference Librarian, with contributions by Sara W. Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, and Micah Messenheimer, Curator of Photography, all of the Prints and Photographs Division. To kick off the New Year, the Prints & Photographs Virtual Orientations for January 2022 look at newly …
Posted in: Acquisitions, Drawings, Photographs