Ready for Research: Announcing New Collections and Additional Digital Images

The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division.

Our talented teams in the Prints & Photographs Division (P&P) organized and described 250,000 pictures during the past year. The processing teams completed several new collections for you to enjoy from a distance or examine in person, and digitization staff added some 50,000 additional pictures to the online catalog. Those impressive quantities are only part of the story, of course. We’re working on pictures with high interest for both casual curiosity and deep-dive researchers.

The projects are introduced alphabetically by title keyword—an old library habit. Links are provided to collection rights statements where available. For others, consult our general document describing use of images from the collections. Viewing some materials onsite requires advance notice. Please consult access information in the online catalog records or reach out to us via Ask a Librarian.

The Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Print Collection (2,000 artist prints, 1948-1999) 

Collection description: A rich variety of artwork with social, political, and cultural themes and narratives. The collection showcases a wide array of American and international creators, styles, subjects, and techniques. Robert Blackburn, a master printer in New York City, founded the Printmaking Workshop in 1947 as a space for collaborative printmaking that became a hub for artists of diverse backgrounds.

• Project outcome/status: Each print has its own catalog record. A selection of digitized images is available.

David Seymour (Chim) Photograph Collection  (1,100 photographs, 1935-1956) 

Collection description: Photos taken by David Seymour (Chim), a renowned photojournalist and cofounder of Magnum Photos, document major conflicts and their aftermath, including the Spanish Civil War, the lead-up to World War II in Europe, the aftermath of World War II, and the Second Arab-Israeli war. Gift from Ben Schneiderman, 2014-2024.

• Project outcome/status: Each print has its own digital image and catalog record.
• Rights statement available for Chim Collection.

Copyright Deposits: Class G (95,000 items, 1909-1950)

Collection description: Designs submitted to register for U.S. copyright protection, including greeting cards, advertisements, fashion, reproductions of sculptures, characters, illustrations, comics, and other kinds of artwork. Many designs for tombstones, funerary monuments, and religious works are also present.

• Project outcome/status: The finding aid is available in the Prints & Photographs Reading Room.

Copyright Deposits: Class I (25,000 items, 1909-1950)

Collection description: Designs submitted to register for U.S. copyright protection, including blueprints, plans, charts, diagrams, other technical drawings, printed material, and photographs showing architecture, engineering, and design works.

• Project outcome/status: The finding aid is available in the Prints & Photographs Reading Room.

Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Black-and-White Negatives (175,000 negatives, 1935-1944)

Collection description: An iconic pictorial record of American life during the Great Depression and World War II.

• Project outcome/status: These negatives were first scanned early in our digitization history. We are in the process of re-scanning them to the high standards that current technology allows, with only 30,000 negatives still to re-scan of the 175,000 in the collection. FSA negatives are completed and OWI negatives are well underway. Roughly 1,000 new scans each month replace the old scans in the online catalog.
• Rights statement available for FSA/OWI black-and-white negatives.

Future of Flying Photograph Collection  (7,180 digital photos, 2002-2003)

Collection description: Joe McNally took these photos for the first all-digital photo story in a National Geographic cover story called “The Future of Flying: Faster, Farther, Smarter” (December 2003). The collection was inspired by the centennial of the Wright Brothers’ first flight photos, which are also in P&P.

• Project outcome/status: Each photo has its own online image and catalog record.
• Rights statement available for McNally photographs. 100 photographs have no known publication restrictions.

Carol M. Highsmith Archive  (70,000 photos, 1980-present)

Collection description: The Carol M. Highsmith Archive features photographs of sites and culture throughout the United States.

• Project outcome/status: Added 1,300 new born-digital photos, including Alaska and Hawaii to complete the survey of America. Also added scenes of Graceland and Hearst Castle.
• Rights statement available for Highsmith Archive photographs.

Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record / Historic American Landscapes Survey (HABS/HAER//HALS) Collection (1933-present, 450,000 items)

Collection description: These surveys document achievements in architecture, engineering, and landscape design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types, engineering technologies, and landscapes, including examples as diverse as the Pueblo of Acoma, houses, windmills, one-room schools, the Golden Gate Bridge, and buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

• Project outcome/status: Digitizing the photos has restarted after a pause, with 5,468 new images added in 2024 now online. For the first time, digital photographs are being used in HABS entries, identified by the “Color Digital” medium designation in nine newly available surveys.
• Rights statement available for HABS/HAER/HALS Collection.

Hunt Collection (15,000 items, mid-1800s to 1920s)

Collection description: Richard Morris Hunt was celebrated internationally in the 1800s as American’s premier architect. Now best known for designing Gilded Age mansions, Hunt was also a cultural influencer and advocate for artisans.  The Hunt Collection forms part of the American Institute of Architects and American Architectural Foundation Collection.

• Project outcome/status: Close to 1,500 digitized drawings and photos are available online. A book, The Gilded Life of Richard Morris Hunt, and the Richard Morris Hunt Research Guide are now available.

Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign (19,000 photographs, 1983-1984)

Collection description: This collection documents Reverend Jesse Jackson’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States from his candidacy announcement through the convention in San Francisco. TIME Magazine sent photojournalist Bruce Talamon to cover candidate Jackson, a well-known American civil rights activist and Baptist minister.

• Project outcome/status: Collection has been processed and select digitized images are available.
• Rights statement available for images by Bruce Talamon from Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign.

Liljenquist Family Collection (8,000 items, 1850-1950)

Collection description: More than 8,000 cased portrait photographs, called ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, and tintypes, as well as small card photos, called cartes de visite, represent both Union and Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Also includes albums and manuscript material.

• Project outcome/status: View digitized images, including new soldiers’ correspondence, with transcribed texts

Postcard Filing Series  (100,000 items, 1890s-present)

Collection description: The Postcard filing series consists of postcards representative of international postcard production from the inception of picture postcards around 1890 to the present with the bulk of the cards being from before 1950. Geographical locations in the United States and western Europe, especially France, Germany, Italy and Russia are well-represented with minor representation of locations in Africa, Asia, Australia and South America.

• Project outcome/status:
  • “Postcards related to places in the United States, photographic media” (PCRD 4): completed. Records and digital images available for nearly 8,400 real photo postcards.
  • “Postcards related to places in the United States, ink-based media” (PCRD 1): scanned. Some of the 15,844 items in this series are online, with more records to be uploaded later in 2025.
  • “Postcards related to places in the United States, ink-based media” (PCRD 2): Scanning of these 13,700 items is underway.

Stereograph Cards  (60,000 items, primarily 1860s-1920s)

Collection description: Stereographs consist of two nearly identical photographs or photomechanical prints, paired to produce the illusion of a single three-dimensional image, usually when viewed through a stereoscope. The Prints & Photographs Division’s holdings include images produced from the 1850s to the 1940s, with the bulk of the collection dating between 1870 and 1920.

• Project outcome/status: Over 59,000 stereograph cards have been digitized and are viewable through their online catalog records. Scans are added for about 2,500 stereographs each year.
• Rights statement available for Stereograph Cards.

U.S. Patent Office advertising prints and labels collection (67,000 prints, about 1874-1940). 

Collection description: Includes many types of ephemera: packaging, flyers, wallpaper friezes, newspaper advertisements, bread wrappers, promotional calendars, cigarette cards, quilt patterns, and cardboard cut-outs. Also includes work by prominent artists.  Valuable for the study of advertising and commercial aesthetics as well as learning about specific types of products.

• Project outcome/status: Finding aid for Patent Office advertising prints and labels now available online. Nearly 100 digitized images online.  

U.S. Patent Office trademarks  (82,000 items, 1869-1911)

Collection description: Trademarked brands, logos, and images registered with the United States Patent Office between 1869 and 1911. Commercial branding and products come from primarily American, also European, Canadian, Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican companies.

• Project outcome/Status: Online so far are close to 43,000 items.  Adding 5,000-10,000 each year.
• Rights statement available for U.S. Patent Office trademarks.

Vergara Photograph Collection (20,000 items, 1970-present)

Collection description: The Camilo J. Vergara Photograph Collection contains several major projects created over 40 years. The oldest images date from the 1970s and show Vergara’s early work on the evolution of cemeteries throughout the United States and views of “Old New York.” From the 1980s on, most of the photographs present detailed documentation of neighborhoods in several American cities, sometimes in time-lapse series.

• Project outcome/status: Recent photographs by Camilo Vergara update the time-lapse series and continue to document the impact of COVID in cities. Adding more than 1,000 new records each year, now including scenes from Los Angeles.
• Rights statement available for Vergara Photograph Collection.

Learn More:

• Keep up with all new digital images and catalog records with this link: “View Newly Digitized Images!”
• Catch up with picture collections presented in previous Ready for Research blog posts.
• Receive links to new finding aids by subscribing to the Finding Aids RSS or email feeds.
• Explore the growing set of collection and subject guides that describe popular Prints & Photographs Division collections.