The Prints & Photographs Division’s collections include many images that feature the humble bicycle. This familiar, ingenious transportation technology appears in pictures in multiple formats, including photographs, prints, and drawings, produced across decades. This popular graphic art print showing the scene at the 1883 Bicycle Camp-Exhibition & Tournament in Springfield, Massachusetts gives a sense of …
This past year a researcher called to our attention a series of photographs of children posing with bicycles in the National Photo Company Collection. Below is one of the images, which came to the Library with a somewhat mysterious title: “Times girl on bicycle.” Documentation obtained by the researcher through the Library of Congress’s Chronicling …
When I was a kid, I was happy to tool around the neighborhood on my red, white and blue bike, handlebar tassels flowing in the breeze. My brother, on the other hand, once attempted to jump a Volkswagen Beetle on his two wheeler. Bicycles can tempt certain people to go fast, go high and try …
See chromolithographic illustrations of fashion designs for men, women and children through advertisements produced by dressmakers and tailoring companies from the 1880s and 1890s.
For lovers of twentieth-century history in general and for aviation enthusiasts specifically, the Prints & Photographs Division’s collection of Wright Brothers Negatives provides a fascinating body of evidence for early developments in aviation technology. All of the images, ranging in date from 1897 to 1928, are digitized and readily available for viewing from anywhere. It …
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints and Photographs Division. The Prints and Photographs Division (P&P) invites you to get your mouse (or your car or bicycle) ready to travel the byways and highways that photographer John Margolies drove along as he created the Roadside America Collection between 1969 and 2008. …
Attending county or state fairs in the summer is a tradition for many Americans. While I did not get a chance to go to county or state fairs as a kid, I’ve now been to county fairs on both sides of the country, and find them fascinating. I’ve seen pony rides, clogging demonstrations, chicken, duck …
September 22 is World Car Free Day, an annual event when participants around the world set aside their car keys and find alternative methods for getting to work. This annual observance goes back to the 1970s, and gained more ground in the 1990s to coincide with the European Union’s “In Town Without My Car” campaign. …
When I think about roller skating as a kid, I remember fun Friday nights at the skating rink with friends, pop music and treats at the snack bar. There was the joy of going fast, and the occasional wipe out from going a bit too fast. Not a problem for 4-year-old Betty Buck, since the …
