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Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that, in addition to marking the 150th anniversary of key developments in the U.S. Civil War, we are now looking back at an even earlier conflict as the War of 1812 bicentennial launches. Two hundred years to the day have passed since the United States declared war on …
Posted in: Cartoons, Drawings, News & Events, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
This year we’re marking anniversaries of key events in two wars: the U.S. Civil War and the War of 1812 (about which, stay tuned!). At the risk of seeming to be focused on conflict, we’re also looking ahead to the anniversary of what H.G. Wells dubbed “The War That Will End War.” As it turned …
Posted in: News & Events, Photographs, Posters, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
On February 1, 1960, four young men sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and ordered coffee and doughnuts. More than fifty years later, this may not seem like a daring act, but it was. First the waitress and then the store manager explained that the lunch counter was reserved for …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Our online collections support many a research project, but contact with physical photographs and graphic items can be eye-opening and reveal new avenues for investigation. Kya Mangrum, a doctoral candidate in English Language and Literature at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, recently spent several days in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room exploring images of …
Posted in: African American History, News & Events, Photographs, Researcher Stories, Visual literacy
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
We are still savoring the comments visitors to the National Book Festival offered last fall while viewing sample photographs from our collections. This visitor’s comments seem particularly apt as we continue to celebrate Women’s History Month. The commenter recognized the well-known subject of the photograph, educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Bethune served …
Posted in: African American History, News & Events, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Researchers come to their topics in many ways. Some set out to test a theory, to revise the assertions of others, or to explore people, places, events or issues from new angles. For others, topics surface from the primary sources themselves. One of my favorite stories in this regard is historian David McCullough’s account of …
Posted in: News & Events