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Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division. The portrait of this African American family has such a powerful impact that it has become a widely used representation for many aspects of the Civil War era. Donated in 2010 to the Library of Congress, the photograph is already a …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
August was designated as National Black Business Month in 2004. Just about a century earlier, visitors to the Paris Exposition of 1900 also had an opportunity to appreciate the entrepreneurial endeavors of African Americans. The Exposition included a display devoted to the history and “present conditions” of African Americans. W.E.B. Du Bois and special agent …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Hanna Soltys, Reference Librarian, Prints & Photographs Division. “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?” – Leroy “Satchel” Paige. Today marks the birthday of Satchel Paige, one of the greatest baseball players to stand on the pitcher’s mound, and we find some …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following guest post is by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division In honor of African American History Month, this gathering of extraordinary individual and group portraits by contemporary artists features works that speak of community, family, and the envisioned past, present, and future. Nelson Stevens’s vibrant screenprint called Spirit Sister, …
Posted in: African American History, Portraits, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
This guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division, highlights posters that complement the New York Poster House exhibition “The Letterpress Posters of Amos Kennedy” (October 8, 2020–January 3, 2021), curated by Angelina Lippert. Detroit-based letterpress artist Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. wields wood type and ink in ways that can …
Posted in: African American History, Posters, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
We asked reference librarian Jon Eaker, who has spent many years exploring our holdings of military images, to select a couple of favorites to feature in honor of Veterans Day. It’s a tall order to pick out just two, given the thousands of images we hold of members of the armed forces depicted in peacetime …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Victoria Bankole, an Archives, History, and Heritage Advanced Intern in the Prints & Photographs Division in spring 2020. “Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.” — Octavia E. Butler Just as author Octavia Butler created herself through writing, photographers such as Roland Freeman use their …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. One way to commemorate this anniversary might be to explore the online collection Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938. More than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of formerly enslaved people are available online. These narratives were collected in …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs, Portraits
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Micah Messenheimer, Curator of Photography, Prints & Photographs Division. Conversations with visiting researchers that lead to new appreciation for the many interconnections among Library of Congress collections are one of the pleasures of my job as a photography curator. The following interview was done with Jane Pierce, Carl …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs, Researcher Stories, Women's History