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![Washington's prominent figures listen to Marian Anderson's singing. Washington, D.C., April 9. Behind Marian Anderson, the heroic statue of Lincoln; beside her, Cabinet members and Senators; before her a crowd of 75,000 black and white listeners. Left to right - Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morganthau, Mrs. Morganthau, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, [...] at the piano, Marian Anderson. 4-9-39. Photo by Harris & Ewing, 1939 April 9. //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hec.26452](http://blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/files/2020/04/Anderson_Lincoln.jpg)
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
The following is a post by Kristi Finefield, Reference Specialist in the Prints & Photographs Division, and member of the Picture This blog team. Images have a way of opening our eyes to new aspects of a well-known story. When I think of singer Marian Anderson, an image of her performing at the Lincoln Memorial …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs, Women's History
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
Frederick Douglass was a firm believer in the power of pictures. In an 1861 lecture called “Pictures and Progress” by the press, Douglass wondered why photography pioneer Louis Daguerre was not more frequently compared with inventors of such vaunted technologies as the telegraph or the steamboat: “the great father of our modern pictures is seldom …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Every research journey starts with a question! Just such a question sparked this entry of Double Take, the occasional series where we dig a little deeper into an image in our collections. This photo of a young African American boy in the Farm Security Administration (FSA) Collection sent me on a journey 79 years in …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs, Series: Double Take
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
The Prints & Photographs Division regularly receives questions about how to find pictures related to the Great Migration – when millions of African Americans, many of whom lived in the rural American South, permanently relocated to cities to the north and west. These individuals had many reasons for leaving their homes, but they were spurred …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs
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
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
The following interview with Luis Clavell, Program Specialist at the Library of Congress, marks the anniversary of December 1st, 1955, when Rosa Parks was arrested for keeping her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Luis is instrumental in bringing the Rosa Parks collection to the public and serves on a team that manages …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs, Series: Behind the Scenes, Women's History
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
Over the course of his life, Bayard Rustin championed the rights of many, including African Americans, unions and members of the LGBTQ community. He was a close confidant of A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King, Jr. at the height of the Civil Rights movement, but for many his name is not as immediately recognizable …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs, Ready for Research
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
The Library of Congress’s exhibition, “Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote,” is a visually rich celebration of the women who laid the groundwork for women’s suffrage in the United States. Discussing the origins of the movement, the activities immediately leading up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, and the …
Posted in: African American History, News & Events, Photographs, Prints, Women's History
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Digital Conversion Technician Brittany Long added this image to our “Caught Our Eyes” sharing wall a few months ago, with a two-word comment: “Representation Matters.” Brittany encountered the image while working on a team that is going negative by negative through a segment of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Collection to make …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs, Series: Caught Our Eyes