This item from the Popular Graphic Arts collection recently caught the eye of Phil Michel, Digital Conversion Coordinator in the Prints & Photographs Division. Phil commented, “Early engineering marvels often catch my eye. Some of the ships, buildings, bridges, tunnels, etc., that were built in the industrial age were just phenomenal in their scale. I …
One of my favorite buildings in Washington, D.C. is the Pension Building, which is now the National Building Museum. Between the grandeur of the hall and the beautiful brick exterior with its carved frieze, it stands out in a city of grand buildings. While still under construction in 1885, it was also the site for …
In a career spanning forty-six years, Jack E. Boucher traveled through forty-nine states and two U.S. territories to photograph for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and its sister projects, the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) and Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS). Boucher passed away recently, so I asked colleagues here to share stories …
Even those of you who don’t feel as strongly about your morning cup of joe as I do can understand why this photograph would catch my eye! Just imagine the thousands of cups of coffee it could hold! The Bedford Coffee Pot no longer dishes out coffee along the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania, but it …
The following is a guest post by Bronwen Colquhoun, Kluge Fellow. I’ve been invited to blog about an exciting event that we are organizing here at the Library on Saturday July 28, 2012. You are invited to a Photography Meetup in the Thomas Jefferson Building to capture some of the elaborate architecture and artwork rooted …
This image, found while browsing for bridges in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, lured a colleague in for a closer look. I was glancing over her shoulder, and the photograph drew me in and stirred my curiosity, too. We were struck by the clarity and beautiful geometry of the image, one of the recently …
Can you imagine the D.C. skyline without the familiar obelisk of the Washington Monument? If Peter Force’s 1837 design had been chosen, it could have been a hollowed-out pyramid. Or what if Memorial Bridge welcomed visitors to the city with looming turrets and towers instead of the low profile it presents today? These possibilities and …
Thanks to a recent initiative by Library of Congress and National Park Service staff, the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog has grown by nearly 400,000 records. Through a bit of technical wizardry, there is now a record for each digital image in one of our cornerstone collections: the Historic American Buildings Survey/ Historic American Engineering …
In Railroad Stations: The Buildings That Linked the Nation, David Naylor chronicles the history and stylistic character of one of our nation’s most iconic building types. Prolifically illustrated with images from the collections of the Prints & Photographs Division, the volume is organized by geographic region. In addition to showing the exteriors of many stations, …