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Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The following is a guest post by Martha H. Kennedy, Curator of Popular & Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. Travel by train, or what some called the “Iron horse,” dominated other forms of transport in America for nearly fifty years. During this “golden age” of railroads that began in 1865, public fascination with …
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The January 1848 chance discovery of gold in northern California rapidly altered the course of America. On this day, August 19, in 1848, word finally reached the East Coast, when the New York Herald published a report of the discovery. By 1849, the rush was on in earnest, leading to the well-known term for gold …
Posted in: Drawings, Photographs
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the land, With the pomp of the inloop’d flags with the cities draped in black, . . . . With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour’d around the coffin, The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs–where amid …
Posted in: Drawings, News & Events, Photographs
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
In the U.S., editorial cartoonists come in all stripes of the multi-hued American political spectrum. So, it’s not surprising that the points of view expressed in their visual commentary are as varied as their cartooning styles. A recently-opened Library of Congress exhibition, Pointing Their Pens: Herblock and Fellow Cartoonists Confront the Issues, as described in its Overview “offers viewers an …
Posted in: Cartoons, Drawings, News & Events
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
The following is a guest post by art historian Diane De Grazia, retired chief curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art and author of such publications as Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art (2000). An accomplished scholar, Dr. De Grazia served previously as deputy director for the Indianapolis Museum of Art and a …
Posted in: Drawings, Researcher Stories
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
The following is a guest post by Martha Kennedy, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, Prints and Photographs Division. One of the great innovators in the world of comic art, Will Eisner forged a legendary, multi-faceted career that spanned the birth of the comic book through the rise of the graphic novel. The Library …