Top of page
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Artists working for the Federal Art Project (FAP), a part of the Work Projects Administration (WPA), created thousands of posters between 1936 and 1943. The posters took on all manner of topics: public health and safety, cultural events and exhibitions, education, tourism, and wartime warnings, to name a few. Only a small percentage of those …
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
The following is a guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, and Mari Nakahara, Curator of Architecture, Design, and Engineering, Prints & Photographs Division: As Washington’s beloved cherry trees are in full bloom, we are inspired to share an assortment of seasonal-themed images from the Library’s extensive holdings of Japanese woodblock prints. In Japanese …
Posted in: Flickr, News & Events, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
We asked “What’s the Story?” – and the answers came rolling in! Two months ago, we added twenty photographic puzzlers from the Harris & Ewing collection to the Library’s Flickr account with the (we hoped) tantalizing headline of “Mystery Photos – What’s the Story?” The corresponding glass negatives for these photos came to us without …
Posted in: Flickr, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division. You’re invited to play a virtual game that offers a fun way to explore the remarkable Flickr Commons. A new year of this special collaboration among close to 100 archives, libraries, and museums begins on January 16th. So brace yourself for …
Posted in: Flickr, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
What do bookplates tell us about book owners for whom they were designed? The small labels (also known as “ex libris”) were intended to be pasted inside an individual’s books to connect the book with its owner. But what other connections regarding the owner’s personal traits or interests might they reveal? Recently, we created an …
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
This year’s anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has offered occasion to pause and reflect on the injustices the legislation was meant to address, the actions that called attention to those injustices, and the continued struggle to see legislative ideals become everyday reality. Last week we added a new “album” to the Library …
Posted in: African American History, Flickr, News & Events, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Gay Colyer, Digital Library Specialist, Prints & Photographs Division. We need your help to identify 68 photos of historic structures. They’re posted in a Flickr album called “Mystery Houses,” so that it’s easy to add your notes.* The photographer, Frances Benjamin Johnston, did leave a basic clue for …
Posted in: Architecture, Flickr, Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Reference staff member Jon Eaker spotted this photograph several months ago in the Bain News Service photographs. Jon, who has looked at many a World War I photograph in our holdings, remarked: It may be my favorite of our WWI pictures. This beast symbolizes how the introduction of widespread mechanization changed warfare. It looks like …
Posted in: Flickr, Photographs, Series: Caught Our Eyes
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division. More than 75 libraries, archives, and museums now participate in the Flickr Commons to make it easy for you to discover and help identify photographs with no known copyright restrictions. The pool of pictures has grown to more than 1.25 million …
Posted in: Flickr, News & Events, Photographs