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Posted by: Jan Grenci
Take a look at this colorful poster, designed by Robert E. Lee, a California-born painter and commercial artist who lived in New York City, and published in 1929. The company advertised on this poster, the Railway Express Agency (REA), was an American package delivery service. Operating between 1918 and 1975, they used railroads as one …
Posted in: FSA/OWI, Photographs, Posters, Prints
Posted by: Jan Grenci
My latest Flickr album features photographs of signs from across the United States taken by Carol M. Highsmith from the late 20th century to the present day. In this blog post I’d like to focus on some older photos of signs taken for the Farm Security Administration in the late 1930s and early 1940s by …
Posted in: Flickr, FSA/OWI, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Many entries in the Double Take series, where we look a little closer at images, come out of the steps I take to answer reference questions in my daily work. Recently, in response to a question seeking a photo of a particular building, I was browsing about 300 photographs of Dubuque, Iowa, from the Farm …
Posted in: FSA/OWI, Photographs, Series: Double Take
Posted by: Jan Grenci
One image from my latest Flickr album on fireworks really caught my eye. It is a 1929 postcard of the dedication of the Foshay Tower in Minneapolis, Minnesota: The three day dedication event in August and September of 1929 included fireworks. When I first saw this postcard, I knew nothing of the Foshay Tower. Now …
Posted in: Architecture, Flickr, FSA/OWI, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Jan Grenci
Each month, I gather images from the holdings of the Prints & Photographs Division for a Flickr album. The albums have a theme, the most recent one being Women Photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI). It features the work of Esther Bubley, Marjory Collins, Dorothea Lange, And Marion Post Wolcott. As …
Posted in: FSA/OWI, Photographs, Prints, Women's History
![Parishoners [sic] of St. Thomas Church resting after spending many hours preparing food for a benefit picnic supper. Near Bardstown, Kentucky. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott, 1940. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8a43010](https://blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/files/2022/03/master-pnp-fsa-8a43000-8a43000-8a43010u.jpg)
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
The following is a guest post by Barbara Orbach Natanson, former Reference Section Head, Prints & Photographs Division. Being a woman of a certain age myself, I recently began to wonder how and where older women are depicted in Prints & Photographs Division collections. Naturally, even in embarking on such an exploration, one has to …
Posted in: FSA/OWI, Photographs, Prints, Visual literacy
Posted by: Jan Grenci
This week, we’re looking at something I don’t like very much – fruitcake. This seasonal sweet treat has never appealed to me. But while preparing for a recent Flickr album featuring images of butter and baking, I stumbled upon three fruitcake photos that caught my eye and deserved detailed views. First up, a Russell Lee …
Posted in: Flickr, FSA/OWI, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Thanksgiving in America is pie’s time to shine, as one or more of these delightful desserts often provide the sweet finish to Thanksgiving feasts across the country. Depending on where you live or your family hails from, the pies could contain pecan, sweet potato, pumpkin, apple, or a wide variety of other delicious fillings. The …
Posted in: FSA/OWI, Photographs
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
The following is a guest post by Taren Ouellette, Digital Library Specialist, Prints & Photographs Division. With 175,000 black-and-white film negatives, the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Collection was a U.S. Government effort to capture scenes of American life during the 1930s and 1940s with such topics as the Great Depression, Dust Bowl, …
Posted in: FSA/OWI, Photographs