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Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
People often come to Prints & Photographs Division collections seeking pictorial reference points for aspects of their family history. Until fairly recently, to the degree that I had considered my ancestry at all, I’d assumed the earliest Bridgers to settle in the New World had been “encouraged” to emigrate from the British Isles as an …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
Hurrah! Hurrah for the Christmas Ship As it starts across the sea With its load of gifts and its greater load Of loving sympathy. –“Hurrah! Hurrah for the Christmas Ship,” song written and composed by Henry S. Sawyer Even prior to America’s entry into the First World War, U.S. Navy vessels were pressed into special holiday service …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
But I am glad for the luck of light. Surely it is godly, that it makes all things begin, and appear, and become actual to each other. — from “October” by May Swenson There is a distinct quality to October sunlight. A softer radiance than the harshness in summertime, scenes glow with an amber or …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
In this final installment in the “Signs of Their Times” series drawing from the Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Photograph Collection, I offer a few of my miscellaneous favorites. To begin, I can’t imagine any librarian, or book-lover for that matter, could resist this 1940 appeal from the “The Mogollon School …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
The mid-season All-Star Game break provides baseball fans an opportunity to assess their team’s progress thus far, taking stock of strengths and areas for improvement, successes and failings. But, I’m going to take a much further distant historical look at baseball spectators and fans enjoying the game. Going back some 150 years to October 1865, the engraved …
Posted in: Photographs, Posters, Prints
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
In the 1930s, agricultural practices that replaced native prairie grasses with cash crops such as wheat and corn, combined with overgrazing cattle by ranchers, turned out to have devastating consequences for farm families, centered initially in Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. An extended multi-year drought prompted wind erosion that sent topsoil blowing black-dust clouds across the …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
And I should not have to remind you that little time is given here to rest on a wayside bench, to stop and bend to the wildflowers, or to study a bird on a branch— –from “The Parade” by Billy Collins As June builds up to summer’s start, lengthening sunny days mixed with some warm rain bring wildflowers’ …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
The following is a guest post by Beverly Brannan, Curator of Photography, Prints & Photographs Division: The Library of Congress has employed a number of military veterans and provided soldiers to serve in wars over the years. One of these from the Civil War recently came to light when the Library acquired a daguerreotype of …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
The following is a guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, who co-curated the exhibition with Sara Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts: When exhorted by Charles Dana Gibson to “draw ‘til it hurts!” hundreds of his fellow artists contributed over 1,400 designs, including some 700 posters, to promote the country’s …
Posted in: Cartoons, Drawings, News & Events, Photographs, Posters