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Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Reference Librarian Ryan Brubacher added this photo by Toni Frissell to our “Caught Our Eyes” wall for sharing pictures from the collections with our colleagues, noting that it had caught her eyes again. She recalls encountering it first because it was one of the hundreds of photos featured in the landmark “Family of Man” exhibition …
Posted in: Photographs, Series: Caught Our Eyes
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The following is a guest post by Hanna Soltys, Reference Librarian, Prints & Photographs Division. Summer vacation is often associated with postcards as we share our journeys and memories with friends and family via snail mail. However, postcards get their moment in the sun all year long here in the Prints & Photographs Division. This …
Posted in: Photographs, Postcards, Prints, Research Guides
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
Every year, June brings change for thousands of students across the United States as they mark the end of a chapter in their educational life and, possibly, the start of a new one. The Prints & Photographs Division’s collections include a number of high school and college graduation photographs. Some aspects of these images seem …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
The Prints & Photographs Division’s collections include a fair number of donut-related images that collectively demonstrate the sugary treat’s long-standing presence in American culture. These rich indulgences can be seen in such varied areas of American life as roadside architecture, military history, and even public affairs. A search of the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog …
Posted in: Photographs, World War I
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
A few years ago, I tried out a summer “looking” challenge in an attempt to parallel the clever ideas my local public library uses to encourage summer book club participants to pick out volumes they might not have otherwise sampled (“Summer Looking Challenge–Touring the Collections with Azure Allure“). It’s getting to be that time of …
Posted in: Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
In this newest installment in the occasional series, Profiling Portraits, we take a look at the type of portraits taken when the subject wishes to avoid the camera! Few smiles appear, mostly scowls or attempts to hide. Just like in modern times, news photographers decades ago sought their subjects with dogged determination. The photos of …
Posted in: Photographs, Series: Profiling Portraits
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Karen Chittenden, Cataloging Specialist in the Prints & Photographs Division. National Nurses Week recognizes the contributions of professional nurses, and this year we’d like to do the same by highlighting recently acquired photographs of wartime nurses who marshaled resources, medical skill, and courage to offer help in dire …
Posted in: Flickr, Photographs, Women's History
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
Finding written documentation to provide context for images in the collections is not something we can always bank on, but when that information does exist it can be a real luxury. Happily, soon after Frances Benjamin Johnston took photographs of work in the Stamp Division at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, she wrote “Uncle …
Posted in: Photographs, Women's History
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
In his November 1933 proposal to create the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in partnership with the Library of Congress and the American Institute of Architects, the National Park Service’s Charles E. Peterson sounded this call to action: “Our architectural heritage of buildings from the last four centuries diminishes daily at an alarming rate. The …
Posted in: Architecture, Drawings, Photographs