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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
The following is a guest post by Karen Chittenden and Woody Woodis, Cataloging Specialists in the Prints & Photographs Division: A curious form of engraved print appeared in London in the early 18th century on which multiple images appear to be randomly scattered across the surface of the paper as though they were being viewed upon …
Posted in: Prints
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
Today, I celebrate the seasonal transition as we approach, in the Northern Hemisphere, the celestial demarcation from fall to winter, occurring in an imperceptible moment on the winter solstice. Fall’s colorful glory has passed and most hardwood trees stand bare and leafless now. Crops have been harvested and fields lie fallow or marked only with …
Posted in: Prints
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
The following is a guest post by Gay Colyer, Digital Library Specialist in the Prints and Photographs Division. Not every Northerner who traveled to the Confederacy during the Civil War went to fight. Some journeyed South on a variety of educational and humanitarian missions. After Federal forces seized Beaufort, South Carolina, and the sea islands …
Posted in: Photographs, Prints, Women's History
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
Mary Cassatt’s 1901 print Jeannette and her Mother Seated on a Sofa (below, left) captures a timeless moment between mother and child: In this tranquil scene, free of visual distraction or clutter, Jeannette sits securely in her mother’s lap, the mother’s arms surrounding her daughter in a gentle embrace, the two gazing lovingly, eyes fixed upon …
Posted in: Prints
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: Jeff Bridgers
I beg to present you a Christmas Gift, the City of Savannah . . . — General Sherman to President Lincoln, telegram, December 22, 1864 One hundred fifty years ago in December 1864, General William T. Sherman and his troops completed their “March to …
Posted in: Drawings, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave? The lengthy title of John Bower’s famous print [below] depicting the 1814 British bombardment at Fort McHenry both describes the scene portrayed and provides a tidy summary of the sustained barrage: “A view of the …
Posted in: Prints
Posted by: Jeff Bridgers
Every summer we can rent a cottage, in the Isle of Wight, if it’s not too dear –“When I’m Sixty-Four,” John Lennon & Paul McCartney Since we’re in the midst of Washington, D.C.’s first genuine heat wave this summer, my mind turns to imagining cooler climes. And, naturally, these daydreams often involve cooling waters. Real travel is not in …
Posted in: Prints