Tomorrow many households in the U.S. will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday. Holidays–particularly food-centered ones–conjure up many personal associations. They also tend to inspire evocative pictures. Turkey in many shapes and forms predominate in the array of images that turn up when you search the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog for “Thanksgiving.” But my family …
The gentleman with the long pipe and the colorful garments (right) points to a document. What is it? Take a closer look (below). It does not appear to be a letter or excerpt from a text. Some letters are recognizable as part of the Roman alphabet: I can see an A, an H, a J, …
If every collection in the Prints and Photographs Division is an apple tree, full of tantalizing visual treats, then all of our holdings combined make for a vast orchard, ripe with possibility. My extended food metaphor is no accident, as we are launching a new monthly series here at Picture This entitled Feast Your Eyes. …
As we near Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday on Oct. 27th, we have ongoing cause for celebration. A project to broaden access to images relating to Roosevelt’s life and times is putting new digital images and descriptions online each week. Last year, the project brought us illustrations from Puck magazine, including this visual jab at Roosevelt’s positive …
Reference staff member Elizabeth Terry Rose, exercising both her keen eye and her artistic sensibility, offered her reflections upon seeing this photo by Samuel Kravitt highlighting Shaker design. “Sewing table and chair caught my eye for its timeless tidiness, its dignified peace, its light. It is a Kravitt. It is a Wyeth, a Vermeer. An invitation.” …
The summer road trip is a rite of passage for many Americans. And the ultimate road trip is the coast-to-coast journey. Today’s driver has many tools to make the trip easier: GPS systems, road maps, and miles of interstate highway. Between 24 hour gas stations, fast food and cell phones, we are never far from …
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 …
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division. The Battle of Gettysburg was fought on July 1-3, 1863, at a small town in Pennsylvania. The fierce fighting was a major turning point in the American Civil War, with an estimated 50,000 casualties—dead, wounded, and missing Union and Confederate soldiers. …
Ask any American to identify the Washington Monument or the U.S. Capitol, and it is likely they could. But would they recognize – or be surprised by – those structures as they looked in the first century of the nation’s capital? A newly expanded reference aid provides glimpses of the city as it evolved: Washington, …
