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Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
How have women and automobiles been depicted together? The image I conjured in my mind’s eye involved attractive women draped across a car in a purely decorative fashion–something like the image below, where the finer features of the bathing beauties are more on view than the Columbia Six Sport they are presumably helping to advertise. …
Posted in: Prints, Women's History
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Lara Szypszak, Reference Technician in the Prints & Photographs Division. One of my favorite feelings is the wave of excitement and anxiety that washes over me as I join the crowds at the starting line of a race. There is something so special about joining a group of willing …
Posted in: Cartoons, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” — The Water Rat, in The Wind in the Willows The following is a guest post by Marilyn Ibach, Reference Specialist, Prints and Photographs Division. It is part of the Pictures to Go series of posts …
Posted in: Photographs, Posters, Prints, Series: Pictures to Go
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Okay, you’d think a staff member in the Prints & Photographs Division would be capable of making a photograph with better composition than what I achieved last weekend at the National Book Festival. But my photo does at least reflect the reality of the occasion: We had such a steady stream of enthusiastic visitors stopping …
Posted in: News & Events, Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
“Entered according to the act of Congress” sounds like a grand entry, indeed, and it’s a phrase we are often asked about because it appears near the bottom of many pictures. But what does it mean? Starting in 1802, that phrase was required by U.S. Copyright law to be on works for which a rights …
Posted in: Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
As the days grow hot and humid in Washington, D.C., my mind turns to summer haircuts. A look back offers a reminder of reasons beyond the purely seasonal for hair cutting. This print from our Popular Graphic Arts collection depicts a character in the novel The Guardian Angel by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The story originally …
Posted in: Photographs, Prints, Series: Caught Our Eyes
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
One of the wonders of modern transportation that advertisers at the turn of the twentieth century communicated through pictures was the compact luxury of railroad sleeping cars, stressing how they offered the comforts of home and more. Often shown as a side feature are the porters who tended to passengers’ needs. African-American sleeping car porters, …
Posted in: Photographs, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
With the many new faces on Capitol Hill this month as the 114th Congress gets underway, it’s an apt time to revisit the faces and activities of members of Congress of yesteryear. A new guide, “Pictures of Congress: An Overview,” helps researchers do just that. Although the Prints & Photographs Division generally does not receive …
Posted in: Cartoons, Photographs, Portraits, Prints
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
What do bookplates tell us about book owners for whom they were designed? The small labels (also known as “ex libris”) were intended to be pasted inside an individual’s books to connect the book with its owner. But what other connections regarding the owner’s personal traits or interests might they reveal? Recently, we created an …