Top of page
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Movie theaters were some of the very first public spaces to be air conditioned in the U.S. in the 1920s. See how theaters used this new feature as a draw to summer moviegoers through photos from the era.
Posted in: Flickr, Photographs, Visual literacy
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The life of a town or city often flows through its Main Street. In Richmond, Virginia, the Main Street Station has provided passenger service for most of its 125 years, with one notable years-long gap in service. Explore the history of this historic landmark through photos from our collections.
Posted in: Architecture, Flickr, Photographs, Visual literacy
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
In 1906, New York photographer A.B. Phelan created several photomontages of an oversized man looming over parts of New York City. He accomplished this feat by skillfully combining two photos into one wonderful ‘trick’ photo. Lucky for us, he submitted them for copyright registration and the montage photos made their way into the Library’s permanent …
Posted in: Architecture, Photographs, Visual literacy
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
The post discusses untitled photos in the Farm Security Administration Collection, and efforts to provide them titles. Also, the author explores still untitled photos and utilizes visual literacy techniques to speculate what they are about.
Posted in: Photographs, Visual literacy
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
One of my favorite ways to explore the vast collections of the Prints & Photographs Division is to look for connections between multiple collections that span different time periods. Quite by accident while searching for another photo in the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, I found this fascinating 1942 photo of a stop …
Posted in: Architecture, Flickr, Photographs, Series: Double Take, Visual literacy
![Parishoners [sic] of St. Thomas Church resting after spending many hours preparing food for a benefit picnic supper. Near Bardstown, Kentucky. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott, 1940. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8a43010](https://blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/files/2022/03/master-pnp-fsa-8a43000-8a43000-8a43010u.jpg)
Posted by: Melissa Lindberg
The following is a guest post by Barbara Orbach Natanson, former Reference Section Head, Prints & Photographs Division. Being a woman of a certain age myself, I recently began to wonder how and where older women are depicted in Prints & Photographs Division collections. Naturally, even in embarking on such an exploration, one has to …
Posted in: FSA/OWI, Photographs, Prints, Visual literacy
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
One of the most fascinating and enjoyable aspects of research with visual materials is the wide variety of information you can learn from a single image, from the obvious to the unexpected. A photographic portrait, for example, has a primary job of showing you what someone looks like. But beyond that, you could learn about …
Posted in: Architecture, Photographs, Visual literacy
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Through this blog, staff of the Prints and Photographs Division connect virtually with readers every week with stories about our collections. In the course of this past year, we have tried out new ways to reach out virtually while we are unable to meet in person. To this end, staff throughout the Library have created …
Posted in: Photographs, Series: Double Take, Visual literacy
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
A recent Picture This blog post aptly titled: Posing (and Solving) Mysteries: Harris & Ewing Photographs Invite Detective Work included a photo that did invite some additional detective work! This leads us to this latest entry in our occasional series, Double Take, where we take a much closer look at images in our collections. My …
Posted in: Photographs, Series: Double Take, Visual literacy