I love making connections within our collections here in the Prints & Photographs (P&P) Division. Recently, I made an unexpected connection between our poster holdings and an artifact located across the Atlantic in London. During a visit to the London Transport Museum’s Global Poster Gallery, retired Reference Specialist for Posters, Jan Grenci, and I spotted …
On the 4th of July in 1918, World War I still raged, and so the New York City parade marking America’s independence focused on the war effort. This particular parade entry caught my attention because of the oversized model ship, and more specifically, the pattern painted on that ship! The idea of dazzle camouflage was …
A fun feature on the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog is a link that allows you to view a selection of newly digitized images from the collections. Scanning visual materials from our collections, whether recently acquired or long-held but not yet digitized, is an ongoing task. We strive to bring as much of our collection to …
My latest Flickr album – Sweet 16 – A Golden Birthday for Flickr Commons – celebrated the 16th birthday of the Flickr Commons. When I was looking for images for the Flickr album, the photo below showed up in my search results, as the caption tells us that the bus made sixteen round trips daily: …
Some of my previous blog posts have shown connections between collections housed in the Prints & Photographs (P&P) Division. I am always on the lookout for photos that include posters that are a part of P&P’s holdings. This post will focus on two photos from the American National Red Cross (ANRC) Collection. Both photos include …
“Will you supply eyes for the Navy?” The arresting image of a blindfolded officer at sea, lost and confused, paired with that question, make this an effective poster – the image caught my attention and made me look and read further. This World War I poster is calling for help from the general population in …
When looking for images of winter warmth and light for a recent Flickr album, I went off on a searching tangent and happened upon a group of photographs that piqued my interest. All the photos, from the Harris & Ewing Collection, date from 1917 (though contemporary newspaper coverage dates the event in the photos to …
This photo has caught many pairs of eyes around here. Look closely and you’ll no doubt deduce why. Reference librarian Melissa, who added it to our sharing wall, noted that, at first glance, she thought the megaphone-wielding woman was standing on an edifice of very narrow bricks. But no, it’s…books! My first thought, likely influenced …
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 …