The following is a guest post by Naomi Subotnick, Liljenquist Fellow, Prints and Photographs Division, Summer 2017. This past summer, I worked as a Liljenquist Fellow in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, where I helped to digitize, catalog, and house recently acquired Civil War-era photographs. Working with the Liljenquist Family …
As an admirer of Civil War drawings, a recently digitized collection of drawings by Adolph G. Metzner piqued my interest. The difference in style from many other drawings of the time, along with the richness of color, drew me in to learn more about this man and his artwork. Born August 13, 1834 in southwestern …
Last month’s offering in this series of posts about documentary and photojournalism collections noted how the Crimean War posed an opportunity—and enormous challenges—to British photographer Roger Fenton. Just six years later, a conflict on American soil, likewise, fueled Mathew Brady’s entrepreneurial ambitions, leading to some of the best known photographic documentation of the Civil War. …
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 …
In these photographs, we see two houses, both set in rural Virginia, in the mid-nineteenth century. These were the homes, a few years apart, of a retired officer of the Virginia militia named Wilmer McLean and his family. At first glance, the houses and these facts are unremarkable. But the history these walls witnessed, and …
The following is a guest post by Beverly Brannan, Curator of Photography, Prints and Photographs Division. When I read For Whom the Bell Tolls in my junior year of high school, it was just the most romantic thing I had ever come across, and I fell in love with the thought of fighting for one’s …
The following is a guest post by Gay Colyer, Digital Library Specialist, Prints & Photographs Division. While reviewing Civil War photographs of the Union’s Mississippi River Fleet (LOT 4183), I came across a type of ship that I hadn’t seen before. I’ve long admired the efficient design of the single or double turreted ironclads. In …
The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, Prints & Photographs Division When you look at a soldier’s portrait from the American Civil War, have you ever wondered what that particular person, or his regiment, experienced? For twenty of the Union and Confederate soldiers whose names survived with their photographs in the Liljenquist …
Imagine an expanse of hilly countryside. Fill it with with hundreds, perhaps thousands of men, battling to the death. Now put yourself into that scene. Listen to the clash of metal as swords and bayonets meet, the boom of cannons firing, the voices yelling. You’re in danger: there are bullets whizzing by and men dying around …
