Halloween provides an opportunity to meditate on — and perhaps to visit — some of the American landscape’s more mysterious tourist destinations. I recently grew curious about these peculiar attractions when I came across a photograph by roadside documentarian John Margolies of a sign for Saint Ignace, Michigan’s Mystery Spot. The Saint Ignace Mystery Spot promises visitors a disorienting sensory experience …
This Autumn we offer a sequel to a post from this past Spring featuring pictures that cheer Prints & Photographs Division staff. This post’s contributors are all staff members in the Technical Services Section, who work hard to organize, describe, digitize and house for preservation the images in the collections, making it possible for you …
The Prints and Photographs Division’s collections include images that evoke every possible emotion. This year’s International Day of Happiness – designated by the United Nations to recognize that “the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal” and to help more people meet that goal – felt like a fitting time to take an informal …
The calavera, or skull, is one of the most recognizable symbols of the Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, a Mexican celebration of the dead that has both Indigenous and Spanish Catholic roots. The Prints and Photographs Division holds a treasure-trove of prints by eminent Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913). Posada helped …