Снимка: Listen Up! A Look at Distance Learning

Thousands of students, from kindergarten to graduate school, are sitting down at computers to attend class right now, using the internet to connect to teachers, resources, assignments and other students. The idea of this network of people learning from a distance brought to mind an interesting photo I came across some time ago while browsing our collections. Every detail of this photo is fascinating, and the caption only adds to the curiosity. Without reading the caption, what do you think the young boy here is doing?

Master Harold Shaver of Jersey City learns to draw by listening in to lessons broadcast by WOR. Photo by Morris Rosenfeld, copyrighted 1924. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a38916

If there is one subject I would have thought very difficult to teach over the radio, it would be drawing! Yet somehow, young Harold Shaver is sketching based on information broadcast over a New York radio station in 1924. I love studying the image for the details – my best guess is this is a winter scene he’s creating – snow covers the house in the background, and perhaps the figure is a snowman? From Harold’s attention on the voice broadcast to his pencil poised to add new lines, he is the very image of a focused student. (I also enjoyed spotting the ubiquitous Kodak Brownie camera on the shelf just behind his easel, the camera that brought photography to so many households.)

The 1920s was a boom time for the radio and that decade saw a proliferation of educational uses for this somewhat new technology appearing in thousands ofnhomes. Finding this one image made me curious what other examples I could find of young people learning over the radio in our collections.

The first image below shows a young man in deep thought, possibly connecting what he is hearing over the radio to the book in his hand. In the second photo, students listen to a broadcast about South America from their classroom. (The chalkboard poetically describes Chile as “The Wonderland of the Andes.”)

[Boy listening to radio set and reading book]. Photo copyrighted by Underwood & Underwood, 1909. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b45110

Washington, D.C. Class listening to a radio broadcast about South America, sponsored by a local station. Photo by Marjory Collins, 1942 Mar. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8d20230

The following series of photos introduced me to the American School of the Air. Broadcast daily in classrooms during the 1930s and 1940s, this educational program brought a half hour of art appreciation, geography, dramatizations of literary works, vocational guidance, poetry, current events and much more to classrooms across the country. Distance learning in the age before the internet!

American School of the Air. Photo by Harris & Ewing, 1932. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hec.36726

[American School of the Air]. Photo by Harris & Ewing, 1932. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hec.36725

Learn More:

• Enjoy other images of people listening to the radio, for entertainment and for the news of the day, in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.
• See people in classes about radios – learning how to use, build and repair them for all kinds of purposes.
• Revisit a Picture This post about the subject of listening to music and other recordings: The Looks of Listening.
• Distance or visual learning is a reality for many parents and schools. Explore the many educational resources provided through the Library of Congress Teachers website.
• Interested in the history of music, broadcast and spoken word recordings? Read a research guide in Recorded Sound Research at the Library of Congress.

 

Autor: Kristi Finefield
Published on September 11, 2020 at 06:20PM

Снимка: Reflecting on Roland Freeman’s African American Expressive Culture in Philadelphia Project

Victoria Bankole. Photo by Kyree Echols. Used by permission.

The following is a guest post by Victoria Bankole, an Archives, History, and Heritage Advanced Intern in the Prints & Photographs Division in spring 2020.

“Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.”
— Octavia E. Butler

Just as author Octavia Butler created herself through writing, photographers such as Roland Freeman use their work to create images of Black self-expression. Within every photo lies the authority to create how Black culture is portrayed. While Black history continues to be shaped daily, authenticity is one element that must always be preserved. 

I am Victoria Bankole , a recent graduate of Howard University with a B.A. in Strategic, Legal and Management Communication and a minor in Photography, from Harford County, Maryland. For ten weeks in the spring of 2020, I had the privilege of being able to call myself an Intern at the Library of Congress in the Prints & Photographs Division. This position was a part of the Archives, History, and Heritage Advanced (AHHA) internship program, which is a partnership between the Library and Howard University.

While working at the Library, I was tasked with assisting the archival processing work for Roland Freeman’s African American Expressive Culture in Philadelphia Project. This project has 737 enlarged contact sheets full of images of African American everyday life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late 1980s.

My job was to help create a finding aid that would assist researchers who came to the Library with an interest in viewing the project. This included creating a log detailing information about each contact sheet, such as the roll number, date the images were shot, film type, and descriptions of the subject matter of each roll. I also was responsible for creating a scope note that would define why the project was an important part of history.

Roland Freeman contact sheets staged for processing. Photo by Victoria Bankole, 2020.

The Wedding reception for Jackie and Daryl Green. Photo contact sheet by Roland L. Freeman, 1989.https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2020633673/

As an AHHA intern, I never took my role lightly. Being a student of Howard University, when entering any new professional space, it is imperative to assess how the work I am doing will impact marginalized communities. Stepping into the Prints & Photographs Division was no different. The images captured by Roland Freeman are an important part of American History because they depict Black people and families in a way that is not performative. Choosing to focus on Black folk life allows Black people to be seen in their most natural state. Documentation of Black people being done by Black people is how we remain in control of our own narratives.

8th Anniversary: Voodoo altar to the Loas, and dance for high priestess, Mambo Angela. Detail of photo contact sheet by Roland L. Freeman, 1989 Oct. 28. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2020633674/

The Wedding reception for Jackie and Daryl Green. Detail of photo contact sheet by Roland L. Freeman, 1989 Sept. 23. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2020633673/

There is so much beauty in Black communities. The way that Roland Freeman captured the culture of Black people in Philadelphia couldn’t send a more powerful message. Black people are allowed to simply be Black. To celebrate, dance, sculpt, quilt, perform, worship. There are so many different facets that encompass anyone’s cultural experience that all deserve to be recognized. This has been a consistent theme in the work of Roland Freeman.

Quilter, Lorraine Mahan. She has quilted the longest Psalm in the bible with 176 verses. It is approx. 150 sq ft. It took 2 years to complete. Detail of photo contact sheet by Roland L. Freeman, 1989 Aug. 29. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2020633671/

Wood carver, Isaac Maefeld. Detail of photo contact sheet by Roland L. Freeman, 1989 Sept. 14. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2020633672/

Freeman is a world renowned and highly decorated photographer. He received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2007. This is the greatest honor one can receive in the folk and traditional arts in the U.S. He began his career photographing the Civil Rights Movement and since has created a wide body of work in photojournalism and photo documentation.

Roland Freeman also has published several books such as Something To Keep You Warm: The Roland Freeman Collection of Black American Quilts from the Mississippi Heartland (Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1979); Stand By Me: African American Expressive Culture in Philadelphia (Smithsonian Institution’s Office of Folklife Programs, 1989); The Arabbers of Baltimore (Tidewater Publishers, Centreville, MD, 1989); and so many more. He has done so much for Black communities not only as a photographer but as an activist. It is people like Roland Freeman that give us the authority to take back our narratives and celebrate Black culture in the ways we see fit.

The Philadelphia Annual African Festival at Penn’s Landing. Detail of photo contact sheet by Roland L. Freeman. 1989 July 7. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2020633670/

Being able to work so closely with the African American Expressive Culture in Philadelphia Project has inspired me to keep the preservation of Black culture at the forefront of my mind both as a student and a photographer. I am forever grateful to the Archives, History, and Heritage Advanced Internship program, the Library of Congress, and to Howard University for an unforgettable experience.

Learn More:

• View descriptions of Roland Freeman images in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (images display at thumbnail size outside Library of Congress buildings because of rights considerations).
• Read more about Roland L. Freeman, 2007 NEA National Heritage Fellow, on the National Endowment for the Arts site.
• Sample Picture This blog posts relating to African American history and culture.

Autor: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Published on August 28, 2020 at 04:38PM

Снимка: Tennis Pictures, Anyone?

I was delighted to see this picture as the lead image in a “Free to Use” set of images focusing on tennis that was recently added to the Library’s Web site.

Miss E. Moore. Photo by Bain News Service, between ca. 1910 and ca. 1915. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.09640

I remember printing out the image years ago for my own personal folder of favorite “mid-air views.” Not only do I admire the energy and skill on display in Bessie Holmes Moore’s leap for the ball, but it takes talent and skill on the part of the photographer to be able to snap the picture at just the right time to capture the action.

There is plenty to admire in the energy and action shown in other photos in the set. I don’t know how accurately the unnamed player in this photo returned the ball, but it’s an impressive mid-air view of another type–the hovering ball is so clear!  (And the scene only slightly painfully reminds me that I can probably count on the fingers of two hands how many times I managed to return a ball that was hit to me in my childhood attempts to play tennis.)

Tennis, Chevy Chase Club, Chevy Chase, Maryland. Photo by Harris & Ewing, 1928. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hec.34987

I figured that a colleague who much more successfully kept her eye on the ball would have a favorite among the photos. Sure enough, reference specialist Jan Grenci, who played tennis competitively in college, remarked on this one:

Tennis talk Althea Gibson, U.S. and Wimbledon tennis champion, gives some pointers on the game which has brought her international fame. Some 500 students attended the tennis clinic yesterday at Midwood HS, directed by Murray Eisenstadt, varsity coach. Photo by Ed. Ford. 1957. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ds.04399

In addition to taking a tennis nerd’s (her words, not mine) pleasure in identifying the company that produced Althea Gibson’s racket (Harry C. Lee & Company), Jan commented: “Can you imagine attending this clinic and getting some pointers from Althea Gibson? By the time this photo was taken in December of 1957, Ms. Gibson had won Wimbledon and the French and U.S. Championships.”

Another that caught my eye was the advertising print for “Horsman’s Celebrated Lawn Tennis.”

Horsman’s celebrated lawn tennis. Chromolithograph by Charles Hart Lith., copyrighted 1882. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pga.07033

Apparently this lawn tennis set came compactly in a box complete with rackets and a net, with this print used as a decorative label on the inside of the lid. I enjoy all that it conveys about outdoor leisure. And it reminds me a little of badminton, where I could at least return a serve!

Learn More:

• Pick out your top scorers in the Tennis Free to Use set, and sample some of the other sets while you’re there!
• Take a tour through pictures relating to tennis found in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.
• Have a look at our 2014 blog post about the Althea Gibson image: “Althea Gibson Points the Way.”

Autor: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Published on August 14, 2020 at 03:33PM

Снимка: Behind the Scenes: an Archivist Draws on Myriad Experiences

Below is an interview with Kristen Sosinski, Archivist in the Prints & Photographs Division at the Library of Congress.

Kristen teleworking from home. Photo by Scott Brownell, 2020.

Melissa: Can you tell us about your background, and how you came to work as an archivist in the Prints & Photographs Division?

Kristen: Yes, I got my start in college where I had a work-study job in the university’s library. I earned a BFA in painting from Boston University and upon graduating I realized that the stability of library work was a better alternative to becoming a starving artist. I worked as a library technician for the National Gallery of Art and also for three different divisions within the Library of Congress (Law, Conservation, and Prints & Photographs). While working as a technician I earned my MLIS from Catholic University because by that point I knew librarianship was for me and was eager for new challenges.

After more than a decade of technician level jobs and applying to many, many librarian/archivist jobs with no success, I threw in the towel and decided that a career in the library/archives field just wasn’t meant to be for me. I started applying for jobs outside that career path and landed in the Visual Arts Division of the US Copyright Office as a Copyright Examiner. It was a perfect fit and was a truly unique job which both challenged and motivated me every day for the four years I held that position. And then in 2019, the Prints & Photographs Division posted new archivist positions, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Any librarian would love a drawing of a card catalog but the one below from 1905 (which connects different areas of my career at the Library) is extra special for Library of Congress employees as it depicts the card catalogs used in the United States Copyright Office, which is part of the Library of Congress. My favorite part is the side view at the bottom right which shows one drawer pulled out.

Miscellaneous fixtures, equipment, and finishes (“furniture”) and alterations to the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Card file case for Copyright Office. Elevation and sections. 1905.

Because the Prints & Photographs Division’s collections are so varied, it is not uncommon to find images that resonate. This next image relates more to my personal life, as it shows the site of Patsy Cline’s last concert before her fateful plane trip, and, the site of my high school graduation ceremony.

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building, Route 69, Kansas City, Kansas. Photo by John Margolies, 1994. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/mrg.03963

Melissa: What does an archivist do?

Kristen: An archivist organizes, describes, preserves and makes unique materials accessible to the public. In the Prints & Photographs Division, archivists are tasked with processing large collections. Generally speaking archives work in our division involves: surveying the collection; meeting with reference librarians and curators to hear about their challenges using the collection in its current unprocessed state; and developing a team-based plan that mitigates these challenges and creates an efficient workflow. Once the plan is approved, the archivist processes the collection and is responsible for creating the necessary tools such as a database to capture metadata, training team members, and conducting quality review to ensure accurate work. The end result is often an online finding aid or records accessible through the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.

Melissa: Can you tell us about one project you’re working on?

Kristen: I am currently developing plans to process the photographic archive of the American Red Cross. Nearly 19,000 glass negatives from the collection were digitized in 2017 and I am addressing the 42,000 unprocessed photographs. The collection documents the organization’s activities and personnel, with an emphasis on WWI relief, US disaster relief, and educational programs such as public health, nursing, and life-saving. I had the opportunity to work on the collection as a technician and I fell in love with it so I am thrilled to have the opportunity of working with a team to increase its visibility and accessibility.

The following is my favorite image in this post because it embodies my two favorite collections: the Visual materials from the John J. Pershing papers and the American National Red Cross Collection.

General Pershing cables “No other organization since the world began has ever done such great constructive work with the efficiency, dispatch and understanding, often under adverse circumstances, than has been done in France by American Red Cross in the last six months.” 1917. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g08375

Melissa: How has telework changed your job?

Kristen: Obviously, we cannot take the collections home with us to work on them, so physical processing paused. That said, our job is more than just physically arranging and housing collection items. There is an enormous amount of preparation work that must be done for each collection we work on. In addition to developing processing plans, the archivists are converting findings aids that were previously only available in paper form in the Reading Room to be accessible online. Training and updating documentation is also well suited for telework. With creative thinking a great deal can be accomplished even though we aren’t able to physically have our hands in the collections.

Learn More:

• Read about the work of the Conservation Division and the Law Library at the Library of Congress.
• See the description for the group of Architectural drawings for miscellaneous fixtures, equipment, and finishes (“furniture”) and alterations to the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. the card catalog drawing is filed with.
• View descriptions of the Visual materials from the John J. Pershing papers and the American National Red Cross Collection.
• Explore the U.S. Copyright Office’s Virtual Card Catalog, a digital corollary to the drawing in the post, which “enables users to identify original copyright registration records and other U.S. Copyright Office records from 1870 through 1977.”

Autor: Melissa Lindberg
Published on July 22, 2020 at 04:24PM

Снимка: Born in Slavery: Portraits and Narratives of Formerly Enslaved People

Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. One way to commemorate this anniversary might be to explore the online collection

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938. More than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of formerly enslaved people are available online. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA).

This photograph of Mollie Williams drew my attention:

Mollie Williams, age 84. Photo, ca. 1937. https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsc.01040/

The portrait comes from a part of the slave narratives collection that is now cared for in the Prints & Photographs Division. The group of 225 photos is one component of the surviving, multi-media record of the project. The majority of the photographs are with the narratives in the Library’s Manuscript Division. All of the photographs have been digitized and can be viewed together in the Born in Slavery site.

There is a second photograph of Mollie Williams in the Manuscript Division:

Mollie Williams, Age 84. Photo, ca. 1937. https://www.loc.gov/resource/mesnp.090157/

Both portraits offer a compelling visual record, particularly when seen in connection with Mollie Williams’s interview transcript.

Scholars who have studied the interviews and the interviewers point out problematic aspects of the documentation effort that make them as much products of the 1930s interviewers as the individuals with whom they spoke (see “A Note on the Language of the Narratives“), but Mollie Williams’s talents as a storyteller and singer come through in the account of her life in the household of slave owner George Newsome, near Utica, Mississippi. What is also apparent is that the end of the Civil War and emancipation did not necessarily go hand-in-hand in the lives of many African Americans. When the war ended, Mollie Williams continued to live with Margurite, George Newsome’s wife, at times hiding from her own mother, who apparently didn’t have a permanent place to live. But Mollie’s mother returned more than once for her, ultimately prevailing when she came bearing a letter from the “Free Man’s Board” (likely the Freedmen’s Bureau, a part of the War Department that was charged with providing relief and addressing social dislocations in the aftermath of the Civil War).

Mollie Williams’s interview and photographic portraits together convey a sense of strength and fortitude during many challenges she faced in her lifetime.  At the end of her interview, she noted that she and her mother continued to move from place to place until Mollie married. She had three children, but not one of them was still alive at the time she recorded the interview.

Learn More:

• Read the interview with Mollie Williams in the Mississippi Narratives section of Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves (pp. 157-164 of the transcript).
• Find out more about the project and how it was carried out by exploring articles featured in Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1938.
• View the combined set of digitized photographs from the Prints & Photographs Division and the Manuscript Division.
• Not many audio recordings exist that would enable researchers to verify the content of the transcripts of the interviews. But about the same time that Federal Writers Project authors were collecting narratives, folklorists such as Alan Lomax, John and Ruby Lomax, and others were making recordings of formerly enslaved individuals, often as part of general collecting expeditions. Listen to recorded narratives in Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories, which includes three recordings related to the Federal Writers’ Project project.

Autor: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Published on June 19, 2020 at 02:08PM

Снимка: Ready for Research: Congressional Quarterly Photograph Collection

Sen. Agric. Comte. [Senate Agriculture Committee]. Photo by R. Michael Jenkins, 1993 Jan. 14. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.67888

The recent organization and cataloging of the more than 90,000 black-and-white and color images in the Congressional Quarterly Photograph Collection enables researchers to explore U.S. Congressional activities as well as a variety of governmental initiatives, policy issues, and Capitol Hill neighborhood doings. The photos date primarily from 1988 to 2005 and were created by photographers working for Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report. This collection is a companion to the Roll Call Photograph Collection, which was cataloged a few years ago. Special resources provided by the arrearage reduction program made it possible to complete work on this large CQ Collection within a single year.

Becoming acquainted with a newly organized collection is like unwrapping a gift. The core team consisting of technicians, digital library specialists, an archivist and a cataloger, joined by curatorial and reference staff who consulted on the project, were gratified to see the depth and breadth of the images the team’s work brought to light. The collection has already proven a valuable resource for finding images of members of Congress and their staff from both sides of the aisle, often in the context of hearings, meetings, and public events. As processing technician, Jacob Stickann noted from his work with the collection, “It gives you an inside look at the workings of our government.”

Senators John Warner and Chuck Robb talking on mobile phones with Jesse Jackson in background. Photo by R. Michael Jenkins, ca. 1995. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.32471

The collection materials also give a feel for the work methods of a photojournalist, because you can see the many images taken in covering any given subject, although only a small selection were ever published.  With some dedicated research, you can compare unpublished images to those that CQ Weekly published to get a sense of editorial practice at the publication. (Print copies of the publication are available in the Library’s periodical collections and an electronic version that covers 1983 to the present can be found at www.cq.com).

The format of the photos in the collection can help you see how photographers approached their subjects, providing  insights on the goals and challenges of photographing governmental activities—or any activities, for that matter. That’s because you can see the full sequence of images photographers took. The majority of the collection consists of black-and-white negatives, which on-site researchers can look at in the form of contact sheets – entire rolls of 35 mm film contact printed on sheets of photographic paper.

Republican v. Democrat game b-ball. Contact sheet of photos by Maureen Keating, 1990 April 24. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ds.13495. This contact sheet from CQ’s partner collection, Roll Call, shows how contact sheets enable viewers to see sequences of images printed from negative strips, as well as markings added by the magazine staff.

Even more readily accessible are the digitized strips of color negatives.  The reversal of colors and overall orange tint in color negatives makes them very hard to read in their original format. For example, what is blue in the real world appears as yellow in a color negative. An innovative use of a flatbed scanner made it possible to create ‘quick reference scans’ that represent the 5,100 strips of 35mm film in recognizable colors and provide legible access to that portion of the collection.  What strikes me when I look at these still images is how the photographers’ practice of taking several pictures in quick succession offers an almost motion picture-like glimpse of actions and interactions in progress.  We invite you to try this online viewing experience to see if it strikes you the same way.

Community Reinvestment Act. Photo by Scott J. Ferrell, 1999 June 10. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.63875

Prints & Photographs Division Technical Services staff who worked closely with the CQ images to arrange, folder, and describe the contents of the collection have further insights to offer:

Processing technician Libby McKiernan commented on the variety of images that take you beyond committee rooms to rallies and interactions with constituents. She also expressed her surprise at seeing many celebrities turn up in the photos, often in the context of their work on issues before Congress.

Privacy protection. Photo by Scott J. Ferrell, 1998 May 21. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.62826. This negative strip shows Richard Masur, actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild, actor Michael J. Fox, Ellen Levin, who became the object of media pursuit after her daughter was murdered in the late eighties, and actor Paul Reiser. Fox, Levin and Reiser testified before the Judiciary Committee, describing their experiences with “paparazzi” photographers.

The props featured at rallies and press conferences particularly caught the eyes of processing technician Michelle An, among them: a Trojan horse, a mock nuclear waste cask, and the national debt clock.

National debt. Photo by Scott J. Ferrell, 1999 Oct. 1. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.65529

Cataloger Arden Alexander pointed out that issues of interest to Congress sometimes took the photographers outside DC, for instance to explore Broadband internet in Kutztown, Pennsylvania.

Staff members also noted that the images sparked their curiosity and inspired them to further research.  Jacob commented, “I found myself checking C-SPAN’s archive and the Congressional Record to identify people, committees, and legislation.  The photos that stood out often led me to do further research. Why are airline employees holding an anti-ticket tax rally on the Capitol steps? Why is Elmo testifying before a House subcommittee?”

Elmo testifies on behalf of music education. Photo by Scott J. Ferrell, 2002 April 23. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.66598

Similarly, Michelle commented that photos showing the U.S. Capitol subway operating underneath Capitol Hill inspired her to look back in time, as the subway began operation in 1909. CQ provided color images of the Capitol subway system that connects the Capitol to the Senate office buildings and one of the House office buildings. Our Harris & Ewing glass negatives include images from 1910, not long after the system became operational.

Subway to Senate office buildings. Photo by Douglas Graham, 1998 Sept. 3. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.63305

Monorail subway, Capitol to Senate. John W. Hinkel, operator of car. Photo by Harris & Ewing, 1914. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hec.04523

We began writing this post before Covid-19 became a household word in the U.S.  But looking at CQ photographs also provides a reminder that we have faced challenging times before. Arden noted that the coverage from September 11^th, 2001, focuses on circumstances in the D.C. area—including both watchfulness and solidarity on display.

Terrorist attacks. Photo by Scott J. Ferrell, 2001 Sept. 11. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.66025

We hope the availability of the CQ Collection photographs inspires researchers to reflect and ask new research questions, just as it did for the staff team that has worked so hard to enhance access to the collection.

Learn More:

• View the guide record for the CQ portion of the CQ/Roll Call collection — it summarizes the collection’s contents and points out related resources.
• To delve further: Have a look at descriptions for photographic prints sorted by subject matter, and descriptions for individual contact sheets – more than 4,400 of them! Some of the photographic prints and selected black-and-white negative frames have been digitized.
• Browse the digitized color negatives from the collection and see how many people you can identify!
• Read our earlier blog post about the Roll Call portion of the CQ/Roll Call collection: “Roll Call Photographs: Glimpsing Congress and Capitol Hill, 1988-2000.”

Autor: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Published on May 29, 2020 at 03:08PM

Снимка: Double Take: A Different Slant on Photographic Research

When I envision how to research a photograph or any other image, one methodology I come back to over and over consists of ever-widening circles, with the photo in question at center. Picture, if you will, a stone thrown in a still pond and the ripples flowing outwards, growing ever wider. Today’s stone is the photo from our collections featured below:

After the earthquake – frame houses tumbled from their foundations, San Francisco Disaster, U.S.A. Stereograph copyrighted by H.C. White Co., 1907 July 29. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.09834

I was asked if I could determine where exactly these two houses were in San Francisco when they were knocked off their foundations and set at this precarious angle by the April 1906 earthquake. As always, I start my search with the item itself. The original caption, featured below the image, offered no further clues. A study of the high-resolution digital file yielded only a small sign for a painter in the window and the clue that the houses were on a street with some kind of trolley or streetcar.

I widened my circle to include other stereographic photos by this same publisher, then others by different publishers, as many photos of the earthquake were sold. Limited as I am by our current circumstances to what is already digitized, I was not able to spot these houses in our holdings with any further identification information. Moving to an even broader circle of collections, I looked through other digitized images of the earthquake aftermath in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.

I found a few related photos, including these two intriguing images of the houses from different angles. While they both gave me a slightly wider context and another distinctive building to look for in photos, neither got me any closer to a street address:

[Two men cleaning street, horse-drawn wagon and damaged buildings in the background, after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake] Photo by Arnold Genthe, 1906. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a52123

[Uprooted houses as a result of the San Francisco earthquake and fire] Photo copyrighted by Clinton Johnson,1906 May 31. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a22998

Thanks to the internet and the efforts of other libraries and archives, I can stretch my research circle even further and try to find the answer. Many institutions in California include photographs of the San Francisco earthquake and I can explore those that are digitized from the comfort of my home office!

The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire Digital Collection includes photographs from numerous California archives, compiled online by the California Historical Society, and it was in this circle of research I found my answer, as well as multiple images to support that answer. The houses sat on Howard Avenue (now S. Van Ness Avenue in this area), between 17th and 18th Street. Once I had located a photograph suggesting Howard Avenue, I was able to use that as a search term and found these results, among numerous others:

Selection of search results in the The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire Digital Collection presented online in Calisphere

It’s apparent these houses were often photographed, their dramatic appearance – and the fact that they did not burn down after the earthquake as so many buildings did – drawing many photographers to them.

Now that my research circle found the answer within the resources of other cultural institutions, I can have that information added to the description for that photograph in the online catalog, as well as to other as yet unidentified images in our collections, and make them even more valuable for researchers of the future.

Learn More:

• Explore images of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.
• View remarkable digitized films of the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and fire from the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress.
• Revisit previous posts in the Double Take blog series, where we take a closer look at images in our collections.

Autor: Kristi Finefield
Published on May 21, 2020 at 03:04PM

Снимка: No Need to Hold these Horses: Announcing New Free to Use and Reuse Set

In the Library’s latest Free to Use and Reuse set of images drawn from the collections, the focus is on the horse, and all the myriad ways these noble animals have been part of our lives, including sports, recreation, agriculture, transportation, and so on.

I spotted one image that for me, and maybe for many people, reflects my first experience “riding a horse” – a spin on the back of a colorful carousel horse:

A carousel ride, often fondly called a “merry-go-round,” at the annual Iowa State Fair in the capital city of Des Moines. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2016 Aug 11. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.39499

Another photo reminded me of the first time I ever sat atop a real horse as a young girl, and couldn’t get over how high up I was, and how I enjoyed the chance to view the world from a totally new perspective:

Thomas W. Beede, resettlement client, Western Slope Farms, Colorado gives his youngest daughter a ride. Photo by Arthur Rothstein, 1939 Oct. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8a12591

You can almost see the youngest daughter of Thomas Beede imagining what it would be like to take this horse for a ride across the farm, but my guess is this working horse has no interest in a leisure stroll.

Do these photos or others in the set trigger a memory for you? Browse a selection below and check out the entire set for an equine adventure.

Horses. Leaping a 3 ft. 6 hurdle. Photo by Eadweard Muybridge, 1881. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g13748

Ringling Bros. Galaxy of Champion Riders. Poster (lithograph) copyrighted by Courier Litho. Co., 1899. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.55080

Montauk Point, Rough Riders, Col. Roosevelt. Photo (cyanotype) by Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1898. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ds.04492

Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range, Madison County, Montana. Photo by Russell Lee, 1942 Aug. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsac.1a35022

[Inez Milholland Boissevain, wearing white cape, seated on white horse at the National American Woman Suffrage Association parade, March 3, 1913, Washington, D.C.] Photo from George Grantham Bain Collection, 1913 March 3. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.00031

The horse wrangler / Erwin E. Smith, Bonham, Texas. Photo by Erwin E. Smith, copyrighted 1910 June 24. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.07350

Union engine no. 3 – York, Pa., fire department. Photo copyrighted 1911. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c01290

Learn More:

• Explore the entire set of Free to Use and Reuse: Horses, as well as additional sets of images from the Library of Congress.
• Revisit Picture This entries including compelling images of horses from the Prints and Photographs Division’s collections:
  • Eadweard Muybridge: Birth of a Photographic Pioneer
  • Step Right Up! Circus Posters for your Viewing Pleasure
  • Caught Our Eyes: Jumping to Connections, not to Conclusions
  • Work Horses: Pulling their Weight

Autor: Kristi Finefield
Published on May 15, 2020 at 06:01PM