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 …
Many entries in the Double Take series, where we look a little closer at images, come out of the steps I take to answer reference questions in my daily work. Recently, in response to a question seeking a photo of a particular building, I was browsing about 300 photographs of Dubuque, Iowa, from the Farm …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Every research journey starts with a question! Just such a question sparked this entry of Double Take, the occasional series where we dig a little deeper into an image in our collections. This photo of a young African American boy in the Farm Security Administration (FSA) Collection sent me on a journey 79 years in …
In this latest installment of Double Take, the series where we take a much closer look at images in our collections, we will talk about how to date a photograph. Do you have any older photographs, tucked away in boxes or albums? How many have a specific date noted on them? If your answer was …
In this latest entry in Double Take, the blog series where we take a closer look at images in our collections, we will talk about the photo below and how an assumption led to an interesting research journey. What do you see when you look at this photo? What building is behind this couple? Most …
In this installment of Double Take, the blog series where we take a much closer look at images in our collections, we dig a little deeper into the story behind the photo below, featuring a truck – and a trunk! – of unusual design: The White House is in the background, so I know we …