Whether you think black cats are spooky, good luck, or simply adorable companions, the many images featuring these striking felines in the collections are evidence that photographers and other artists have found them compelling since at least the 19^th century.

This photograph by Arthur Rothstein highlights the tonal contrast between the cat’s dark fur and the bright snow, with shadows providing additional texture.

Some black cats, such as the one in the image below, seem to hide in plain sight:

This 35mm film strip shows five and a half frames of a handsome black cat, lounging first on a chair, and then on a table:

The name and sign for this restaurant in Cape Cod pay tribute to the sleek black cat:

Visuals of black cats in our collections are not limited to photographs. The Black Cat magazine published short stories, including early work by Jack London and Henry Miller, and the magazine’s namesake often appeared on its covers.

Black cats were sometimes used in product labels, presumably because they were thought to appeal to the masses, as can be seen in this trademark for Black Cat Crochet Cotton brand thread:

The silhouette of the black cat on this poster was used to emphasize the point made by the text placed directly above it:

This photo of a black kitten provides a different take on an arched back — in this case, it’s purr-fectly adorable:

Learn More:

• Read additional Picture This blog posts featuring cats.
• See more black cat pictures from the Prints & Photographs Division collections.
• Explore additional rights-free cat imagery in this feline-themed Free to Use and Reuse set.

The following is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, Chief, and Sara W. Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, Prints & Photographs Division.

Politically independent and a champion of the little guy, Herbert L. Block (1909–2001)—better known as “Herblock”—spared no one from the wrath of his art. His pointed commentaries offer an opportunity to reflect on history and culture. How much has changed and what remains the same?

While the physical Herblock Gallery is closed, we’re offering ten new cartoons online every six months to highlight topics that filled the news 50 years ago.  We also have display cases with original drawings by Herblock to visit in person on the Jefferson Building mezzanine.

During the last year of Richard M. Nixon’s tumultuous presidency in 1974, Herblock drew many cartoons about the Watergate scandal. He used the sands of an hourglass to indicate that Richard Nixon’s ability to avoid complicity was slipping away.

In this energetic cartoon, Herblock portrayed President Richard Nixon actively preventing the movement of the symbolic figure of Justice by tripping her with tape gaps, a locked filing cabinet of presidential papers, claims of executive privilege, and a safe labeled national security. Public support for Nixon’s presidency continued to decline throughout 1974 as new information emerged.

Learn More:  

• Find the examples above and more in online collections and exhibitions:
  • Tour the online exhibitions, including Herblock Looks at 1974; Art in Action: Herblock and Fellow Artists Respond to Their Times and Herblock!
  • Search the online collection, Cartoon Drawings: Herblock Collection (thumbnail versions of the images that have been digitized are available to those searching from outside the Library of Congress because of rights considerations).
• Listen to Herb Block Foundation staff talk about his life and legacy: Art in Action Exhibition: Herb Block Foundation’s Marcela Brane & Sarah Alex.
• Take a guided tour with curator Sara Duke through the Prints & Photographs Division’s cartoon collection, with particular reference to Herb Block: “20th-Century Political Cartoons at the Library of Congress.”
• Dive deeper into Herblock’s perspectives by reading books by and about him – a handy list is available at: Cartoon Drawings: Herblock Collection—Bibliography.

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 a very large connection indeed, in the form of a five-foot-wide original lithographic stone. Stones like this are used to print lithographs and, as the caption accompanying it noted, are rare to find intact, as they were often ground down when their purpose had been served, and then used again. But here the stone was, with the image drawn by artist Frank Brangwyn back in 1914 still perfectly legible.

The image was immediately familiar, as it is part of the Prints & Photographs Division’s collection of World War I posters. The P&P collection includes many other examples of Brangwyn’s work in support of the war effort. The poster seen below was printed directly from the stone featured above, over 100 years ago. The description of the same poster in the collections of the London Transport Museum provides the title: “Britain’s Call to Arms.”

The same image was cropped and used in a smaller poster, which is also part of our multi-national World War I Poster Collection:

It was a special treat to see the original source of this powerful image on display, and to make a transatlantic connection I won’t soon forget!

Learn More:

• See additional examples of Frank Brangwyn’s designs for World War I posters in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.
• Explore the entire World War I Poster Collection. Per the collection description: “The majority of the posters were printed in the United States. Posters from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Russia are included as well.”
• Enjoy a digitized sample of the posters in P&P advertising the London Underground, representing yet another connection between our poster collection and that of the London Transport Museum.

The vast majority of the items in the Prints & Photographs Division’s collections are works of art on paper, such as photographs, posters, and architectural drawings. However, there are exceptions. In my latest Flickr album heralding the coming of autumn, there are two items featured that are not on paper at all, but are instead printed on fabric! Any guesses how these were meant to be used? I’ll include one of the examples from the Flickr set here:

If you said pillow covers, you are absolutely right! These nearly two foot squares of fabric were designed as covers for decorative pillows. Our collection includes about a hundred examples. The subjects vary quite a bit, ranging from courtship to college teams, from sentimental scenes to holidays. I’ve collected a few samples below. One striking image shows President Theodore Roosevelt in a particularly positive light!

Learn More:

• Explore all the pillow covers of this format and era in our collections.
• Browse thousands of images in the PAGA 7 collection, which includes these pillow covers. It also includes advertisements, calendars, printing specimens, and other visual ephemera.
• Check out the latest Flickr set, Autumn Arriving, with a variety of images related to the coming fall.

The following is a guest post by Ryan Brubacher, Reference Specialist, Prints & Photographs Division.

I recently returned from an information-soaked conference in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where I toured and learned about structures related to the fascinating history of the copper mining industry in the Keweenaw area.

When I came home, the experience was still on my mind, and I thought it would be fun to see what I could find in the Prints & Photographs Division collections that relates to the mining sites I saw in Michigan. I was highly rewarded in my quest and found related images in many different collections. In fact, I found so much interesting material that I had to find a way to narrow my scope for this post!

Many of the views you see below focus on structures from the Quincy Mining Company sites in Hancock, Michigan. Hancock is located along a narrow branch of Portage Lake across from another town called Houghton, as you can see in this 1941 photograph from the Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Collection:

The shaft house is usually the most eye-catching structure in a mining landscape because it is the tallest, as you can see in the below photograph from a Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) survey of the Quincy Mining Company site:

One of the functions of a shaft house is to support a gigantic track that lifts and drops the skips — which are large rectangular compartments — into the depth of the mine at a diagonal angle. Skips can hold mined raw materials, water, and workers. They weigh tons and need to be lowered and lifted quickly throughout the day. This photograph from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection shows a skip filled with miners in the Number 2 shaft at Calumet Mine:

The Number 2 shaft at Quincy went through many stages of upgrades over the course of many decades. To give a sense of the scale of the operation, in 1895 the mine was already 3,600 feet deep and the mine managers planned to dig 200 feet deeper each year. This drawing from the Quincy Mining Company HAER survey shows the complexity of the shaft house structure:

A specialized engine was built to hoist the skips. The hoist engine needed its own structure, which was connected by pulley stands that carried the hoisting chain. By 1895, the speed of the skips at Number 2 had reached a rate of 2,500 to 3,000 feet per minute. This photo from the Quincy HAER survey shows a view from the top of a shaft building looking down toward a hoist house:

Later development at Quincy Shaft Number 2 involved the installation of the Nordberg Hoist, the engine shown here:

This Detroit Publishing Company view of Shaft Number 2 at Quincy Mine shows several of the structures and systems situated next to one another, including the tall shaft house, the hoist house, the hoist chain system, and the tramway that carries the copper elsewhere:

While none of the views above show the additional structures needed for processing and further transportation that complete a full mining complex, I hope they illustrate the monumental complexity of these mining operations.

Learn More:

• Study the full HABS HAER HALS survey of the Quincy Mining Company Complex, which combines hundreds of photographs with detailed drawings of the many structures on a mine site, as well as essays on the mine and its history (see PDF labeled “Data Pages” in the online catalog record).
• View company houses built for workers at the Quincy Mining Company, as seen in photographs from the survey.
• Explore more Prints & Photographs Division images related to copper mining sites in the United States.

The following is a guest post by Kara Chittenden and Katherine Blood in the Prints & Photographs Division about a special new gift of valuable drawings.

During World War II, over 120,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated in concentration camps. Engaging in creative activities was a way for prisoners to endure significant hardships. Since photography was forbidden in the camps, incarcerated artists turned to painting and drawing to fill endless idle hours, record everyday experiences, and express their feelings.

Takuichi Fujii was born in Japan. In 1906, as a teenager, he moved to Seattle. After a few years, he returned to Japan where he met and married Fusano Marumachi, daughter of a lawyer. He returned to Seattle in 1914, sent for Fusano who arrived in 1916, and together they raised daughters Satoko and Masako while Takuichi was working as a fishmonger. He also established an artistic practice and was a member of Seattle’s “Group of Twelve,” which promoted the “best painting in the Northwest.” In 1936 he was one of three Japanese American artists chosen to represent Washington state in the “First National Exhibition of American Art” in New York City. Because of his interest in the No-Jury Society of Chicago, an organization that supported egalitarian and independent exhibitions, the family moved to Chicago in 1937 where he exhibited a painting at the Art Institute.

In 1940, back in Seattle, Takuichi and Fusano started a flower shop called Mary Rose Florist. Fusano took the lead role at the shop so that Takuichi could focus on his art and continue to exhibit. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942 to expel Japanese Americans from the West Coast, the family was forced to sell their business and leave their home. With only six days to prepare, they packed only as much clothing, bedding, toiletries, and eating utensils as they could carry.

The Fujii family was first incarcerated at Puyallup, a temporary detention camp on the Washington State Fairgrounds. The conditions were crowded and unsanitary with some of the barracks converted from horse stalls and surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers. Takuichi began documenting the incarceration experience there in an art diary composed of ink sketches and text that he later transformed into several series of watercolors. This body of work shows the many indignities of camp life including using communal toilets and being under constant surveillance, but also portrayed the rich communal life that developed with scenes of children playing, baseball games, fishing, and the celebration of theatrical and other events.

After three months at Puyallup, the family was transferred in decommissioned railroad cars to the unfinished Minidoka concentration camp in Idaho. The tar paper-covered barracks were still under construction, and the plumbing and sewage system was incomplete until January 1943. Over time security rules were relaxed and Takuichi and Fusano could leave camp to hike in the countryside where they found a baby owl that they kept as a pet. Takuichi was able to sketch outside the barbed wire and contributed some of his sketches to the “Minidoka Interlude,” a yearbook produced by incarcerees. After the War Relocation Authority permitted “indefinite leave” for work in spring 1943, Satoko left for Ogden, Utah to work and marry. Masako left to join the Women’s Army Corps. Takuichi and Fusano remained at Minidoka until October 2, 1945 and, having no home to return to in Seattle, moved first to Ogden before resettling in Chicago.

Takuichi and Fusano lived in the upstairs apartment of a house in Chicago where they took care of Masako’s son, Tom Nelson, while Satoko and her husband, Denkichi Kita, lived downstairs with their son Sandy Kita. Takuichi continued to paint until his death in 1964. His paintings and drawings were stored by Fusano, Satoko, and then by grandson and art historian Dr. Sandy Kita. Takuichi’s art was almost completely unknown outside of his family until 2017 when curator Dr. Barbara Johns assembled a traveling exhibition, “Witness to Wartime: The Painted Diary of Takuichi Fujii,” with the assistance of Dr. Kita and his wife, anthropologist Dr. Terry Kita.

In 2001 and 2002, Dr. Sandy Kita was a guest scholar for the Library of Congress “Floating World” exhibition and book that made the public fully aware of the Library’s exceptional collections of Japanese prints, drawings, and illustrated books from the Edo and Meiji periods. During that project Sandy worked closely with Reverend Shōjō Honda (1929-2015), a Senior Reference Librarian in the Library’s Asian Division who authored important bibliographies about the Japanese Pre-Meiji collections in Mathematics; Art; and Literature and Performing Arts. Sandy wrote: “Honda and I were translation partners for over 30 years. Our final work together was translating my grandfather Takuichi Fujii’s Art Diary. Honda brought to this last project not only unmatchable skills in accessing information but also a personal knowledge of both the artist’s pre-war environment in Japan and the United States and post-war one in the Japanese American community. Consequently, we could produce a translation of this crucial document in a study of this artist that captured his voice to a degree not likely to be repeated.”

In 2024, Sandy and Terry Kita offered to the Library a generous gift of fifteen of Fujii’s original watercolor and ink drawings on paper. The first ten were given in recognition of Shōjō Honda’s special contributions to Sandy’s work on Japanese art history. They added an additional five drawings to “express deep gratitude for Katherine Blood’s guidance” in support of the Floating World work. Katherine responded to this exceptional gift, saying: “Takuichi Fujii’s beautiful drawings resonate meaningfully with culture and history. They show Fujii’s fluency with a variety of subjects and artistic styles from realism to modernist abstraction and eloquently convey his personal experiences before, during, and after World War II incarceration.  The Library of Congress is honored and grateful for the chance to preserve and share these artworks.”

Learn More:

• View more images related to Japanese American World War II Incarceration in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.
• Watch “Finding Pictures: Lens on American History — Japanese American World War II Incarceration,” a webcast on P&P collections related to WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans.
• Consult the following publication: Johns, Barbara. The hope of another spring : Takuichi Fujii, artist and wartime witness. Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2017].
• Read more about Takuichi Fujii in this Densho Encyclopedia entry by Barbara Johns.

In my most recent selection of railroad-related images on Flickr, All Aboard!, the photo that received the most attention was this one of the Manitou & Pike’s Peak Railway. I’m imagining the seemingly backwards and tilted locomotive drew some curiousity. This is a cog railway, used to climb steep grades. The boiler in this steam locomotive is tipped because it needed to remain level when going up an incline. And for safety reasons, the locomotive actually pushed the train cars up the mountain instead of pulling them, which explains the orientation of the engine.

The first train of this unusual cog railway reached Pike’s Peak, Colorado, a summit over 14,000 feet in elevation, in 1881. Here are some other photos from our collection that show the train in action, as well as the railway’s destination, the top of the mountain.

Though the trains look a bit different now, you can still take a ride to the top of Pike’s Peak today.

Learn More:

• Explore a variety of images depicting Pikes Peak, in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, including more of the famous cog railway.
• See photos of another famous cog railway in the United States, the Mount Washington Cog Railway of New Hampshire.
• Revisit the Picture This series: Camera and Locomotive, which discusses the parallel development of two technologies in the 19th century: railroads and photography.

Many of us spend a considerable amount of time in the kitchen, a space that can serve both a utilitarian and a social function. The Prints & Photographs Division collections provide great images of kitchen spaces that highlight prepared food, architectural elements, and the labor that goes into ensuring our nourishment.

The photograph below shows Mrs. Cooper at her farm near Radcliffe, Iowa, preparing to put some rolls in the oven. The photo was taken as part of a LOOK Magazine photograph assignment about the Cooper family’s life on their farm. Many jars filled with fruits and vegetables are visible on the kitchen table and countertops.

Photographer Carol M. Highsmith captured this eye-catching view of a kitchen cabinet featuring decades-old spice jars (charcoal seasoning salt, anyone?) in the historical Joseph D. Oliver House in South Bend, Indiana.

As usual, the Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Collection is a fantastic source for scenes of home life in the United States during the Great Depression and World War II. The person in the photograph below appears to be preparing food on a table adjacent to kitchen shelving that is built into the end of a trailer, making ingenious use of space at a migrant camp in Harlingen, Texas.

The caption for this image indicates that Mrs. Heath and her daughter, Ann, are thrilled with the clean and spacious kitchen in their defense housing unit, having previously lived in a “single furnished room.”

While it is not clear how she feels about her kitchen in a new Farm Security Administration trailer camp, the woman in this photograph seems very pleased with the adorable cat she’s holding.

We see kitchens represented in graphic formats as well. This mid-19th century woodcut by Utagawa Yoshikazu depicts a foreign settlement house kitchen in Yokohama. The bustling scene shows people preparing, and waiting for, food in the foreground. Unrelated to the scene in the kitchen, we see a man getting a shave in an adjacent room.

This kitchen-themed color lithograph was used for educational purposes in the late 19th century. An accompanying manual listed objects for young students to identify in the image, including food items, dishes, and even the clock. Much has changed in the intervening years, but I’m sure you can identify many objects that we continue to use in our kitchens today!

Learn More:

• Explore more kitchen-related images from the collections.
• Read more about “Prang’s Aids for Object Teaching” in this Picture This blog post: Object Lessons: Learning with Prints.
• View more images from the Chadbourne collection of Japanese prints.

The work of scanning, cataloging, and sharing our collection of images with the world is never ceasing in the Prints & Photographs Division. Digitization work brings to light both recently acquired and long-held items from the collections. I periodically browse our newly digitized images to see what is now available. I was particularly taken by some curiosities from the stereograph collection, so have shared a few below, along with others freshly scanned and cataloged. What image catches your eye?

[Richard Ottinger, U.S. Representative from New York, standing by the open trunk of a Renault Dauphine Yardney electric car, outside the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.] Photo by Warren K. Leffler, 18 January 1967. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.89333

Learn More:

• Browse newly digitized images in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.
• Revisit a few of our past Picture This entries focused on the stereograph:
  • Camera and Locomotive: Two Tracks across the Continent: Stereographs as Souvenirs
  • Double Take: Dating a Photograph

  • The Keystone Review: Shedding Light on the Stereograph Business

The following is an interview with Ramon Jr. Salado Romo, Stanford in Government Liljenquist Fellow in the Prints & Photographs Division.

Melissa: Thanks for talking with us. Can you describe your background and how you came to this internship?

Ramon: I grew up in Southern California in the Coachella Valley region. After high school I headed off to Stanford University where I’ve been studying political science and philosophy. I’ll be a junior this coming year.

My introduction to cultural heritage work has been through my extracurricular activities on campus, including working for the Cantor Museum as a docent. More recently, I was an archival intern with the University Archaeology Collections, and that was where I first saw myself potentially seeking out this kind of work outside an academic context. Those experiences led me to this position, which kind of combines my interests in political science and library science. The work here has given me a great perspective on behind the scenes work in archives.

Melissa: You’ve been working on a few projects related to the Liljenquist Family Collection, which includes a lot of Civil War photographs. Could you tell us about your work here at the Library?

Ramon: One of my main projects has involved adding data to a Story Map that another intern had been working on last summer, specifically geolocating portraits of individuals who were involved with different battles or activities. This enables people to view an image on a map and associate it with a specific location, mainly places within the eastern United States. It’s been rewarding going through some of the cataloged portraits of soldiers and doing the work that pinpoints that portrait on the map where they may have fought or even died.

During my time working with the Liljenquist collection, I stumbled across a carte de visite photograph of a young Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in his Union uniform. I learned he led an illustrious life following the war, having been appointed as an Associate Justice for the Supreme Court. This singular photograph led me down a rabbit hole motivated by my own interest in the law and the extensive and complex legacy Justice Holmes developed throughout his time on the court.

Another aspect of my internship has involved learning about the work of acquiring and processing a collection from beginning to end. In my first few weeks I met with Mr. Liljenquist, the donor of these photographs, and was able to hear some of his stories about how he found some of the images.

I’ve been able to see some aspects of how a new accession is taken in, to help inventory some of the photographs, including some cartes de visite, tintypes, and ambrotypes, and to help catalog some of the images — all necessary steps to bring these images to the public.

Another project we’ve been working on is to create a “thumbnail” image to adhere to each cased photograph box in the Liljenquist collection. Each of these photographs has its own call number that is visible on the box, but when we are retrieving a specific photograph, it is also helpful to see a copy of the photograph on the container to help us locate it more efficiently.

Melissa: In addition to the work you have been doing for your internship, you mentioned that in your spare time you browsed the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog and came across some images that were of personal interest. Would you like to tell us more about that?

Ramon: Sure. When I was exploring the catalog in my free time, I was searching for images related to my hometown in the Coachella Valley — the hot California desert — and I found some matches.

I was initially drawn to the two photographs below by Dorothea Lange because of their personal resonance to me having grown up in the area. I was fascinated by the stories they tell of migrant farmworkers in the Coachella Valley region through their documentation of American life as part of the Library’s Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection and the inherent aesthetic qualities in their composition.

I think my eye is drawn to images that are visually attractive, maybe in part because of my prior work interning at a museum. A photograph can obviously have both historical and aesthetic value, and it can be powerful to consider why we might be drawn to a given image.

Being from the community shown in the images, it brings into focus the work that the Library of Congress does to preserve this history. And it reminds me a bit of the work that I have been doing on the Faces of the Civil War Story Map, focusing on what took place in a particular geographic location and who was involved. Finding these materials sparks so much excitement.

Learn More:

• Explore the Faces of the Civil War Story Map.
• Read about and view images from the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs.

One of the photos I chose for my recent Flickr album, All Over the Map, caught my attention not just for the image, but also the associated title. This 1930 news photo from the Harris & Ewing Collection says, as part of its original caption: “Quite a contrast between the modern map in the background and the powder horn map being held by Miss Betty Jones at the Library of Congress.”

I paused and read that one sentence again. This photo was taken at the Library of Congress? And the horn in her hand is actually a map? I read the entire caption, and learned that Jones is holding a powder horn, with a Colonial era map drawn on the surface. Looking a bit closer, we see that she has two more horns in her lap. How curious!

It didn’t take long to discover that, yes, these powder horn maps are indeed here at the Library of Congress as part of the collections of the Geography & Map Division. Two of these maps appear online:

• [Powder horn with hand-drawn map of the Hudson River (above Albany), Mohawk River, Niagara region, and Lake Ontario in New York Province].
• Lord Cornwallis surrender, 1781.

The second one, featuring an engraved map on the theme of Lord Cornwallis’ surrender, is likely the one you can clearly see on Jones’ lap in the above photo. These types of horns were also the subject of a 2017 blog post from the Geography & Map (G&M) Division: Powder Horn Maps of Colonial America.

It was so delightful to come across this connection between our two divisions’ collections. One of the wonderful things about the Library’s vast holdings is how they can inform each other and provide researchers with the opportunity to make these same kinds of connections every day!

In 1906, New York photographer A.B. Phelan created several photomontages of an oversized man looming over parts of New York City. He accomplished this feat by skillfully combining two photos into one wonderful ‘trick’ photo. Lucky for us, he submitted them for copyright registration and the montage photos made their way into the Library’s permanent collections.  Here, the giant man peers down into the entrance of the subway station in front of New York’s City Hall.

Photomanipulation has been around about as long as photography itself. Both in the darkroom and out, photographers altered negatives and photos through multiple means for any number of reasons. Here we can assume Phelan sought to entertain with his artistry. The other photos we have by him are not yet digitized, but a sample of them is too good not to share through a quick snapshot. I was delighted to see that in the top photo, the man is attempting to mail the letter in his hand, but can’t quite manage to get into New York’s City Hall Post Office and Courthouse!

 

Learn More:

• New York’s City Hall features in hundreds of photographs without giant men reclining in front of it in the Prints & Photographs Division’s collections.
• See double in these stereographs of New York’s City Hall Post Office.
• When the New York World Building was constructed in 1890, it was the tallest building in New York City. Enjoy views from and of the home of the New York World newspaper. 

The following is a guest post by Leigh Gleason, Head, Reference Section, Prints & Photographs Division.

The Keystone Review was a magazine published by stereographic photograph publisher Keystone View Company and distributed to its sales staff, who sold Keystone’s stereo cards door-to-door. The magazine was published from 1898 through 1909, and the Library of Congress is the only place in the world where you can see a complete run of all issues. The Library recently digitized them, so now you can read them anywhere.

The magazine is heavily focused on salesmanship advice  for its sales force working throughout the country and world. If you dig into it, you’ll find that The Keystone Review is also peppered with interesting updates about the adventures of Keystone’s photographers. These aren’t in every issue, but there are quite a few such features.

Take, for example, the exploits of Will H. Leigh, the photographer that Keystone sent to Alaska to photograph the gold rush in 1898 and 1899, detailed in an article titled “A Trip through Alaska: The Keystone View Company’s Photographer in the Frozen North” in The Keystone Review [volume 1, number 12 (October 1899), pages 1-2]. Leigh is uncredited for his individual photographs for Keystone because Keystone often registered its copyright in the name of the company or its founder, B.L. Singley, who was seldom the actual photographer. In The Keystone Review, we gain a narrative understanding of the images Leigh produced. The article states that he produced over 700 negatives on his journey. Browsing through the Prints & Photographs Division’s LOT 11525-1, which contains Keystone View Company images of the Alaskan gold rush, we find approximately 170 of Leigh’s 700 images.

Below are a few highlighted images, each preceded by a quote from the “A Trip through Alaska” article:

“Mr. Leigh left San Francisco on May 13, ’98 on the steamer ‘Dora Blohm’ [sic] and after a very rough voyage of thirty-eight days he reached St. Michaels […]”

“From Arctic City the party proceeded to the mouth of Allenkakett river and followed up that stream 120 miles […]”

“He is the first stereoscopic photographer to make an extended trip through Alaska and to make stereoscopic photographs north of the Arctic Circle.”

“[…] they established their permanent winter quarters, and called the place Beaver City[.] Beaver City increased in size so that when winter set in it contained sixteen cabins with a population of about 100 people.”

“During the winter Mr. Leigh made trips with parties who transported the supplies to various camps and cabins […]”

“He experienced some difficulty in operating his camera during the cold weather – the coldest of which was experienced in February.”

“He left Beaver City May 24, ’99, and it took him thirty-three days to reach the Behring Sea.”

“Although Mr. Leigh’s trip has been very successful from a photographic standpoint, he does not care to return to Alaska and search for gold, as it is his opinion that more gold is expended by prospecting parties on outfits, transportation, etc., than is taken from the mines.”

Learn More:

• Check out the full run of The Keystone Review.
• See more stereo cards of the Alaskan gold rush.
• Read another Picture This blog post featuring photographic documentation of travels in frigid climes.

During my search through our collections for interesting hats, bonnets, caps, and all manner of headgear for my most recent Flickr album, I found one hat that most certainly was never meant to sit on anyone’s head. When it opened in 1954 as the “Premium Tex” gas station, this red hat captured drivers’ imaginations on Route 99. Over 40 feet wide, the concrete and steel structure was meant to be part of a shopping center called Frontier Village, but the project never truly came to fruition. The station was later renamed “Hat n’ Boots,” as seen in this 1977 photo by John Margolies:

As that name suggests, the hat did not stand alone next to the gas pumps! Nearby, two restrooms were constructed, enclosed in cowboy boots, as seen in the next two photos:

The somewhat rundown state of the gas station in these photos did make me wonder if it could still be standing. I was so relieved to find that, while no longer a gas station, the hat and boots were restored and then moved to a nearby park in the community of Georgetown in 2003. They remain there today, continuing to delight passersby.

Learn More:

• Photographer John Margolies regularly captured the novelty buildings of roadside America in his travels around the country. Learn all about his collection through this research guide: Roadside America Photographs by John Margolies in the Library of Congress.
• Cap off your day with a look at a Flickr album dedicated to Hats, which includes images selected from a variety of collections in the Prints & Photographs Division.
• Read past Picture This posts featuring Roadside America, and the work of John Margolies.

Some of us can think of no better companions than our pets, and photographic evidence shows that members of previous generations were like-minded.

Dog lovers out there may be interested to know that the Prints & Photographs Division collections feature many pictures of people and puppies spending time in each other’s company, such as these:

Among the interspecies snapshots in the collection, there may be none cuter than those showing small children interacting with adorable puppies. These photographs show children playing affectionately with some canine – and in one case feline – friends:

Of course, puppies grow up, and older pets are just as valued, as evidenced by this photo of a boy hugging his rather large dog:

Learn More:

• View additional puppy pictures in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.
• Read more Picture This blog posts that discuss pets.
• Enjoy these dog-themed Flickr albums, featuring canine subjects from Prints & Photographs Division collections:
  • Dog Stars
  • Toni Frissell Dog Photography Part One
  • Toni Frissell Dog Photography Part Two

 

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 new and experimental in World War I. Its goal was to misdirect and confuse enemy ships trying to accurately identify and target Allied vessels and determine their course, speed, and distance.

The sign on the side of this model ship indicates it was built by “Finnish Ship Builders,” which fits one of the themes of the daylong parade. Many entries sent down Fifth Avenue featured immigrants to America, as well as their contributions to the war effort.

Happy Independence Day to all Americans!

Learn More:

• See more photos from the 1918 4th of July parade in New York City.
• Revisit a previous Picture This blog about dazzle camouflage.

 

Porches have many uses. They can serve as a gathering place for socializing with acquaintances, friends, or family. Or they can provide the backdrop for solitary activities like reading or people-watching. As structures, they can provide visual interest. And they come in all shapes and sizes.

This photograph of men gathered on the porch of a North Carolina country store on a summer weekend afternoon packs a lot of information. From product signs and other clues we see the business provides gasoline, kerosene, beverages, and cigarettes. The men seem at ease and it’s easy to wonder how well they knew each other or what their shared experiences might have been in a segregated South.

Photographer Jim Hansen captured this colorful photograph of the Cooper family in early September of 1957, each member engaged with some aspect of farm life, on and around their front porch. The father holds a small pig, while an older child rests an arm around a cow and younger children seem to be shucking corn.

The man and woman in this photo from 1924 are eating a meal on the front porch of a row house. A tub of cottage cheese is prominently featured among the items on the table, and the view of the other porches down the line suggests they are alone among neighbors.

Sometimes even big porches support solitary activities, such as reading a newspaper. The mix of traditional and modern chairs stands out in this scene:

It is unclear if the boy sitting on this porch is waiting for someone, between activities, or just taking in some fresh air. Whatever the case, the Good Humor ice cream cart wouldn’t have been easy for him to miss.

Some porches are quite grand, and can easily host dozens of people.

Photos of unoccupied porches can be just as compelling as those hosting a crowd, like this one by Frances Benjamin Johnston of a residence in South Carolina. There are many details to draw the eye, such as a vine climbing up a window shutter, small glass panes around the front door, and a couple of small logs holding up the center of the porch.

The many angles and shadows are what catch my eye when I look at this artfully-framed photograph by architectural photographer Balthazar Korab:

Learn More:

• View additional porch images from the collections.
• See another blog post featuring a particularly stunning porch photograph.