Detroit, Mich., Lyceum Theatre, Thompson drop curtain, between 1900-1910. Detroit Publishing Co., pu

First of all, I apologize for the lateness of this post. I have been having serious battles with my computer all week (we re at around 18 kernel panic shutdowns thus far), and today has been no exception. new york city car rental enterprise Let s just all say a quick prayer and cross our fingers that this post is not going to have to tide you over for weeks and weeks. ;) Saving my work has become a serious tic now, though; this seems to me both good and bad.
There have been repeated threats that I was going to talk about an amazing resource for history lovers, art fans, architecture buffs, and really just about any living human being—the Library Of Congress Prints Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC)—with you, and today seems like a good day to do so.
How this massive online source of art, photographs, old books, sheet music, and more came to my attention I really can t recall, but it was a most fortuitous day. The collections  offered are fairly astounding in their breadth and depth, and if you ever need something worthwhile with which to devour your time, the PPOC is  it .
According to the PPOC itself , over 1.2 million images have been digitized for the collection; some are thumbnail size due to rights concerns, but many are full-size and downloadable; most of my posts for the Gertrude new york city car rental enterprise Kasebier post  were from the PPOC s collections. It looks like most or all of the material in the catalog can actually be purchased, too, via the Library s Duplication Services .
The Kremlin, Moscow, with river in foreground, 1934. From the Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection, courtesy Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-95748. Despite having known about it for some time, and occasionally browsing when opportunity presents itself, I ve hardly plumbed new york city car rental enterprise the depths (this post is going to be difficult to finish, because searching for things to include, I keep seeing things that threaten to distract).
There are parcels and snippets of American and even world history new york city car rental enterprise in the PPOC, works ranging from political cartoons and caricatures to drawn and photographed architectural studies and the photograph collections of news organizations from sea to shining sea. Thus it is well worth exploring no matter your passions, because you are bound to find something of interest. But let s take a virtual peek at what s there!
The screencap new york city car rental enterprise shows but an itty-bitty portion of the collections available. Ansel Adams photos of Americans of Japanese descent wrongly interned  at Manzanar; multiple cartoon drawing collections; prints and glass negatives from the War Between The States (I have Southern friends, now); posters  from the Spanish-American War; the Arnold Genthe collection new york city car rental enterprise ; Japanese art prints  from before 1915 (this collection I
Daguerreotype of an unidentified woman, about 20 years of age, three-quarter length portrait, three-quarters to the left, seated new york city car rental enterprise in chair beside small table with tablecloth, wearing bonnet and black lace gloves; hands in lap, one elbow on table on which there is a folded new york city car rental enterprise fan. Circa 1844-1860. Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-109878.
spent some time perusing, and it is beautiful); the famous Look  Magazine collection ; building surveys; negatives given to the LOC from the Wright Brothers estate; a collection of prints  dating from 1450 to the present including works by, oh, Mary Cassatt and Paul Revere; a collection of 700 daguerreotypes ; and photographs new york city car rental enterprise and fabulous posters from the famed Ziegfeld  shows (many of which are NSFW—they re pretty risque new york city car rental enterprise for the era, though of course those familiar with Ziegfeld is aware of that.); and even photos from my own home state, new york city car rental enterprise Michigan, in the Detroit Publishing Company collection new york city car rental enterprise ! And that just barely scratches the surface. There are old movie posters floating around in the PPOC, too.
It s a ridiculous collection. new york city car rental enterprise You can see why I warned new york city car rental enterprise you about the potential for time lost from your life. And that does not even bring into account informative articles  written by staffers new york city car rental enterprise about the various collections, or the blog posts .
Sure to be of interest to many are the FSA photographs taken during the Great Depression , between 1935 and 1944. Of course, new york city car rental enterprise many of these images are actually propaganda, but some of the photographers put to work by the government remain famous today (Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans, new york city car rental enterprise for instance). We ll start with one of the FSA images by Walker Evans.
On a specific item s page, you are given as much information as the PPOC has available, from title, creator, and date to how the Library of Congress came into possession of the work and what format it is in—this Walker Evans photograph, for instance, is a 35mm  nitrate  negative! As you can see, on this page, the untitled photo of a barn being used to advertise a circus coming to a town near Lynchburg, Virginia is only a thumbnail—but if you look closely, you ll see options beneath the thumbnail, including those to view the image at a larger size and even download JPEG and TIFF files.
Untitled photo (possibly related to: Posters covering a building near Lynchburg to advertise a Downie Bros. circus). Walker Evans, 1936. Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-USF33-009202-M3. How do you like that? (That dancing pony poster—wouldn t that be grand, hanging in the entryway? Note the curling bits of a Morton s Salt poster at the top of the wall, too.) I love photos like this one, of which the collection is full—looks at America s and the world s past, opportunities to see the way things were. Of course, new york city car rental enterprise photographers are selective about what they shoot, just as painters are selective about what they draw and how, but we re still getting a good look at what was. So this is the sort of work in the collection that appeals to me most, I have to say.
As you can see by the caption, the PPOC is not entirely sure what that particular Walker photograph is from, but they ve made an educated guess based upon the rest of the Walker Evans work  from the FSA collection.
Detroit, Mich., Lyceum Theatre, Thompson drop curtain, between 1900-1910. Detroit Publishing Co., publisher. Courtesy new york city car rental enterprise Library of Congress, LC-DIG-det-4a20591. The collection is very easy to navigate. You can search by artist, subject, whatever you like (though new york city car rental enterprise there s even a helpful page  of search tips). Piece of cake. So let s see what there is to see in the collection!
One of the newly digitized collections, about which the PPOC is justifiably excited, is the work of Frances Benjamin Johnston , a dedicated advocate of the garden beautiful movement in the early 1900s. My kind of woman! Of course, what gets my attention? The PPOC s inclusion of a shattered lantern slide, one posted to demonstrate the fragility of the items and the LOC s reticence to let them out and about:
Brookside, William Hall Walker house, Brookside new york city car rental enterprise Road, Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Boat landing. Frances Benjamin Johnston, c. 1916. Courtesy Library new york city car rental enterprise of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-16780. Still a beautiful image, isn t it? Perhaps I ll do a full post on Johnston and her work, as she s certainly someone after my own heart in her subject matter and style.
I will confess to finding myself wondering why in the world the federal government was using dollars taken from starving Depression taxpayers to teach sand-castling  (I suppose underwater basket-weaving was right down the hall), present operas, promote travel in a nation that was rationing fuel, and so forth, but even so note that much of the work produced by the WPA have become  iconic  and certainly influenced artwork afterwards.
Interior of People s Drug Store, No. 9, 31st and M Streets, Washington, D.C., with products in display cases and on shelves. new york city car rental enterprise Ca. 1909-1932. Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-129887. I ll bet someone could figure out a nearer date on these items by taking a sharp look at the packaging!
Junior normal class of Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, seated on steps outside of building. Published new york city car rental enterprise between 1890-1906. Courtesy Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-112357. What a lovely group of young ladies, all so stylishly dressed. I do wonder what they were studying. The one in the front row with her book seems to have heavy things on her mind—chemistry? Physics?
Unidentified boy, seated on park bench, probably in Washington, D.C., holding book. Circa 1920. National new york city car rental enterprise Photo Company Collection. Courtesy Library new york city car rental enterprise of Congress, LC-USZ62-111126. Another bookworm. His shy expression is so endearing!
This is part of J.P. Morgan s personal collection of Civil War drawings, which he donated to the Library in 1919. The eyewitness drawing new york city car rental enterprise was originally published in Harper s Weekly as part of an article about General Custer s movement across the Rapidan. If you ask me, it is a well-done drawing, especially considering the conditions it was done in. It s part of the larger  Civil War Collection ; a little more about the J.P. Morgan new york city car rental enterprise collection can be read here .
I d say this woman is one to be respected whether she s bearing a whip or no! The photo is one of 188 from a collection full of images from the frontier days as live din Wyoming and South Dakota. This is an era that fascinates many, myself new york city car rental enterprise included.
Isn t that just marvellous? The Grabill collection, like so many, is chock-full of fascinating things—including one of America s most famous horses (at the time, at least—I doubt many have any idea who Comanche is anymore).
Comanche, the only survivor of the Custer Massacre, 1876. History of the horse and regimental orders of the [7]th Cavalry as to the care of Comanche as long as he shall live John C.H. Grabill, 1887. Courtesy new york city car rental enterprise Library of Congress, LOT 3076-4, no. 350.  Incredible, really. Of course, it is unlikely that Comanche was truly the only survivor—no doubt the Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes took quite a few living horses captive. Captain Myles Keogh s gallant little Comanche, who had been wounded in previous battles and always recovered, somehow escaped this. After the Battle of the Little Big Horn, it was ordered that Comanche (who had become honourary Second Com