New Research Guide: Cartoons and Caricatures

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new guide describing the Prints & Photographs Division’s large and varied collection of cartoon and caricature art. Martha H. Kennedy, now retired Curator of Popular & Applied Graphic Art and author of the guide, describes the appeal of this collection material: “The Library’s vast, diverse collections of comic art contain items that will delight and fascinate generalists and specialists alike, no matter how varied their visual tastes and interests. Among the thousands of political cartoons, caricatures, and drawings for comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and animation art housed in the Prints & Photographs Division are gems to be discovered among these subgenres.” The guide includes two galleries of sample images,…

Reflections on Photochroms

The collections of the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress include thousands of photochroms. These early color prints were photomechanically reproduced so they weren’t photographs in the traditional sense. I spent some time looking through the photochroms, most of which date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while working on a Flickr album of images of mirrors and reflections. Neither a color photograph nor a hand colored image, a photochrom was made by combining the photographic process with the lithographic process. A black-and-white negative was transferred to a lithographic stone or plate. Each color of the photochrom required a separate stone. If the photochrom included four colors, four stones were needed to make the finished…

New Year, New to See

The following is a guest post by Hanna Soltys, Reference Librarian, with contributions by Sara W. Duke, Curator of Popular and Applied Graphic Arts, and Micah Messenheimer, Curator of Photography, all of the Prints and Photographs Division. To kick off the New Year, the Prints & Photographs Virtual Orientations for January 2022 look at newly processed, acquired, and/or digitized collections. While we often discuss and share new collections and acquisitions, this orientation will also highlight resources such as finding aids to help with research projects. One of the newly processed collections you can expect to learn about is the William Kennoch Collection. This collection includes over 1,200 photographs from the U.S. Secret Service of counterfeiters, criminals, and others accused of…

Slice Up the Fruitcake

This week, we’re looking at something I don’t like very much – fruitcake. This seasonal sweet treat has never appealed to me. But while preparing for a recent Flickr album featuring images of butter and baking, I stumbled upon three fruitcake photos that caught my eye and deserved detailed views. First up, a Russell Lee photograph taken in San Angelo, Texas for the Farm Security Administration. Removing fruit cakes from tin in which they were baked at bakery in San Angelo, Texas. Photo by Russell Lee, 1939. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8b23652 In the photo, fruitcakes are removed from their baking tins. My eye was led to a detail in the upper left corner of the image. An object hangs on the wall and…