In about 1920, a groundhog at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. was photographed poking his head out of his manmade burrow: Ground hog. Photo by National Photo Company, circa 1920. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/npcc.01058 There is no specific month and day given for this photo, but I see some icicles at the top of the image and perhaps snow in the foreground. So, I like to think this photo was taken on Groundhog Day and our friend is considering whether to come out and see if he has a shadow. Another photo of this groundhog in the National Photo Company Collection is below: Ground hog. Photo by National Photo Company, circa 1920. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/npcc.01059 The original negative numbers for these two…
Tag: Kristi Finefield
Happy 100th Birthday, Victor A. Lundy!
Victor Lundy. Photo, circa 1960. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ds.11067 On February 1, 2023, American architect Victor A. Lundy will turn 100 years old. We will mark this milestone in several ways, so please read on for how you can join in and learn more about this mid-century designer. The Lundy Archive, held by the Prints & Photographs Division, numbers more than 56,000 items, and includes sketches and renderings, hundreds of journals, as well as photographs and correspondence between 1940 and 2008. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Lundy completed a degree in architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he studied under Walter Gropius. In 1954, Lundy opened an architectural firm in Sarasota, Florida, where many…
Caught Our Eyes: More Brünnhilde the Cat
Who could resist this purrfect profile? Brünnhilde. Photo copyrighted by Adolph E. Weidhaas, 1936. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.51533 This unassuming – and apparently quite tolerant – tabby cat appears in an exhibit now at the Library of Congress: Not an Ostrich: & Other Images from America’s Library. The exhibit spans the history of photography from 1839 to modern times, as found in the Library’s collections. In this 1936 photo, the cat, complete with winged helmet and breastplate armor, is costumed as the legendary Brünnhilde. Whether her depiction is drawn from Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Niebelungen or from earlier Norse mythology or Germanic legend, we don’t know, but we do know she has become one of the most-loved faces of the exhibit. Reference Specialist…
Peace on Earth
As you celebrate the holiday season with your loved ones, we share a message as timeless as it was when posted outside the White House nearly sixty years ago, in December of 1963.