The Prints & Photographs Division offers regular webinars on specific topics from the collections. Topics of past webinars are as diverse as the collections themselves. These virtual presentations introduce the Prints & Photographs Division collections, services and search tools, and feature staff taking a closer look at an object or group of objects from the collections – a chance to converse and appreciate together!
Webinars
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Film, VideoSchool Days (and Nights) A reference librarian from our Prints & Photographs Division highlighted images and collections to prepare you for another school year and feed your reminisces of school days past -- favorite teachers, school supplies, new clothes, night school, open-air school and more, from kindergarten to university.- Contributor: Brubacher, Ryan
- Date: 2025-07-16
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Film, VideoFinding Pictures: Shawn Walker - Reflections Join Curator Adam Silvia and renowned photographer Shawn Walker for a Finding Pictures webinar where they will debut their documentary interview on Walker's life in photography, featuring images from the Shawn Walker Photograph Collection held in the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. A founding member of the Kamoinge Workshop, a highly esteemed collective of Black photographers in the Harlem neighborhood…- Contributor: Silvia, Adam - Walker, Shawn
- Date: 2025-06-18
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Film, VideoPostcards: Wish You Were Here! Are you a deltiologist? Are you an archivist wishing your postcards were better organized? Sara W. Duke, the Library's curator of popular and applied graphic art, provides an overview of the postcard collections at the Library of Congress, where a large-scale digitization and processing project is underway. Selections will include the United States from the 1890s onwards, humorous giant rabbits, hammocks, the Statue of…- Contributor: Duke, Sarah
- Date: 2025-04-16
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Film, VideoFinding Pictures: Mid-Century Color Photography After nearly a century of monochromatic images, Kodak's Kodachrome transparency film burst onto the photography market in 1936, allowing photographers to capture scenes in vibrant full color. Competing products soon followed, allowing color image-making to become available to all. In this virtual talk, Leigh Gleason explores color photographs in the Prints and Photograph collections from the 1930s to the 1970s, and shows how you…- Contributor: Gleason, Leigh
- Date: 2025-03-19
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Film, VideoFinding Pictures: World War I Reference Librarian Jonathan Eaker highlights interesting selections from the Prints & Photographs Division's wide and diverse World War I collections. Learn about a submarine displayed in Central Park, an "orphan" who was not quite what he seemed, a special portrait drawn for General John J. Pershing and more. This virtual presentation includes newly digitized images that are freely available to all.- Contributor: Eaker, Jonathan
- Date: 2025-02-19
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Film, VideoFinding Pictures: What's New? Spotlighting five newly ready-for-research collections spanning an exciting range of formats and time-periods, Library staff will introduce items from the U.S. Patent Office Advertising Prints and Labels collection, photographs captured by famed photojournalist David Seymour CHIM, fine prints from the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in New York, photographs documenting the historic 1983-1984 Presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson by Bruce Talamon and 21st-century aviation photographs…- Contributor: Rios, Leah - McCready, Maggie - Peich, Eric - Scheppele, Tori - Roth, Ginny A. - Ouellette, Taren - Ruggirello, Sam
- Date: 2024-12-18
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Film, VideoAutomobiles Reference librarian Gillian Mahoney highlights historic vehicles, depictions of car culture, advertisements and more that you can find in the Library's collections. From the earliest electric vehicles to the mini-vans of the 1980s, come learn about cars we all know, and some we may have forgotten.- Contributor: Mahoney, Gillian
- Date: 2024-11-20
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Film, VideoFinding Pictures: Celebrating Indigenous American Creators Explore a rich array of photographs, prints and posters by Indigenous American artists from the collections of the Library of Congress. Library specialists reviewed historic and contemporary creators' responses to such topics as relationships with traditional lands, first-person and outsider perspectives on Native cultures, convergence with non-visual artforms such as poetry and music and more.- Contributor: Lindberg, Melissa - Blood, Katherine
- Date: 2024-10-16
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Film, VideoOn the Road: Travel Ephemera in the Margolies Collection Curator of Architecture Mari Nakahara leads a tour of a remarkable collection that spans the late 19th century to the early 2000s. Driving through the United States from the 1960s to the early 2000s to document roadside America, architectural historian John Margolies amassed an amazing collection of postcards, travel brochures and road maps. While his colorful photographs have become well known through books and…- Contributor: Nakahara, Mari
- Date: 2024-08-21
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Film, VideoFinding Pictures for Pride Month The Library's prints and photographs collections contain a rich resource of visual materials depicting LGBTQ+ communities, lives and issues. In celebration of Pride Month, join photography and graphic art curators Micah Messenheimer and Katherine Blood as they take a look at these collections with a particular focus on photographs, artist's prints and posters by historic and contemporary queer creators. Image credit: Trevor Messersmith- Contributor: Blood, Katherine - Messenheimer, Micah
- Date: 2024-06-26
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Film, VideoHow to Identify Daguerreotype, Ambrotype and Tintype Photos Do you have a box of 19th-century family photos stored in plastic or leather cases you've always wanted to know more about? Have you scoured estate sales and been intrigued by small portraits on glass and metal and wondered how they were made? Would you like to know how to best store and preserve your antique photography collection for years to come? Join Library…- Contributor: Smiley, Michelle - Wetzel, Rachel
- Date: 2024-04-17
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Film, VideoEliza Scidmore, Trailblazing Journalist In celebration of Women's History Month, join author Diana P. Parsell as she discusses her recent book "Eliza Scidmore: The Trailblazing Journalist Behind Washington's Cherry Trees" with Library specialists Elizabeth A. Novara and Mari Nakahara.- Contributor: Novara, Elizabeth - Nakahara, Mari - Parsell, Diana P.
- Date: 2024-03-05
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Film, VideoHighlights from the Robert H. McNeill Family Collection Archivist Leah Rios and photography curator Kate Fogle highlight the career of African American photographer Robert H. McNeill (1917-2005), who documented 20th-century African American leadership and life in Washington D.C from the 1930s-1970s. They will explore the newly processed Robert H. McNeill Family Collection and will touch on McNeill's family photographs and albums, local portraiture and photojournalism from operating his freelance news service in…- Contributor: Fogle, Kate - Rios, Leah
- Date: 2024-02-21
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Film, VideoRalph Ellison: Photographer This webinar celebrates Ralph Ellison's creativity and observation of African American life through discussion of Michal Raz-Russo and John F. Callahan's collaboratively created book "Ralph Ellison: Photographer." The book uses select photographs and historical documents from Ellison collections at the Library of Congress to explore Ellison (1913-1994) as a personal and professional freelance photographer, revealing an artistic side of Ellison that is not widely…- Contributor: Raz-Russo, Michal - Callahan, John F.
- Date: 2024-02-08
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Film, VideoSubject Indexing for Pictures: The Thesaurus for Graphic Materials Antoinette O'Bryant and Libby McKiernan discuss subject indexing using the Library Congress Thesaurus for Graphic Materials. You will learn how to describe images using topical index terms, how these terms can help you search for pictures in the Library's online catalog and ways you can use the Thesaurus for personal or work collections. You will also have an opportunity to index some images from…- Contributor: O'Bryant, Antoinette - McKiernan, Libby
- Date: 2024-01-17
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Film, VideoIllustrating Civil War Medicine From the visible wounds inflicted by the newly-developed mini ball to the invisible spread of disease, the American Civil War's effects on combatants, their loved ones, and those charged with their care, were both visible and invisible. This webinar explains how photographers, printmakers, and eye-witness sketch artists picture the vast and complicated arena of medical care during the deadliest military conflict in U.S. history.- Contributor: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress
- Date: 2023
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Film, VideoPresidential Pets Dogs, cats, horses, cows -- as well as far more unusual animals -- have called the White House and its grounds home over the last two centuries. Watch a visual tour of the menagerie of animals that have been Presidential Pets, with images selected from the collections of the Prints and Photographs Division.- Contributor: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress
- Date: 2023
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Film, VideoCelebrating 90 Years of the Historic American Buildings Survey The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS, est. 1933) is the nation's first federal preservation program to document America's architectural heritage. This effort, later joined by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER, est. 1969) and the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS, est. 2000), is administered through the National Park Service. The series in combination have recorded America's built environment in multiformat surveys comprising drawings, photographs…- Contributor: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress
- Date: 2023
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Film, VideoCartoon Cavalcade The Library of Congress has amassed a collection of 140,000 cartoon prints and drawings over the past 150 years, including political cartoons, comic strip and comic book illustrations, gag cartoons and animation cels. Join Sara W. Duke, the Library's curator of popular and applied graphic art, for an insider's perspective of the wealth of cartoon art in the collections of the Library. While the…- Contributor: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress
- Date: 2023
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Film, VideoHappy 100th Birthday, Victor A. Lundy In this virtual presentation, Donna Kacmar, FAIA, professor at the University of Houston, and editor of "Victor Lundy: Artist Architect", will share highlights from the collection in a discussion of Lundy's "awareness of materiality and structural form, and his ability to design with light and evoke the spirit of the time."- Contributor: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress
- Date: 2023
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Film, VideoLens on American History: Japanese American World War II Incarceration Watch an overview of notable collections in the Library's prints and photographs collections, giving special attention to connections we have made to identify people in the photos and provide more context on their experiences. President Franklin Roosevelt's February 19, 1942 Executive Order 9066 resulted in the incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. The Library's collections are rich in…- Contributor: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress
- Date: 2023
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Film, VideoGoing to Bat for Library Collections Baseball history can be found in many divisions at the Library of Congress, but this online orientation will focus on finding visual materials specifically in Prints & Photographs. Featuring amateur, recreational, professional, and even congressional baseball, this video will include searching tools and discuss collections teaming with baseball visuals.- Contributor: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress
- Date: 2023
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Film, VideoFinding Pictures for National Arab American Heritage Month Celebrate National Arab American Heritage Month with a selection of pictures by and about the diverse Arab American community. Curator Sara W. Duke explores photographs, cartoons, and drawings that depict famous people, social life, traditions, and immersion into Arab American culture.- Contributor: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress
- Date: 2023
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Film, VideoSeeing in 3D: Stereographs at the Library of Congress Photography curators Micah Messenheimer and Michelle Smiley present a three-dimensional view into the Prints & Photographs collections.- Contributor: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress
- Date: 2023
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Film, VideoLooking Closely: Visual Literacy with Prints and Photographs What do you see? Deepening what we can learn from visual materials is as easy as asking simple questions. Drawing on examples from photography to architectural drawings, Prints & Photographs Division staff will lead attendees through exercises in close looking - audience participation is encouraged! Explore how taking a good look can help even non-experts learn more about images for work, school and play.- Contributor: Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress
- Date: 2023