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Collection and Subject Guides

Jump to: Collection Overviews: A - B | C - E | F - G | H - L | M - O | P - R | S - Z | Subject/Format Overviews

Collection and subject overviews provide tips for locating images in the Prints & Photographs Division collections and context that may help in understanding what is found. Overviews are gradually being converted to Library of Congress Research Guides and are listed on the Prints & Photographs section of the Research Guides site as well as in the more comprehensive listing below. Thematic lists of images on popularly requested topics are also available.

Collection Overviews

A - B

High school, Damascus] / Sebah & Joaillier, Phot., Constantinople. LC-USZ62-81269 Abdul-Hamid II Collection - Photographs of the Ottoman Empire, ca. 1880 to 1893, during the reign of one of its last sultans, Abdul-Hamid II ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Composing room of the Planet newspaper, Richmond, Virginia. LC-USZ62-99054 African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition - Images collected by W.E.B Du Bois and others and displayed at the Exposition to show the history and "present conditions" of African Americans ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Brest. Red Cross workers, Mrs. J.S. Lewis (left) and Mrs. E.B. Lutz (right) giving Red Cross pajamas, underwear and comfort bags to American soldiers boarding the boat for home American National Red Cross Collection (collection profile with sample images)
Entrance to Manzanar, Manzanar Relocation Center / photograph by Ansel Adams. LC-DIG-ppprs-00286 Ansel Adams' Manzanar War Relocation Center Photographs (collection profile with sample images)
Mt. Jezreel Baptist Church, 5th and E Sts., S.E., Washington, D.C. LC-USZ62-131820 Joseph S. Allen Collection: Photographs of American architecture (collection summary)
Day's Mission, Liberia, LC-USZ62-113547 American Colonization Society - Images of nineteenth-century Liberian political figures, city views, vernacular architecture, and the life of the indigenous West Africans (collection summary with sample images)
Two policemen arresting a striker in Express strike, New York City, LC-USZ62-116722 George Grantham Bain Collection: News photographs from the early twentieth century (collection summary with sample images)
Reems Creek Pottery, LC-USZ62-49845 William A. Barnhill Collection: Photographs of North Carolina folklife, 1914-17 (collection summary with sample images)
Brinker, LOT 13163-28, no. 14 Baseball Cards - Cards dating 1887 to 1914, collected by Benjamin K. Edwards ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog). View Story Map, Off the Bench, with mapped data.
Portrait of C. M. Bell. Photo by C. M. Bell Studio, C. M. Bell Studio Collection of Photographs at the Library of Congress
Clara L. Kellogg, LC-BH82-4694 C Brady Handy Collection: Civil War and post-Civil War portraits, with a small collection of Washington views ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)

C - E

Daughters of Desperation, drawing by Charlotte Harding, LC-DIG-cai-2a13157 Cabinet of American Illustration: Magazine and Book Illustration Drawings, 1880-1930 - (collection overview, with related resources and search tips for collection in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Golden Ball Tavern (Dinwiddie Co.), Petersburg, (Blandfield) Virginia, LC-USZ62-99290 Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South - Early buildings and gardens of southern states photographed by Frances Benjamin Johnston between 1927 and 1940 ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
The Opinga boy, LC-USZ62-106365 Carpenter (Frank and Frances) Collection - Photographs produced and gathered by Frank and Frances Carpenter, ca. 1860-1934, to illustrate popular writings on world geography ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
A globe to live on!, LC-USZ62-21235 Cartoon Prints, American - Prints made in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries encompassing several forms of political art ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Caricature curiosity, LC-USZC2-622 Cartoon Prints, British - British political and satirical prints from the seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries. ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Petersburg, Va. Group of Company B, U.S. Engineer Battalion; wagons in background, LC-DIG-cwpb-04104 Civil War Photographs - Photographs made during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and in its immediate aftermath, including images made under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady and Alexander Gardner ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Noboru Yamataka, artist. Samurai House in Autumn College Women's Association of Japan Print Show Collection - Fine art prints made by more than 180 artists living and working in Japan, encompassing a diversity of styles, printmaking techniques, and subject matter; the prints were selected for the organization's 50th anniversary show ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Vash Gon--Jicarilla, LC-USZC4-8803 Edward S Curtis Collection: Photographs of Native Americans ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Unidentified woman and girl, LC-USZC4-10114 Daguerreotypes - Early photographs, 1839-1864, consisting primarily of portraits, with a few architectural views, outdoor scenes, and copies of works of art ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Niagara, Horseshoe Fall from Goat Island, LOT 12006, p. 34 Detroit Publishing Company Collection - Photographs documenting North American landscapes and cityscape, ca. 1880-1920, by one of the largest American publishers of postcards and photographic views("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Statue of Liberty, New York, N.Y., LC-D43-T01-15232 The Work of Charles and Ray Eames - An archive of design ideas and a record of the Eameses' work, including photographs, drawings, prints, and ephemera, primarily 1940-1978 (collection profile with sample images).

F - G

Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California, LC-USF34-009058-C

Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection - Extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1943 produced through a noted U.S. government photography project ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog). See also
Camp of the 4th Dragoons, convivial party, French & English, LC-USZC4-9355 Roger Fenton Crimean War Photographs ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Mabel Dwight, artist. Silence. LC-USZ62-97154 Fine Prints
Portrait of Nakayama Tomisaburō, LC-USZC4-8439 Fine Prints, Japanese, pre-1915 - Works dating from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries, including the Japanese art forms known as Ukiyo-e and Yokohama-e ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Victoria Station, London, LC-USZC4-4350 Toni Frissell Collection - Photographs, documenting Frissell's distinguished career as a photojournalist and fashion photographer
In softly gaudy colors, Chinatown, San Francisco, LC-G403-T01-0185-B Arnold Genthe Collection - Photographs from the studio of Arnold Genthe, including studio portraits, dancers, San Francisco Chinatown scenes, and travel photos in the U.S. and abroad, 1896-1942 (collection summary with sample images)
St. Joseph's Auditorium, Ronkonkoma, Long Island, New York. Interior, LC-G612-T-57109 Gottscho-Schleisner Collection - Photographs of architectural subjects, including interiors and exteriors of homes, stores, offices, factories and historic buildings, chiefly in the northeastern United States, ca. 1935-1955 ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
The Cow Boy, LC-DIG-ppmsc-02638 John C.H. Grabill Collection - Photographs by John C. H. Grabill of frontier life in South Dakota and Wyoming, ca. 1888-1892 ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)

H - L

Songbird of the South has lunch at the Capitol. Washington, D.C., Feb. 15 Harris & Ewing, Inc., Photographic Negatives - Photographs of people, events, and architecture, primarily in Washington, D.C., during the period 1905-1945 (collection profile with a sample image)
Carol Highsmith, photographer. The (2003) Walt Disney Music Hall... Los Angeles Carol M. Highsmith Archive - Architecture and architectural renovation projects in Washington, D.C., and throughout the United States, as well as political figures, and people in the U.S., 1980- ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
View the Carol M. Highsmith Image Sampler
St. Michael's Cathedral, Lincoln Street, Sitka, Sitka Division, AK, HABS AK-1, sheet 2 Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey - Documentary measured drawings, photographs, and written historical and architectural information for thousands of structures and sites in the United States and its territories ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company. Pictures made at Woodward & Lothrop store of girls using the phone for the Transmitter magazine III. LC-H814-T-2326-007 Horydczak Collection - Photographs documenting architecture and social life in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Two unidentified women being photographed, ca. 1890. LC-DIG-ppmsc-04883 Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection - Photographs made and collected by one of the first American women to achieve prominence as a photographer, ca. 1864-1940 (collection summary and links). Also, explore Biographical Overview and Chronology and view Every Photo is a Story, a 5-part video series about researching photographs, using examples from Johnston's garden and architecture photos.
Digger Indian family before adobe building. LC-USZ62-53894 Kern County, California: Photographic Views by Carleton Watkins in the Library of Congress
Balthazar Korab, photographer. Bacardi Office Building (Mies van der Rohe, architect), Mexico City, Mexico. 1961, LC-DIG-ds-11543 Korab Collection: Archive of an Architectural Photographer: (overview, with related resources and search tips for the Korab Collection in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Placer Mining--Columbia,Tuolumne County - the hoisting wheel of the Daley Claim, LC-USZ62-27115
Lamb Studios Archive: Preparatory and study sketches for stained glass windows, murals, mosaics, furnishings, metalwork, and interior architecture designed by J. & R. Lamb Studios ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Portrait of Olympia Snowe, Republican senator from Maine, who selected 'E-Rate' of 2005 as her key legislative achievement. Lautenberg Collection: "How They Changed Our Lives: Senators As Working People": 113 portraits of United States Senators from the 109th and 110th Congress (2006-2009). This special project was created by Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg, a professional photographer, businesswoman, and wife of New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg,.(collection overview)
Placer Mining--Columbia,Tuolumne County - the hoisting wheel of the Daley Claim, LC-USZ62-27115 George S. Lawrence and Thomas Houseworth Collection: Photographs of California and Nevada, mid-nineteenth century ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Unidentified soldier in Union uniform with bayoneted musket in front of American flag Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs: Portrait photographs of portrait photographs, called ambrotypes and tintypes, represent both Union and Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog). Also, view
Cajun fiddler, Louisiana, LC-USZ61-2012 Lomax Collection - Photographs made in the course of sound recording expeditions carried out by John Avery Lomax, Alan Lomax, and Ruby Terrill Lomax, between 1934 and ca. 1950 for the Archive of American Folk-Song ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Woman holding coffee pot...Park Forest, Illinois, LC-USZ62-132141 Look Magazine Photograph Collection - Photographs created to illustrate Look magazine and related publications produced by companies founded by Gardner Cowles. The cataloged portion of the collection totals four million published and unpublished images, most dating 1952-1971, covering U.S. and international lifestyles, celebrities, and events ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Clare Boothe Luce, LC-USZ62-120549 Visual Materials from the Papers of Clare Boothe Luce - Images documenting Luce's varied careers and her personal life (collection summary with images)
World War II sketchbooks from the Victor A. Lundy Archive World War II Sketches by Victor A. Lundy - Wartime experiences of noted architect Victor A. Lundy, who served in the U.S. 26th Infantry Division during World War II. (research guide)

M - O

The Donut Hole, La Puente, California. Photo by John Margolies, 1991. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/mrg.07412 Roadside America Photographs by John Margolies in the Library of Congress
Wady Shaib Es-Salt, Amman, etc. Christian Bedouin girl of Es-Salt, sitting in doorway, sewing, LC-DIG-matpc-02737 G. Eric and Edith Matson Negatives - Photographs of the Middle East--notably Palestine, present day Israel, and the West Bank--from 1898 to1946 ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Girl in Cherryville Mill. Location: Cherryville, North Carolina, LC-DIG-nclc-01357 National Child Labor Committee Collection Photographs by Lewis Hine - Working and living conditions of children and other working people in the United States between 1908 and 1921 ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Two photographers taking each others' picture with hand-held cameras while perched on roof, LC-USZ62-97707 National Photo Company Collection - Photographs documenting political and social life in Washington, D.C., 1909-1932, issued by a news photo service ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Female employees of Woolworth's holding sign indicating they are striking for a 40 hour work week, LC-USZ62-124545 New York World-Telegram & Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection (collection profile with a sample images)

P - R

Photograph of San Francisco in ruins from Lawrence Captive Airship, 2000 feet above San Francisco Bay overlooking water front. Sunset over Golden [Gat]e, LOT 5785, no. 15 Panoramic Photographs - Cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits, made in the U.S. and some foreign locations, ca. 1880-1930 (collection profile with sample images)
Sibyll. Chiaroscuro woodcut by Bartolomeo Coriolano - LC-DIG-ppmsca-18727 Pembroke Album - Primarily chiaroscuro woodcuts by Italian printmakers active in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (collection overview)
C & O Canal and Wisconsin Avenue Bridge, Georgetown, Washington, D.C., LC-USZ62-88400 Pictorial Archives of Early American Architecture - Photographs, ca. 1930-1938, of seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century buildings in the United States (collection summary)
Grand national union banner for 1864. Liberty, union and victory, LC-DIG-ppmsca-17562 Popular Graphic Art Prints at the Library of Congress (1600s-1970s) (overview, with related resources and search tips for the Popular Graphic Arts collection in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
The Poster--an illustrated monthly chronicle now ready, LC-USZC4-6647 Posters: Artist Posters - Works by poster artists from the nineteenth century to the present day from the United States and other countries ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
The Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles, LC-USZC4-6075 Posters: Performing Arts Posters ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Alfred Roller, artist. Und Ihr? Zeichnet 7. Kriegsanleihe - LC-USZC4-12195 Posters: World War I Posters ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Frank S. Nicholson, artist. See America. LC-USZC2-831 Posters: WPA Poster Collection ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Sisterhood is blooming. Springtime will never be the same, POS 6 - U.S., no. 989 (C size) Posters: Yanker Poster Collection ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Vid na monastyr' ot Svietlitsy. [Monastyria Pr. Nila Stolbenskago, ozero Seliger], LC-DIG-ppmsc-03973 Prokudin-Gorskii Collection - Photographic images of the Russian Empire - a color documentary project undertaken between 1905 and 1915 ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Anne Rogovin, unidentified man with tattoos, and Milton Rogovin, full-length portrait, standing, facing front Milton Rogovin Photograph Collection - Social documentary photographs, ca. 1953-2002 (collection profile with sample images)

S - Z

Pike County Court House, Pittsfield, Illinois, 1894-1895, LC-S35-TP8-2 Photographs in the Seagram County Court House Archives
CHIM with Leicas. David Seymour (CHIM) Photograph Collection: War and social documentary subjects, ca. 1935-1955 (collection profile)
The horse wrangler by Erwin E. Smith, 1910, LC-DIG-ppmsca-07350 Erwin E. Smith Collection: Photographs of American cowboy and ranch life, 1905-12 (collection profile)
Woman in dressing room, LC-USZ62-85967 Caroline and Erwin Swann Collection of Caricature and Cartoon (collection profile with sample images)
Le tricolore, LC-DIG-ppmsca-02486 Tissandier Collection - Prints and some photographs documenting the early history of aeronautics with an emphasis on balloon flight in France and other European countries ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Cotton production. Part 3, pl. 1, no. 2) Turkestan Album (collection profile) - A visual survey of Central Asia, ca. 1871-1872. About 1,200 photographs, with some architectural plans, watercolor drawings, and maps, arranged in four parts.
School integration. Barnard School, Washington, D.C., LC-DIG-ppmsca-03119 U.S. News and World Report Magazine Photograph Collection (collection profile)
Portrait of Ella Fitzgerald, LC-USZ62-118965 Carl Van Vechten Photographs Collection - Portrait and some landscape photographs taken by photographer Carl Van Vechten between 1932 and 1964 ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
Former Hollingshead Chemical, Camden. Photo by Camilo José Vergara, 2004 Camilo José Vergara Photographs - Tracking Time to Document America's Post-Industrial Cities. See also: African American Communities in America's Cities: Photographs by Camilo J. Vergara
View of Estufa Ruin, Ca�on de Chelle Western Survey Photographs: Checklists of the Stereographs from the Clarence King and George M. Wheeler Explorations, 1867-1874
Pack train outside the Damascus Gate, Jerusalem. LC-DIG-ppmsca-18417-00008 (digital file from original on page 15, no. 8). Visual materials from the Papers of John D. Whiting (John D. Whiting Collection) documents two related subject areas: (1) places, events, and people in the Middle East, and (2) daily life among members and associates at the American Colony in Jerusalem. More than 3,200 images cover the years 1870 to 1951, with the bulk dating from 1900 to 1940.
Four men carrying sedan chair (China), LC-W7-881 World's Transportation Commission Photograph Collection - Images by William Henry Jackson of various types of transportation in North Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania, 1894-1896 ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)
First flight, 120 feet in 12 seconds, 10:35 a.m.; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, LC-DIG-ppprs-00626 Photographs Taken by the Wright Brothers of Aviation Experiments, Home, and Family ("About This Collection" via Prints & Photographs Online Catalog)

Subject/Format Overviews

Album Cover for WPA-Federal Art Project photographs of Pennsylvania coal miners and coal mining communities. Photographs by Jack Delano. 1939. LC-DIG-ppmsca-23267 Albums of Photographs, 1850-present (overview)
Hy Mayer, artist. The awakening. 1915. Illustration in Puck, 77: 14-15 (1915 February 20), LC-DIG-ds-12369American Women: Resources from the Prints & Photographs Collections
Architectural drawing for an automobile objective for Gordon Strong, Sugar Loaf Mountain, Montgomery County, Maryland. Perspective rendering by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1925. LC-DIG-ds-10423Architecture, Design and Engineering Collections in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division
Citadel rock, Green River Valley - photo by Andrew J. Russell, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.03147 Camera and Locomotive (Story Map): Explore the parallel histories of photography and the transcontinental railroad.
Edmund Duffy, artist. Seventy years a'growing LC-USZ6-761 Cartoons & Caricatures: Finding Images at the Library of Congress
Breckinridge Long residence, 1918 Collections Ripe for Research: A Sample from the Prints and Photographs Division
Representative Martha Griffiths, Washington, D.C. Photo by Warren K. Leffler, 1970 August 12. U.S. Congress: Finding Images in the Library of Congress
In the Perfect Eat Shop, a restaurant on 47th Street near South Park, owned by Mr. E. Norris (Negro). Chicago, Illinois Great Migration: Finding Pictures
Tiberias, from the South, photo by Francis Frith,http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g08609 Holy Land Photography (Story Map): Journey across the Middle East with English photographer Francis Frith.
Richard Morris Hunt Richard Morris Hunt: Introduction to the life and legacy of Richard Morris Hunt, founding member of the American Institute of Architects. Includes a select bibliography.
Harper's Weekly cover Illustrated English Language Periodicals in the Library of Congress
Marc Ferrez, photographer. Pont de Sylvestre. Between 1890 and 1900. LC-DIG-ppmsca-69285 Latin America and the Caribbean in Photographs at the Library of Congress
Carol M. Highsmith, photographer. Great Hall. View from the second floor west corridor, LC-DIG-highsm-01968 Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building: Art and Architecture (overview)
Tunis. Mosqu�e Sidi-ben-Ziaa, LC-DIG-ppmsca-04748 Middle East Images in the Prints and Photographs Division (Overview of holdings, with an in-depth example for Images of Turkey)
Sixteenth National Exhibition of Prints at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., LC-DIG-ppmsca-65148 National Exhibition of Prints (1943-1977) at the Library of Congress (research guide)
Zuni Indian bead worker drilling holes in beads, LC-DIG-ppmsca-52254 Native American History and Culture: Finding Pictures

(For a broad overview of P&P's holdings, organized thematically, see the earlier summary: Images of Indians of North America)
Zuni Indian bead worker drilling holes in beads, LC-DIG-ppmsca-52254 Olympic Games: Finding Pictures in the Prints & Photographs Division
Posada en su Taller or Homenje a José Guadalupe Posada - LC-USZ62-98850 "Opinionated Art": A Window into the Fine Art Print Collections at the Library of Congress (overview)
Eiffel Tower and Fountain Coutan, Paris Exposition, 1889, LC-USZ62-102634 Paris Exposition of 1889 (overview)
Photographic print processes Popular Photographic Print Processes Represented in the Prints and Photographs Division (overview)
Sam Houston, Senator from Texas. Photo by Julian Vannerson, 1859. In McClees' Gallery of Photographic Portraits of the Senators, Representatives & Delegates Photographically Illustrated Books and Photobooks (overview and bibliography)
White Island Light, Isles of Shoals, N.H. Postcards: Greetings from the Prints & Photographs Division (overview)
C.N.T.-F.A.I. 19 julio 1936 Poster by Toni Vidal, 1937 Visual Materials Relating to the Spanish Civil War (overview)
For travel anywhere, everywhere - book through Burnes, Philip & Co. Ltd. Poster by Walter Jardine. LC-USZC4-13607 Travel Posters: Around the World With the Library of Congress Poster Collection: An Overview of Travel Posters
Breckinridge Long residence, 1918 Researching Historic Washington, D.C., Buildings (pathfinder and overview)
Charlotte Brooks Women Photojournalists: Prints & Photographs Division Holdings (overview)
Jeannette Poirier looking at photographs in file cabinet drawer at the Washington office of the Overseas Branch of the U.S. Office of War information, LC-DIG-ppmsca-03084 Women's History Resources in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (picture pathfinder)
U.S. return of Washington, D.C., soldiers World War I: Finding Images in the Library of Congress
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