Other Collections

Besides the above mentioned bodies of original drawings, photographs, and manuscripts which were created as part of designing and documenting the built world, there are many other information resources which are essential for the study of the built world, such as those included in this section.

Other Collections include:

Albertype Company (1890s-1950s)
American architectural drawings in foreign collections: Sources (1965-1968)
Architectural material from various sources (1930-1940)
Brooks (H. Allen) teaching slide collection of architectural photographs (18-20th centuries)
Chafee (Richard) architectural slide collection (1958-2003, bulk 1975-2003)
Copyright deposits
Detroit Publishing Company (ca. 1880-1930, bulk 1890-1910)
Farm Security Administration/Office of War information (FSA/OWI) Black-and-White Negatives (1935 – 1944)
Geographic File filing series (1880-1950, bulk 1880-1930)
Harris & Ewing Collection (1905-1945)
Hopping (Dan) Photographs of Sites in CT, MA, NJ, and NY (1930-1947)
Look Magazine Photograph Collection (mid-20th century, bulk 1952-1971)
National Photo Company collection (1850-1945, bulk 1909-1932)
New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection (ca. 1880-1967, bulk 1920-1967)
Panoramic Photograph filing series (1851-1991, bulk 1880-1930)
Plowden (David) Photographs of architecture, landscapes, and transportation in the United States and Canada (1959-1981, bulk 1960s-1970s)
Postcard filing series (1890-2009, bulk 1982-1999)
Roos, (Frank J. Jr.) Collection of American Architecture (1930-1966)
Souvenir viewbooks filing series (ca. 1880-ca 1970, bulk ca. 1890-ca. 1920)
Stereograph File filing series (1860-1945, bulk 1870-1920)
Thomas (Chester H.) Covered Bridge Postcards (1930-1938)
U.S. News and World Report Magazine Photograph Collection (1952-1986, bulk 1955-1979)
Wriston (Barbara) collection of slides of world architecture (1939-1982, bulk 1950s-1970s)

Each collection is briefly described below. Primary links display fuller bibliographic information about the collection in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog if available. Links are provided to digitized primary source content, finding aid and research guide for the collection, collection overview of the Collection, and background information page when available. The background information page includes more inks to the left side under "This Collection." Additional links to related secondary sources are provided below each collection description, followed by books, periodicals, dissertations & theses, articles & blogs, and webcasts related to each collection when available.

Albertype Company (1890s-1950s)

Albertype Company
View digitized content from the Albertype Company Postcards
The collection is composed of a group of 591 large format postcards (6 x 8 in.) and fifteen standard format postcard (4 x 6 in.) produced by the Albertype Company which operated in Brooklyn from the 1890s to the 1950s (selections digitized). All views are in the United States except for one postcard of Mexico, with a heavy representation of New York views. The majority of the postcards are either hand-colored or sepia toned. The postcards were taken by a variety of photographers and represent a number of publishers who are sometimes credited.
[Image: LC-DIG-ds-06561]

American architectural drawings in foreign collections: Sources (1965-1968)

American architectural drawings in foreign collections: Sources
View digitized content from the American architectural drawing in foreign collections
Approximately 1,000 photographic prints and 1,000 manuscript pages compiled by James Massey. This research material was used for the publication Sources for American architectural drawings in foreign collections; a preliminary survey carried out under a grant from the Ford Foundation.
[Image: LC-USZ62-113521]

Architectural material from various sources (1930-1940)

Architectural material from various sources
Approximately 100 drawings; 500 manuscripts; 4,000 negatives; 400 pamphlets; 5,000 photographs. Much of the material is labeled "duplicate.” Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER) and Pictorial Archive of Early American Art (PAEAA) material from the desk of former staff member Virginia Daiker.

Brooks (H. Allen) teaching slide collection of architectural photographs (18-20th centuries)

Brooks (H. Allen) teaching slide collection of architectural photographs
Approximately 12,500 transparencies, Kodacrome, & 35 mm slides, ranging from ancient Greece to the twentieth century with emphasis on the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, covering Europe, the U.S. and Canada. Documented and collected between 1950 and 1989 by architectural historian and long term professor at University of Toronto, H. Allen Brooks (1925-2010) during the course of thirty years teaching and also for his book projects, including those of buildings by F.L. Wright and the Prairie School, and also by Le Corbusier.

Books

The following title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School by Allen H. Brooks
Call Number: NA737.W7 B76 1984
ISBN: 0807610844
Published/Created: 1984-10-17
Shows the floor plans and designs for homes, banks, public buildings, and furniture created by Wright and other members of the Prairie School.

Chafee (Richard) Architectural Slide Collection (1958-2003, bulk 1975-2003)

Chafee (Richard) Architectural Slide Collection
View digitized content from Richard Chafee Architectural Slide Collection
Approximately 3,200 architectural slides by Richard Chafee (1925-2004), an architectural historian and a former professor of Connecticut College and Roger Williams University. Chafee extensively researched architects who studied at École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Chafee’s slides represent works by École des Beaux-Arts graduates and beyond. Regions emphasized in slides include: France, Italy, and Germany among European countries and Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, and California in the U.S.
[Image: LC-DIG-ppmsca-99679]

Books
Periodicals

The Architecture of the École des Beaux-Arts by Arthur Drexler; Richard Chafee; École nationale supérieure des beaux-Arts (France) Staff (Contribution by); Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) Staff (Contribution by)
Call Number: NA1047.5.E34 A69
ISBN: 0870702440
Published/Created: 1977-01-01
Edward Tuckerman Potter and Samuel L. Clemens: an architect and his client. by Chafee, Richard
Call Number: PS1333 .C5 1966
Published/Created: 1996

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
Chafee, Richard. “Richardson's Record at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 36, no. 3 (1977): 175-188.

Copyright deposits

Copyright deposits
The tens of thousands of architectural photographs deposited in the Library of Congress for copyright constitute a unique and important archive in and of themselves and can be found in many locations in P&P--most readily in its self-indexing Geographic Files, where images of buildings and sites can be found under their location in a number of sizes and formats, including stereographs and souvenir brochures. In the 1980s, P&P staff selected items related to architecture, design, and engineering stored in two groups.
(1) Copyright selections for ADE (1909-1986). Approximately 1,000 prints, blueprints, plans, charts, and diagrams with some drawings, and photographs of drawings showing architecture, engineering, and design works. Material was formerly part of the Copyright Office class I deposits; arranged by year of registration. Topics include agriculture, amusements, apartments, boats, bridges, commercial buildings, design, engineering, furniture, hotels, houses, public buildings, ship designs, theater, transportation and trban plans.
(2) Copyright material selected for ADE, Level II (1928-1988). Approximately 10,000 items. Reproductions of architectural and design drawings including blueprints, "Photo-line blue prints," "Litho line prints," some original drawings and photographs. Images mostly depict buildings such as houses, apartment buildings and stores, but also include designs for objects such as automobile parts, machinery, boxes, salt shakers, display cases etc. Most date from 1920s and 1930s, some later up to the 1980s.
[Image: LC-DIG-ppmsca-12835]

Articles & Blogs

The Picture This blog invites you to share our love of pictures and the stories they can tell. Produced by specialists from the Prints & Photographs Division, you’ll see unique images and pictorial collections available to researchers at the Library of Congress—more than 14.5 million photos, posters, cartoons, architectural designs, and historical and fine art prints, many of which are available online.

One Hundred Fifty Years of Copyright at the Library of Congress
A Picture This blog celebrationg the 150 anniversary of the copyright registration and deposit system, centralized in the Library of Congress (August 7, 2020).

Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection (ca. 1880-1930, bulk 1890-1910)

Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection
View digitized content from the Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection
View background information and search the Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection
Over 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies (fully digitized) as well as about 300 color photolithograph prints (selections digitized), mostly of the eastern United States, with strong representation of city and town views, including streets and architecture, parks and gardens, recreation, and industrial and work scenes. The larger original formats (5” x 7” and larger) and many transparencies may only have a low resolution copy. Also includes over 50,000 photographs sold as prints or postcards depicting points of interest in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean area. Many images appear in color as photochrom prints; some paintings are reproduced in color as autochromes.
[Image: LC-USZC4-2651]

The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.

Detroit Publishing Company Collector's Guide by James L. Lowe (Editor); Ben Papell (Editor)
Call Number: NC1872 .L59
ISBN: 0913782076
Published/Created: 1975-01-01
Washingtoniana by Kathleen K. Collins
Call Number: Z663.39 .W37 1989
ISBN: 0844405884
Published/Created: 1989-01-01

The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.

American Art
Greene, Vivien. “Utopia/Dystopia.” American Art, vol. 25, no. 2 (2011): 2–7.
Environmental History
Youngs, Yolanda. “On Grand Canyon Postcards.” Environmental History, vol. 16, no. 1 (2011): 137–147.
IA. The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology
Coffee, Kevin. “The Material Significance of Carriage Drives to the Design of Central Park.” IA. The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology, vol. 38, no. 1 (2012): 75–92.
Abstract: This study surveys the built landscape of New York's Central Park as what Tim Ingold calls a "pattern of activities collapsed into an array of features," finding that the carriage drives are a defining feature of the park's original design. The attention to detail and economic investment in the drives embody the cultural sensibilities that governed the park's creation. They provide a theatre for genteel leisure, acculturation, and ostentatious display; direct visitors to important features of the park; and demonstrate the technical virtuosity of civic planners. The drives represented one of the largest physical efforts in the park's construction and were its most widely used feature for several decades after the park opened.
The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts
Carlebach, Michael L. “William Henry Jackson and the Florida Landscape.” The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, vol. 23 (1998): 87–95.

Dissertations and theses listed below are accessible via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (On-site access only). If you are searching at the Library of Congress or an institution which subscribes to the Database, clicking the hyperlink will bring you directly to the publication. Abstracts are retrieved from the Database when available.

Thompson, K. A. (2002). The tropicalization of the Anglophone Caribbean: The picturesque and the aesthetics and politics of space in Jamaica and the Bahamas
(ProQuest document ID: 305531757)
Abstract: In the late 19th century, colonial governments in Jamaica and the Bahamas made their first concerted efforts to start tourism industries on both British colonies. This dissertation examines the “picturesque photographs,” as they were called, which tourism promoters used in international lantern lectures, photography exhibitions, picture books, and postcards to reinvent the islands as landscapes of touristic desire at that time. I explore how these representations encouraged tourist travel and informed certain ways of seeing and representing the islands.
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I argue that what tourism promoters often identified as picturesque were parts of the landscape that most readily exhibited ideals of a “tropical landscape”—they contained recognizable “tropical plants,” organized into tamed, orderly, and garden-like displays. The very forms of “tropical vegetation,” however, which became popularized as characteristic of the islands in photographs (most famously, banana and palm trees) were those transplanted into the islands' landscapes by various colonial regimes and planters. Many representations also featured transplanted “picturesque natives,” black (and Indian) inhabitants who seemed loyal, disciplined, and clean British colonial subjects.

These picturesque photographs of the tropical landscape did more than create an ideal of the islands in the realm of visual representation; some parts of the island were actually recreated or “tropicalized” in the image of these representations. Hotel landscapes, in particular, became spaces where ideals of the picturesque tropical landscape were recreated in miniature. By examining this process of tropicalization, I investigate colonial representations as they relate to and materially shaped the specific geographical spaces they pictured, unlike many postcolonial studies of the colonial discourses and imagery in the past.

I also examine how the picturesque ideal of an orderly colonial society featured in photographs affected the politics of space on the islands and variously justified and naturalized certain colonial practices. In particular, I argue that colonial authorities attempted to exert certain social controls on the islands' inhabitants, by asserting that their respective societies had to live up to the picturesque touristic image of disciplined, law-abiding, and clean society. In doing so, I show how photography became central in both visualizing and exerting social order.
Doyle, D. A. (2003). “The world's playground”: Tourism and mass culture in Atlantic City
(ProQuest document ID; 305336779)
Abstract: Atlantic City, New Jersey was the most popular resort in turn-of-the-century America. The resort concentrated the sights and symbols of mass culture in a single location, inviting vacationers to physically enter a new shared world that otherwise existed only in mass-produced images and texts. Thousands of images of the resort circulated through picture postcards, stereo views, early motion pictures, and the urban press, linking the city to mass culture.
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The appearance of the tourist district, which mirrored the urban entertainment districts that dominated contemporary mass culture, increased the connection. Middle and working-class tourists traveled to the resort to demonstrate membership in the “imagined community” of the mass culture audience. On the beach, visitors became part of the spectacle of the tourist district as they experimented with new styles of public behavior. Crowds of vacationers became the most famous sight in Atlantic City, the physical embodiment of the mass audience and thus of modernity itself. Atlantic City became the metaphorical capital of mass culture, embodying its abstract pleasures in a three-dimensional landscape. Just as visiting the national capital allowed tourists to express their identity as American citizens, traveling to Atlantic City became a way to identify with the mass audience. The resort gave concrete form to the fantasy that consuming mass culture granted entry into an important and influential new community. Though that community lacked the cultural power enjoyed by the producers of mass entertainment, it assumed a kind of influence by association that made joining it a thrilling and novel experience, a way of proclaiming one's place in modern life. However, as the entertainment industry became centralized in New York and Los Angeles, Atlantic City lost its status as the capital of modern mass culture. Although local promoters tried to renew ties to mass culture with publicity events like the Miss America pageant, by the early nineteen-thirties the aging resort ceased to attract middle-class tourists, though it remained popular with working-class visitors from the surrounding region. The rise and fall of this early mass resort suggests the subtle yet powerful influence of mass culture on twentieth-century American history and culture.
Frunza, B. S. (2008). Streetscape and ethnicity: New York’s mulberry street and the redefinition of the Italian American ethnic identity
(ProQuest document ID: 193641038)
Abstract: The current research looked at ways in which the built environment of an ethnic enclave contributes to the definition and redefinition of the ethnic identity of its inhabitants. Assuming a dynamic component of the built environment, the study advanced the idea of the streetscape as an active agent of change in the definition and redefinition of ethnic identity. Throughout a century of existence, Little Italy—New York's most prominent Italian enclave—changed its demographics, appearance and significance; these changes resonated with changes in the ethnic identity of its inhabitants.
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From its beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century until the present, Little Italy's Mulberry Street has maintained its privileged status as the core of the enclave, but changed its symbolic role radically. Over three generations of Italian immigrants, Mulberry Street changed its role from a space of trade to a space of leisure, from a place of providing to a place of consuming, and from a social arena to a tourist tract. The photographic analysis employed in this study revealed that changes in the streetscape of Mulberry Street connected with changes in the ethnic identity of its inhabitants, from regional Southern Italian to Italian American. Moreover, the photographic evidence demonstrates the active role of the street in the permanent redefinition of the Italian American identity.
Simpson, D. E. (2013). Civic center and cultural center: The grouping of public buildings in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Detroit and the emergence of the city monumental in the modern metropolis
(ProQuest document ID: 1433827100)
Abstract: The grouping of public buildings into civic centers and cultural centers became an obsession of American city planners at the turn of the twentieth century. Following European and ancient models, and inspired by the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and the McMillan Commission plan for the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
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in 1901, architects sought to create impressive horizontal ensembles of monumental buildings in urban open spaces such as downtown plazas and quasi-suburban parks in direct opposition to the vertical thrust of commercial skyscrapers. Hitherto viewed largely through the narrow stylistic prism of the City Beautiful vs. the city practical movements, the monumental center (as Jane Jacobs termed it) continued to persist beyond the passing of neoclassicism and the rise of high modernism, thriving as an indispensable motif of futurist aspiration in the era of comprehensive and regional planning, as municipalities sought to counteract the decentralizing pull of the automobile, freeway, air travel and suburban sprawl in postwar America. The administrative civic center and arts and educational cultural center (bolstered by that icon of late urban modernity, the medical center) in turn spawned a new hybrid, the center for the performing arts, exemplified by Lincoln Center and the National Cultural Center (the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), as cities sought to integrate convention, sports, and live performance venues into inner-city urban renewal projects. Through the key case studies of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Detroit, one-time juggernauts of heavy industry and twenty-first century regions of rust-belt collapse, this study examines the emergence of the ideology of grouping public buildings in urban planning as well as the nineteenth century philology of the keywords civic center and cultural center, terms once actively employed in discourses as diverse as Swiss geography, American anthropology, Social Christianity, the schoolhouse social center movement, and cultural Zionism. It also positions these developments in relation to modern anxieties about the center and its loss, charted by such thinkers as Hans Sedlmayr, Jacques Derrida, and Henri Lefevbre, and considers the contested utopian aspirations of the monumental center as New Jerusalem, Celestial City, and Shining City on a Hill.
Taylor, E. J. (2015). Masking modernity: Black performance and the struggle for a modern identity in the progressive era south
(ProQuest document ID: 1719007682)
Abstract: Centering on the concept of dual identity, my thesis examines how the larger black community in the South adjusted to modernity through acts of masking. More specifically, this work analyzes minstrelsy and jubilee spirituals in an effort to explain what these performances meant for African Americans’ perceptions of modernity in the Progressive Era South. While previous scholars have tended to narrow their focus on the artistic productions of blacks in northern metropolises, I argue that southern blacks did not merely ride the coattails of northern artists, but took an active role in producing, negotiating, and responding to their own cultural representations.

Farm Security Administration/Office of War information (FSA/OWI) Black-and-White Negatives (1935 – 1944)

Farm Security Administration/Office of War information (FSA/OWI) Black-and-White Negatives
View digitized content from the FSA/OWI Collection
View finding aid for the Written records in the Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Collection
View background information and search the FSA/OWI Collection
One of the most notable non-commercial archives of an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944, consisting of about 175,000 black-and white film negatives (mostly digitized) which are organized into ninety four broad subject groups. Included subjects related to architecture, design, and engineering are: railroads, housing, small towns, engineering and building trades, dams, mining, cities, public buildings, and churches, amongst others.
[Image: LC-USW3-003987-D]

The following title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

Washingtoniana by Kathleen K. Collins
Call Number: F195 .L66 1989
ISBN: 0844405884
Published/Created: 1989-01-01

Simpson, D. E. (2013). Civic center and cultural center: The grouping of public buildings in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Detroit and the emergence of the city monumental in the modern metropolis
(ProQuest document ID:1433827100)
Abstract: The grouping of public buildings into civic centers and cultural centers became an obsession of American city planners at the turn of the twentieth century.
more...less...
Following European and ancient models, and inspired by the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and the McMillan Commission plan for the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 1901, architects sought to create impressive horizontal ensembles of monumental buildings in urban open spaces such as downtown plazas and quasi-suburban parks in direct opposition to the vertical thrust of commercial skyscrapers. Hitherto viewed largely through the narrow stylistic prism of the City Beautiful vs. the city practical movements, the monumental center (as Jane Jacobs termed it) continued to persist beyond the passing of neoclassicism and the rise of high modernism, thriving as an indispensable motif of futurist aspiration in the era of comprehensive and regional planning, as municipalities sought to counteract the decentralizing pull of the automobile, freeway, air travel and suburban sprawl in postwar America. The administrative civic center and arts and educational cultural center (bolstered by that icon of late urban modernity, the medical center) in turn spawned a new hybrid, the center for the performing arts, exemplified by Lincoln Center and the National Cultural Center (the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), as cities sought to integrate convention, sports, and live performance venues into inner-city urban renewal projects. Through the key case studies of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Detroit, one-time juggernauts of heavy industry and twenty-first century regions of rust-belt collapse, this study examines the emergence of the ideology of grouping public buildings in urban planning as well as the nineteenth century philology of the keywords civic center and cultural center, terms once actively employed in discourses as diverse as Swiss geography, American anthropology, Social Christianity, the schoolhouse social center movement, and cultural Zionism. It also positions these developments in relation to modern anxieties about the center and its loss, charted by such thinkers as Hans Sedlmayr, Jacques Derrida, and Henri Lefevbre, and considers the contested utopian aspirations of the monumental center as New Jerusalem, Celestial City, and Shining City on a Hill.

Finding Unprinted FSA/OWI Photographs–It’s Easier Now!
A Picture This blog introducing an easier access to the FSA/OWI photo collection (September 5, 2013).
Sampling Slices of the FSA/OWI Collection
A Picture This blog introducing samples of the FSA/OWI collection (July 2, 2015).
Shadowing a Midwife in Greene County, Georgia
A Picture This blog introducing photos from the FSA/OWI collection, focusing on the life of a midwife. The images also show her house in Siloam, Greene County, Georgia and landscapes around (September 6, 2023).

The Library’s webcasts provide opportunities to learn more about the Library collections and special subjects, through recording of talks by creators, authors, and Library specialists. About 400,000 programs have been recorded and nearly 10,000 are available online.

Documenting America, 1935-1943: The Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photo Collection
Carl Fleischhauer, co-author of a book about the FSA-OWI photo collection, talks about the colloection and his finding. The webcast provides two parts. Transcrpt is also available.
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Part I: Description of the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information (FSA-OWI) Photograph Collection at the Library of Congress. History of the New Deal photographic unit and its creation of documentary images from 1935 to 1943, which portray scenes of the Great Depression, farms and small town life, and the buildup of American industry for World War II.
Part II: Suggestions for using the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information (FSA-OWI) Photograph Collection at the Library of Congress to support research. Includes case studies of the photographic documentation of the tenant farm community of Gee's Bend in Alabama by Arthur Rothstein in 1937 and of the New Mexico Hispanic community of Las Trampas by John Collier in 1943.

Geographic File filing series (1880-1950, bulk 1880-1930)

Geographic File filing series
View digitized content from the Geographic File filing series
Approximately 38,300 photographic and photomechanical prints (selections digitized), showing structures, cities and towns, countryside, landscapes, and people among other geographically related subjects between 1880 and 1950 (Bulk 1880-1930), arranged by three filing series: (1) U.S. GEOG File, (2) U.S. GEOG FILE WASHINGTON, DC, and (3) FOREIGN GEOG FILE. States of California, Massachusetts, New York, particularly New York City, and Virginia are the most heavily represented in the U.S. GEOG FILE. The U.S. GEOG FILE – WASHINGTON, DC has extensive coverage of life in the capital with structures, particularly the U.S. Capitol Building and the Library of Congress, well represented. A variety of general subjects such as geographic features, monuments and memorials, organizations, and industries are represented. In the FOREIGN GEOG FILE, the countries of England, France, Germany and Italy are heavily represented.
[Image: LC-USZ62-55439]

Harris & Ewing Collection (1905-1945)

Harris & Ewing Collection
View digitized content from the Harris & Ewing Collection
View background information and search the Harris & Ewing Collection
Approximately 70,000 negatives (selections digitized) produced by Harris & Ewing Studio documenting people, events, and architecture, particularly in Washington, DC during the period 1905-1945.
[Image: LC-DIG-hec-08206]

Books
Articles & Blogs

The following title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

Washingtoniana by Kathleen K. Collins
Call Number: F195 .L66 1989
ISBN: 0844405884
Published/Created: 1989-01-01

Mystery Gadgets Galore!
A Picture This blog introducing a virtual webinar "Object Lesson: Gadgets in the Harris & Ewing Collection." The Collection includes a number of uncaptioned photographs that feature “gadgets” of unknown purpose – gadgets being a catchall term here for sometimes rather large and elaborate mechanical, electrical, and scientific devices.

Hopping (Dan) Photographs of Sites in CT, MA, NJ, and NY (1930-1947)

Hopping (Dan) Photographs of Sites in CT, MA, NJ, and NY
Approximately 1,000 architectural photographs of sites in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York (state and city) by Dan Hopping. Collection also includes pictorial or commemorative envelopes most relating to Boston, Massachusetts, general record and correspondence, Hopping’s correspondence with Frank Choteau Brown, and the Mulford House report. Photographs were probably intended for Pictorial Archives of early American Architecture.

Look Magazine Photograph Collection (mid-20th century, bulk 1952-1971)

Look Magazine Photograph Collection
View digitized content from the Look Magazine Photograph Collection
View finding aid for the Look Magazine Picture Research File
View background information and search the Look Magazine Photograph Collection
A vast photographic archive with five million photographic items (selections digitized) depicting mid-twentieth century (most dating 1952-1971) American life, culture, and interests, as well as some views of other countries, such as Russia, China, Cuba and India and international events such as the Vietnam War. Architectural related subjects such as buidlings (exterior, ineterior, details, decoration), cities, technologies, and people (architects, clients) are part of the broad range of subjects covered in the collection.
[Image: LC-DIG-ds-09978]

National Photo Company collection (1850-1945, bulk 1909-1932)

National Photo Company Collection
View digitized content from the National Photo Company Collection
View background information and search the National Photo Company Collection
Approximately 40,000 negatives and 40,000 photographic prints (mostly digitized) documenting all aspects of Washington DC which also include buildings, monuments, and landscapes.
[Image: LC-DIG-npcc-30277]

Books
Articles & Blogs

The following title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

Washingtoniana by Kathleen K. Collins
Call Number: Z663.39 .W37 1989
ISBN: 0844405884
Published/Created: 1989-01-01

The Lincoln Memorial at 100
A Picture This blog introducing photographs showing the Lincoln Memorial dedication on Mary 30, 1922.

New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection (ca. 1880-1967, bulk 1920-1967)

New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper (NYWTS) Photograph Collection
View digitized content from the NYWTS Photograph Collection
View finding aid for the NYWTS Photograph Collection, Biographical File, A to L
View finding aid for the NYWTS Photograph Collection, Biographical File, M to Z
View finding aid for the NYWTS Photograph Collection, Subject/Geographical File
View research guide for the NYWTS Photograph Collection
Approximately one million photographic prints of newsworthy images predominantly of the New York City metropolitan area, also covers other United States areas and foreign countries (selections digitized). Subject coverage includes some content related to architecture, design, and engineering, such as housing, monuments, and transportation.
[Image: LC-DIG-ds-10138]

Articles & Blogs

New Resource List: Newspaper Photograph Morgues
A Picture This blog introducing the New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, which offer an immediacy and perspective on past events that make them among the most popularly requested items in our collections (November 30, 2011).
Taking to the Streets: New York World-Telegram & Sun Staff Photos
A Picture This blog introducing richness of the Collection (December 9, 2015).

Panoramic Photograph filing series (1851-1991, bulk 1880-1930)

Panoramic Photograph filing series
View digitized content from the Panoramic Photographs filing series
View background information and search the Panoramic Photographs filing series
Over 4,200 images (mostly digitized) include cityscapes, landscapes, engineering work such as bridges, canals and dams, fairs and expositions, schools and college campuses, and transportation in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. More than twenty foreign countries and a few U.S. territories are also represented.
[Image: LC-DIG-pan-6a36608]

Books

The following title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

Washingtoniana by Kathleen K. Collins
Call Number: F195 .L66 1989
ISBN: 0844405884
Published/Created: 1989-01-01

Plowden (David) Photographs of architecture, landscapes, and transportation in the United States and Canada (1959-1981, bulk 1960s-1970s)

Plowden (David) Photographs of architecture, landscapes, and transportation in the United States and Canada
View digitized content from the David Plowden Collection
View finding aid for the David Plowden collection
164 large format photographic prints showing details of vernacular buildings such as barns; rural, small town, industrial, and urban landscape scenes and transportation (railroads, ferries, steamships, and roadways). Many images document vanishing aspects of the built environment or the last trip of a steam-powered vehicle. Also includes several portraits. The images are from more than 30 states in the continental United States and 3 provinces in Canada.
[Image: LC-DIG-ppmsca-09503]

Postcard filing series (1890-2009, bulk 1982-1999)

Postcard filing series
View digitized content from the Postcard filing series
View research guide for the Postcard collections
Over 56,000 photographic and printed postcards (selections digitizec) showing foreign and U.S. geographical views, architecture, and decorative arts, and art reproductions, ranging between 1890 and 1959, sorted by subject.
[Image: LC-DIG-ppmsca-39490]

Related collections at LC (links go to catalog records):

Postcard file [2009 addition]

Periodicals
Articles & Blogs

The following title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

Environmental History
Youngs, Yolanda. “On Grand Canyon Postcards.” Environmental History, vol. 16, no. 1 (2011): 137–147.

Research Guide – Postcards: Greetings from the Prints & Photographs Division
A Picture This blog introducing the launch of the research guide (June 21, 2019).
Postcard Views From Above
A Picture This blog introducing postcards showing aerial views of big cities, small towns, mountaintops and wide sandy beaches (November 13, 2024).

Roos, (Frank J. Jr.) Collection of American Architecture (1930-1966)

Roos, (Frank J. Jr.) Collection of American Architecture
View digitized content from the Roos Collection
More than 5,500 photographic materials and postcards (selections digitized with datasheets), created and collected by University of Illinois professor Frank John Roos, Jr. (1903-1967). Items have been incorporated in P&P’s Historic American Buildings Survey as supplementary materials.

Books

The following title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

Writings on early American architecture; an annotated list of books and articles on architecture constructed before 1860 in the eastern half of the United States by Roos, Frank John, Jr.
Call Number: Z5944.U5 R6
Published/Created: 1943

Souvenir viewbooks filing series (ca. 1880-ca 1970, bulk ca. 1890-ca. 1920)

Souvenir viewbooks filing series
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Approximately 1,100 items (selections digitized), containing photographic materials and postcard views, were produced for travelers. They were also popular with businessmen and real estate investors who often gave them to clients to stimulate settlement and investment in certain geographic areas.
[Image: LC-DIG-ppmsca-55322]

Articles & Blogs

Take a Trip with Souvenir Viewbooks
A Picture This blog introducing the Souvenir Viewbooks (March 8, 2018).

Stereograph File filing series (1860-1945, bulk 1870-1920)

Stereograph File filing series
View digitized content from the Stereograph File filing series
View finding aid for the Stereographs showing staged story sequences
View background information and search the Stereograph File filing series
Heavily represented states include California, Colorado, New York, and Pennsylvania. The file also has significant documentation for the cities of Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC (mostly digitized).
[Image: LC-DIG-stereo-1s21384]

Thomas (Chester H.) Covered Bridge Postcards (1930-1938)

Thomas (Chester H.) Covered Bridge Postcards
937 black-and-white photographs printed on postcard stock, depicting covered bridges in the United States taken in the 1930's. Versos may contain hand written information on county, river, bridge name, date, and whether the bridge was demolished or not.

U.S. News and World Report Magazine Photograph Collection (1952-1986, bulk 1955-1979)

U.S. News and World Report Magazine Photograph Collection
View digitized content from the U.S. News and World Report Magazine Photograph Collection
View finding aid for the U.S. News and World Report Magazine Photograph Collection
View research guide for the U.S. News and World Report Magazine Photograph Collection
Over 1.2 million chronological pictorial materials (selections digitized) representing local, national, and international news topics, with particular emphasis on Washington, DC and the United States. Amongst the broad subjects, Washington, DC, sites, particularly federal government buildings and monuments as well as housing are included. Other scens related architecture, design, and engineering, such as stations, factories, and aircrafts can also be found.
[Image: LC-DIG-ppmsca-50327]

Books
Articles & Blogs

The following title links to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog.

Washingtoniana by Kathleen K. Collins
Call Number: F195 .L66 1989
ISBN: 0844405884
Published/Created: 1989-01-01

The Changing Face of Washington, D.C. in the U.S News & World Report Magazine Photo Collection
A Picture This blog introducing the U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photo Collection and the upcoming virtual presentation (January 28, 2022).

Wriston (Barbara) collection of slides of world architecture (1939-1982, bulk 1950s-1970s)

Wriston (Barbara) collection of slides of world architecture
6,564 slides of architecture all over the world by art and architecture historian Barbara Wriston (1917-2013). Wriston was a brilliant, talented, gallant and indomitable figure, an ardent feminist, gifted educator, intrepid traveler to all parts of the globe.

Architecture, Design and Engineering Collections in the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division

Prints & Photographs: Ask a Librarian

Other Collections

Albertype Company (1890s-1950s)

American architectural drawings in foreign collections: Sources (1965-1968)

Architectural material from various sources (1930-1940)

Brooks (H. Allen) teaching slide collection of architectural photographs (18-20th centuries)

Chafee (Richard) Architectural Slide Collection (1958-2003, bulk 1975-2003)

Copyright deposits

Detroit Publishing Company Photograph Collection (ca. 1880-1930, bulk 1890-1910)

Farm Security Administration/Office of War information (FSA/OWI) Black-and-White Negatives (1935 – 1944)

Geographic File filing series (1880-1950, bulk 1880-1930)

Harris & Ewing Collection (1905-1945)

Hopping (Dan) Photographs of Sites in CT, MA, NJ, and NY (1930-1947)

Look Magazine Photograph Collection (mid-20th century, bulk 1952-1971)

National Photo Company collection (1850-1945, bulk 1909-1932)

New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection (ca. 1880-1967, bulk 1920-1967)

Panoramic Photograph filing series (1851-1991, bulk 1880-1930)

Plowden (David) Photographs of architecture, landscapes, and transportation in the United States and Canada (1959-1981, bulk 1960s-1970s)

Postcard filing series (1890-2009, bulk 1982-1999)

Roos, (Frank J. Jr.) Collection of American Architecture (1930-1966)

Souvenir viewbooks filing series (ca. 1880-ca 1970, bulk ca. 1890-ca. 1920)

Stereograph File filing series (1860-1945, bulk 1870-1920)

Thomas (Chester H.) Covered Bridge Postcards (1930-1938)

U.S. News and World Report Magazine Photograph Collection (1952-1986, bulk 1955-1979)

Wriston (Barbara) collection of slides of world architecture (1939-1982, bulk 1950s-1970s)