Library of Congress: Prints and Photographs Reading Room

Introductory Information

Library of Congress: Prints and Photographs Reading Room

Address: 101 Independence Avenue SE, James Madison Building, Room LM337, Washington, DC 20540-4730

Telephone number: 202-707-6394

Contact information

Online catalog

Digital Collections link

Access Policies

Hours of service

Open to the public: Yes

IInterlibrary loan: No

Reference policy: Reference requests are accepted by: Ask-a-Librarian form, telephone, paper mail, in person.

A Library of Congress Reader Registration card is required to use Library of Congress reading rooms. To obtain a registration card, applicants must be 16 years of age or older and present photo identification bearing a verifiable permanent address. Please see Reader Registration and Access to Library of Congress Reading Rooms.

Background note:
The Prints and Photographs Division was formally established in 1897 as the Department of Graphic Arts. The core of the Library's early American holdings consist of the copyrighted prints and photographs transferred from the United States District Courts and (later) the Copyright Office. The Prints and Photographs collections today number over 16 million images. These include photographs, cartoons, fine art and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people.

Content

Images
Religion-related images are found throughout the collections. Most of the pictures are 19th- and 20th-century photographs and architectural drawings of American church buildings in all states and primarily representing Christian denominations. The leaders, facilities, and activities of many other religions in the United States and throughout the world are also represented.

Some relevant materials from major collections are listed below:

Architecture, Design, and Engineering Drawings Collection--hundreds of 19th- and 20th-century architectural drawings and sketches of churches and other religious structures from all over the world. The collection includes a large number of architectural drawings of churches in the Washington, D.C. area designed by Arthur Heaton, Waddy B. Wood, Thomas Tileston Waterman, and others. Also notable are the designs by Richard Morris Hunt and Victor Lundy.
British Cartoon Collection--prints satirizing church-state relations in England in the 18th century.
Camilo J. Vergara Archive—more than 2,000 photographs, primarily 1990s-present, show African American and Hispanic American houses of worship and people in such large cities as Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York.
Churches in the United States—more than 6,000 postcards show churches in the United States. Primarily exteriors; some interiors with views of altars, organs, and such architectural as stained glass windows. Includes some missions. Also known as the Werner E. Weber Collection.
F. Holland Day Collection--numerous photographic figure studies with religious themes, 1895-1917, including stylized representations of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.
French Political Cartoon Collection--caricatures and other images satirizing the state of religion in France from the Revolution through the Second Empire (1789-1870).
Religious experimentation and experience in America—close to 300 stereographs, mid-1800s to 1930s.
Schreiber Collection of European Book Illustrations—several thousand engravings from books, 1450 to 1800s, show Biblical scenes and portraits of religious leaders.
Sergei M. Prokudin-Gorskiĭ Photograph Collection—color photographs show churches, cathedrals, and mosques in the Russian Empire, 1905-1915.

Carol M. Highsmith Archive
More than 2,000 photographs, primarily 1980s-present, show churches
Detroit Publishing Company Colllection
Hundreds of photographs, 1880-1930, of churches and chapels of all major denominations from the United States, Canada, Cuba, and Mexico; religious services on United States naval vessels and military installations; Christian, Buddhist, and Aztec religious artifacts; Shaker communities; synagogues; and paintings with religious themes.
Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information
More than 2,000 black-and-white photographs of church buildings, religious services and meetings (Catholic, Jewish, Baptist, Mormon, and other denominations), artifacts, Salvation Army work, itinerant preaching, revivals, ceremonies (baptisms, funerals, weddings, and others), hymn singing, and religious billboards and signs from across the United States, 1930s and 1940s.
Gottscho-Schleisner Collection
Hundreds of architectural photographs of churches, chapels, cathedrals, synagogues, seminaries, religious elementary and secondary schools, and parish buildings from many localities in the United States, but focusing on the New York metropolitan area, 1920-1970.
Hecht Collection of Bilderbogen, (Picture Sheets)
More than 500 prints portray religious scenes, themes, and saints, primarily from Germany and France in the mid-1800s to 1910s.
Historic American Buildings Survey
• Thousands of measured drawings, photographs, and supplementary written records dating from 1933 and describing more than 1,400 churches, cathedrals, chapels, synagogues, Native American and Native Hawaiian ceremonial sites, Quaker and Unitarian meeting houses, Shaker communities, missions, parsonages, convents, monasteries, and other religious structures in the United States.
Kandell Collection of Sikkim Photographs
Several hundred photographs, 1965-1979, show Buddhist monks, Llamas, ceremonies, and temples.
Korab (Balthazar) Collection
Several thousand architectural photographs for several hundred churches primarily in the United States and for cathedrals primarily in Europe.
Lamb Studios Archive,
Features nearly 2,900 design sketches for stained glass windows, murals, mosaics, furnishings, metalwork, and interior architecture, most of which date from 1890-1990. The drawings are striking watercolors created from the 1860s to the 1990s, primarily for churches, synagogues, and other sacred spaces
Look Magazine Photographs
Photographs taken for Look magazine from the 1950s to 1971, including photographs taken for a 1957 series of articles entitled "The Story of Religion in America" showing Methodists, Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists, Disciples of Christ, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Mormons, Presbyterians, Quakers, Baptists, Christian Scientists, and Jews engaged in worship services, church- or synagogue-related social activities, religious instruction, meetings and assemblies, and other activities. The collection also contains photographs for a 1959 article on "California's Offbeat Religions" showing the activities of an isolated communal sect, the "W.K.F.L. Fountain of the World"; and portraits of prominent religious figures, such as Francis Cardinal Spellman (1957) and Laurian Cardinal Rugambwa of what is now Tanzania (1961), the first black African cardinal.
Matson Photo Service
Approximately 25,000 photographs taken primarily between 1898 and 1946 of Palestine in general and Jerusalem in particular, including numerous images of religious sites and shrines. Also included are aerial photographs, portraits, and posed pictures depicting Biblical scenes.
New York World-Telegram and Sun Collection
Photographs assembled by a New York newspaper, mainly from 1920 to 1967, and including a variety of religious subjects: camp meetings, Baha'i, the Church of God, the Church of the Brethren, the Doukhobors, Jehovah's Witnesses (about 90 photos), Mennonites, Satanic Church services, Seventh-day Adventists, and snake-handling cults. There are also photographs of prominent religious personalities, including Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, Billy Graham (157 photographs), Reinhold Niebuhr (six photographs), Oral Roberts, and Bishop Fulton Sheen. These materials are stored off site; turnaround time for retrieval of materials is 5 days
Panoramic Photos
Numerous photographs of churches, Sunday school and Bible classes (including one sponsored by William Jennings Bryan, 1921), religious conventions (Lutheran, Methodist, Mormon, Seventh-day Adventist), revivals, Catholic masses, and religious services in the United States military, ca. 1902-1933.
Photochrom Prints
Several hundred color print photographs, primarily 1890-1910, document churches and other religious sites that are tourist destinations, primarily in Europe, the United States, and the Mideast.
Photographs Selected from the Königliche Preussische Messbildanstalt
More than 350 detailed photographs of cathedrals and churches, primarily in Germany, 1885-1910.
Stereographs
Stereographs published by many photographers. Includes the Keystone View Company with scenes of religious life from various places around the world, including a religious procession of children in Montreal from the 1910 International Eucharistic Congress; prayers at a Japanese shrine (1905); a religious procession in Moscow (1926); church buildings in Guatemala (1902), Nicaragua (1902), Germany (1920), the U.S. (Boston, 1924), and England (1926); Koran instruction in Egypt (1899); and Chinese ancestral tablets (1905).
Theodor Horydczak Collection
Over 400 photographs of churches, cathedrals (with a particular emphasis on the National Cathedral), convents, rectories, mosques, religious schools, and religious articles (vestments, statuary, communion service, Bibles, and other religious books) from the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, ca. 1920-1950.
U.S. News and World Report Magazine Photograph Collection
About 250 photographs of religious subjects, including church buildings, religious meetings and conferences, artifacts, and anti-war demonstrations, 1960s and 1970s.

In addition, relevant materials may be found in subject, geographic, and biographical files in the reading room. Samples of such material are listed below:

Specific subject files (most under the subject headings "religion," "religious articles," and "religious groups" with various subheadings) of photographs of camp meetings, revivals, religious services, missions among American Indians, and pictures related to various denominations--Catholics, Latter-day Saints (listed in the subject file under "Mormons"), Eastern Orthodox, Jehovah's Witnesses, Schwenkfelders, and Doukhobors.
Specific subject files of illustrations (file nos. 4443 and 4445) from published works (including Bibles, Goethe's Faust, and Dante's Divine Comedy), depicting angels, Judgment Day, Jesus, Moses, saints, churches, the Crucifixion, witchcraft, and allegorical representations of religious themes.
Geographic files contain pictures of churches, cathedrals, mosques, and temples from around the world.

The descriptions provided above are not exhaustive. Additional items and collections are searchable by title, subject, and artist in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, and the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Fuller descriptions of some collection material may be found in finding aids made by the Prints & Photographs Division. Researchers should consult with reference staff for information on specific collections or subject research on specific types of images.

Digital collections

Subject Headings

Angels; Baptists; Bible; Buddhists; Cathedrals; Catholic Church; Chapels; Christian sects; Church architecture; Church buildings; Church decoration and ornament; Church of God; Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Church of the Brethren; Convents; Doukhobors; Episcopal Church; Graham, Billy, 1918- ; Holy Land; Indians of North America--Religion; Jehovah's Witnesses; Jesus Christ--Art; John XXIII, Pope (Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli), 1881-1963; Judgment Day; Mennonites; Mission buildings; Missions and missionaries; Monasteries; Moses (Biblical leader); Moslems; Mosques; Niebuhr, Reinhold, 1892-1971; Paul VI, Pope (Giovanni Battista Montini), 1897-1978; Religion and state--France--1789-1870; Religion and state--Great Britain--18th century; Religious art; Religious articles; Religious education; Revivals; Ritual; Roberts, Oral, 1918- ; Rugambwa, Laurian, Cardinal, 1912- ; Russian Orthodox Church; Saints; Satanism; Schwenkfelders; Seminaries; Seventh-day Adventists; Shakers; Sheen, Fulton J., Bishop, 1895-1979; Snake handling; Spellman, Francis, Cardinal, 1889-1967; Sunday schools; Synagogues; Temples; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975--Protest movements--Religious aspects; Washington National Cathedral

Bibliography

Guide to the special collections of prints & photographs in the Library of Congress, by Library of Congress. Reference Department.
Call Number: Microfilm 79589
Published/Created: 1955