Article - The Daguerreian Society

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Article 6 Figure 5 Unattributed. (Children of Lt. Montgomery C. Meigs in donkey cart.) Sixth-plate daguerreotype, 1850 or 1851. Gift of Miss Louisa Alger, 1962. for illustration in a publication that they are working on? C.J. Images that are in the public domain, such as our daguerreotypes, can be downloaded directly from our Web site. If the photograph is protected by copyright, researchers must obtain permission from the owner of the copyright. We provide rights status information in all of our catalog records. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/rights.html L.W. Are there projects that you are presently working on that you can tell us about? C.J. I am co-authoring a collection profile on photochrom prints with a specialist on the reference staff. (Photochrom prints were popular at the turn of the twentieth century. They are color lithographic prints that look like color photographs.) The collection profile goes online later this year, along with a group of 500 photochrom prints that we recently received as a gift. I am also writing an article about Timothy O’Sullivan’s Western stereoviews. This grew out of a project to organize and catalog our backlog of stereoviews, which numbers in the tens of thousands. Interns and a P&P cataloger have helped make our stereo collection more accessible to researchers over the past five years or so. L.W. The article about Timothy O’Sullivan’s Western stereoviews - - when and where will it be published? Will there be an exhibition? C.J. Toby Jurovics at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum is organizing an exhibition entitled Framing the West: The Expedition Photographs of Timothy H. O’Sullivan. It is scheduled to be on view in Washington between April 2 and July 11, 2010. My essay will appear in the exhibit catalog. L.W. Are there any potential future projects that might involve daguerreotypes? C.J. I am working with the Library’s conservation staff on a plan to conserve our daguerreotypes by Robert Cornelius. L.W. Is the Library currently acquiring photographs for its collection (explain)? C.J. Yes. We actively seek old and new photographs for the collections. We love to receive donations and have some funds for purchases. L.W. Is there a particular subject or area that is currently of interest in this regard? C.J. The Library’s 19 th century collections are very strong, so it is usually more a matter of filling gaps than acquiring large bodies of work. That said, last year we acquired a large collection of early, American stereoviews by George Stacy to complement our stereos acquired by copyright deposit from the 1870s onward. On the contemporary front, we tend to collect “issueoriented” work rather than strictly “art photography.” Recent acquisitions include work concerning the female body by Jen Davis (self-portraits that address obesity) and Lauren Greenfield’s work on anorexia; images related to the war in Iraq; environmental landscape views; and views of China’s rapid industrialization. L.W. How is the Library of Congress addressing the current advent of digital photographic images in terms of (a.) new additions to the collection and (b.) providing access to the collection? C.J. We have acquired some “born digital” work. I have not been directly involved with these acquisitions. A Maryland- based architectural photographer, named Carol Highsmith, regularly donates digital files to the Library. Some of her photographs, including digital photographs of the Library of Congress may be seen online. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/ highsmhtml/highsmabt.html L.W. Are there parts of the collection that are your personal favorites? C.J. I am particularly fond of the unique and unusual photo albums that are included in our collection. L.W. How are they unique or unusual? C.J. Many are one of a kind. For example, we have an album assembled in the 1880s by an artist named Kate Williams. She purchased standard tourist views of Europe and transformed them by drawing elaborate borders on the mounts (Figure 6). L.W. Can you tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know about you? C.J. I enjoy hiking, bicycling, canoeing, and training my border collies in agility and frisbee. The Daguerreian Society Newsletter January–April 2008 u
L.W. With the Annual Symposium taking place this coming November in Washington, D.C., do you have any other comments or insight that you can share with members of The Daguerreian Society? C.J. I hope that society members will visit the Library when they are in town for the symposium. I would be happy to show the Library’s daguerreotypes to members by appointment. Please keep in mind that the Prints and Photographs Division is not open on weekends. Public tours of the Library’s Jefferson Building are offered Monday through Saturday at 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., and 3:30 p.m. (although there is no 3:30 p.m. tour on Saturdays). These free tours are open to individuals and small groups with no more than 10 participants. No reservations or tickets are required. The Daguerreian Society Newsletter u January–April 2008 Article Figure 6 Unattributed. II Duomo, Milan. Albumen silver print, ca. 1875. Page 20 of an illuminated album compiled by Kate Williams in 1886. L.W. Carol, thank you for all the support that you have given The Daguerreian Society over the years. And also, thank you for the generous invitation that you have extended to our members to visit the Library of Congress and see the national treasurers that you manage and care for. Note: An excellent publication that covers the pictorial collection of the Library of Congress is: Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States by Vincent Virga and the Curators of the Library of Congress, Historical commentary by Alan Brinkley (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1997). 7
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