Here are the photographs from which the current selection of randomized header images on this blog were drawn. All of these images are housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. What do these photographs have to do with the history of knowledge? What stories do they tell? What questions do they raise?
(Click on the individual images to enlarge and for their captions and credits.)
Computer Maintenance Operations Center, Beale Air Force Base, California, by Joseph Scott Murphey
“Trampas, New Mexico. Mrs. Maclovia Lopez, can read and write English well; she also keeps the family books in the evening and helps the children with their homework,” January 1943
Old Corner Bookstore (first brick building in Boston, MA), ca. 1900, Detroit Publishing Co.
Classroom in a Washington, DC, public school, ca. 1899, by Frances Benjamin Johnston
Processing catalog cards in the Library of Congress, ca. 1917–20
Agricultural and Mechanical College, Greensboro, NC Biological laboratory
Blacksmithing at Agricultural and Mechanical College, Greensboro, N.C.
Apprentices in workshops of Hebrew Technical Institute, Haifa, ca. 1920–33
Farm couple working on their bookkeeping at dining room table, ca. 1930
Three women sewing plane wing fabric in De Land, Florida, April 1942
Additions, February 28, 2020
“The master workman. Sitting cross-legged in his tiny shop in one of the queer streets of Prizren, this Turkish artisan works long hours every day making sugar tongs, napkin rings and all sorts of silver filligree works. Serving as an apprentice in his shop is a Serbian boy who was adopted by the silversmith from the American Red Cross orphanage in Skopjle. He, too, is becoming an expert at fashioning the most elaborate designs out of silver which is purer than sterling.” 1920. American National Red Cross Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017677460.
“Wife of FSA (Farm Security Administration) client reading book to her son on swing on her front porch,” Sabine Farms, Marshall, Texas. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017783144.
“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.” 1945. Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017758769.
“Stacks, Fourth Level – Free Library of Philadelphia, Central Library, 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia” by Joseph Elliot. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/pa4067.photos.573870p.