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The Oval Office as redecorated for President Biden

A Look Inside Biden’s Oval Office

The oval office looks different now that President Biden is its occupant.
by Annie Linskey via Washington Post on January 20, 2021
A social gathering in 1862

The 19th-Century Roots of Instagram

Social networks existed long before the invention of social media.
by Adrienne Lundgren via Library of Congress on December 14, 2020
A Black enslaved woman holding a white child.

The Visual Documentation of Racist Violence in America

Before and during the Civil War, both enslavers and abolitionists used photography to garner support for their causes.
by Mary Niall Mitchell via Black Perspectives on November 4, 2020
Side-by-side photos of Frederick Douglass, and his descendant Kenneth Morris dressed and posed to match the Douglass photo.

These Portraits Revisit the Legacies of Famous Americans

Photographer Drew Gardner painstakingly recreates the images with the notable figures' descendants.
by Jennie Rothenburg Gritz via Smithsonian on July 7, 2020
A portrait of Olivia Ramirez, 22, a full-time nanny in Tulsa.

For the Osage Nation, Photography Has Harmed—and Healed

In rural Oklahoma, an Osage photographer creates portraits of resilience.
by Rachel Brown, Ryan Redcorn via National Geographic on May 19, 2020
Eight daguerreotype portraits.

Samuel Morse and the Quest for the Daguerreotype Portrait

When a remarkable new invention by Louis Daguerre was announced by the French, it was American inventor Samuel Morse who sensed its commercial potential.
by Sarah Kate Gillespie via The MIT Press Reader on March 16, 2020
Caricature of Oscar Wilde in between a sunflower in a vase with the U.S. dollar symbol on it, and a lion with sunflower petals for a mane.

The Wilde Woman and the Sunflower Apostle: Oscar Wilde in the United States

Victoria Dailey looks back at Oscar Wilde’s wild ride through the United States in the early 1880s.
by Victoria Dailey via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 8, 2020
Portrait of George Washington with lips pursed.

George Washington's Biggest Battle? With his Dentures, Made From Hippo Ivory and Maybe Slaves' Teeth

The British were a pain, to be sure, but what really caused him trouble were his teeth.
by William Maloney via The Conversation on July 2, 2019
Unidentified African American soldier in Union uniform with wife and two daughters.

Race in Black and White

Slavery and the Civil War were central to the development of photography as both a technology and an art.
by Alexis L. Boylan via Boston Review on June 3, 2019

‘They Will Remember Us’: The Miners of Black Harlan

A photographer travels to the heart of Appalachia to spend time with the area's last surviving black former coal miners.
by Radcliffe Roye via New York Review of Books on May 3, 2019
Unnamed Black girl.

An Unnamed Girl, a Speculative History

What a photograph reveals about the lives of young black women at the turn of the century.
by Saidiya Hartman via The New Yorker on February 9, 2019

The Making of an Iconic Photograph: Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother

The complex backstory of one of the most famous images of the Great Depression.
by Jason Kottke via kottke.org on January 31, 2019
Bearded civil war soldier.

Who’s Behind That Beard?

Historians are using facial recognition software to identify people in Civil War photographs.
by Erica X. Eisen via Slate on November 15, 2018
Artist Titus Kaphar says that his 2014 Columbus Day Painting—which greets "Unseen" visitors in the first gallery—was inspired by his young son’s conflicted and confusing study of the putative discoverer of America.

Two Artists in Search of Missing History

A new exhibition makes a powerful statement about the oversights of American history and America’s art history.
by Alicia Ault via Smithsonian on April 4, 2018
Banthe Bombers protest photograph by Richard Avedon.

Richard Avedon and James Baldwin’s Joint Examination of American Identity

Their 1964 collaboration, "Nothing Personal," brought together aspects of American life and culture through photographs and text.
by Hilton Als via The New Yorker on November 6, 2017
Abraham Lincoln and John C. Calhoun

The Great Lengths Taken to Make Abraham Lincoln Look Good in Portraits

One famous image of the president features a body that isn't his.
by Michael Waters via Atlas Obscura on July 12, 2017

The Dramatic Life and Mysterious Death of Theodosia Burr

The fate of Aaron Burr's daughter remains a topic of contention.
by Hadley Meares via Atlas Obscura on October 7, 2016
Composite photo of a child wearing a work clothes.

Composite Photographs of Child Labourers

A unique set of composite photographs by Lewis Hine depicting Southern cotton mill workers.
by Lewis Hine, Adam Green via The Public Domain Review on January 16, 2016
A decayed daguerreotype portrait of Mary Woodburn Greeley, an older woman wearing spectacles and a headscarf.

Decayed Daguerreotypes

Images of decaying daguerreotypes whose photographic fixing was subject to decay like the people they captured.
by Adam Green via The Public Domain Review on January 8, 2013
Rembrandt Peale's portrait of Thomas Jefferson wearing a simple black coat.

Dressing Down for the Presidency

Thomas Jefferson's republican simplicity.
by Gaye Wilson via White House Historical Association on November 1, 2012
George Washington and his mother, Mary Ball Washington, attending a ball celebrating the surrender at Yorktown in 1781

The Reinvention of George Washington’s Mother, From Virtuous to Greedy to Striving for Independence

A new biography examines how 19th-century Americans remembered Mary Ball Washington, who raised the future president on her own after her husband’s death.
by Rebecca Brenner Graham, Kate Haulman via Smithsonian Magazine on September 11, 2025
Portraits of David Crichton and William Ansah Sessarakoo.

The Record Scratch: Uncovering Documents Relating to William Ansah Sessarakoo

As it turns out, as much as this clutch of papers is about a specific story of Atlantic slavery it still relates to British finance and national politics.
by Jayne Ptolemy via Commonplace on June 17, 2025

Donald Trump on Mount Rushmore Would Make More Historical Sense Than You Think

That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
by Matthew Davis via Slate on March 13, 2025
he obverse (right) and reverse (left) of the James H. Hyde Medallion, designed by Paul H. Manship, on the Janvier reduction machine.

Tokens of Culture

On the medallic art of the Gilded Age.
by James Panero via The New Criterion on December 12, 2024
Photo by Ralph Ellison of men standing by a street in New York City.

Ralph Ellison’s Alchemical Camera

The novelist's aestheticizing impulse contrasts with the relentless seriousness of his observations and critiques of American society.
by Jed Perl via New York Review of Books on October 17, 2024
Autumn, an 1856 sunset landscape painting by Frederic Church.

The Sound of the Picturesque

Charles Ives and the visual.
by Tim Barringer via The American Scholar on September 13, 2024
Evelyn Nesbit Thaw dodging a camera, 1909.
partner

Overexposed

What happened to privacy when Americans gained easy access to cameras in the Gilded Age?
by Sohini Desai via HNN on July 2, 2024
A family affair: Roosevelt was just 31 in 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson appointed him assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy — a post previously held by his cousin Teddy.

The Making of FDR

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s struggle against polio transformed him into the man who led the country through the Great Depression and World War II.
by Jonathan Darman via The Saturday Evening Post on April 5, 2024

The Peculiar Game of the Yankee Peddler—Or What Do You Buy?

Part of the utility of the game is how many intersections can be addressed, a Choose Your Own Adventure of lesson planning.
by Rachel Tamar Van via Commonplace on July 4, 2023
original

Our Flag Was Still There

How is the first half of the 19th century depicted in and around the nation’s capital? Ed Ayers hits the road to find out.
by Ed Ayers on July 19, 2022
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