Travel photography in the 19th century is the focus of this podcast, exploring the advent of wet-plate collodion technology, which spurred the advance of travel and landscape photography. Professor Jeff Curto places a special emphasis on photography of the American west.
Audio and slideshow options are available.
The Museum focuses on the life and times of the photographer Alice Austen. The house features views of New York Harbor, and displays a collection of negatives that depict turn-of-the-century American life.
The museum offers tours, educational programs, and recreational and educational events, and is open to the public throughout the year, with the exception of January and February. The website offers a brief history of the location along with basic visitor information.
During World War II, the U.S. Government forced more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to leave their homes and businesses, relocating them to internment camps from California to Arkansas. Well-known photographer Ansel Adams documented the lives of Japanese Americans at the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California—from portraits to daily life, including agriculture and leisure.
This site presents 242 original negatives and 209 photographic prints, often displayed together to show Adams's developing and cropping techniques. His 1944 book on Manzanar, Born Free and Equal is also reproduced. Adams donated the collection to the Library of Congress in 1965, writing, "The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice . . . had overcome the sense of defeat and dispair [sic] by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment."
African American History Month ends, and Women's History Month begins! Take a glance around the internet, and you'll find plenty of resources for teaching women's history—whether it be the Seneca Falls Convention, heroes of the American Revolution and the Civil War, social activists, First Ladies, workers during the World Wars, jazz and blues stars, or presidential candidates. You'll find photographs of many of these women, too—working in factories, on the campaign trail, helping the wounded, conducting scientific experiments.
But who takes these photographs? Who makes these images that become the records of history? Aren't the people behind the camera as significant as the ones in front of it?
Of course they are, though they can easily be forgotten. When we look at photographs of Amelia Earhart, we rarely ask who took the photo. When we're struck by a picture of New York during 9/11, do we ever ask if it was snapped by a man or a woman?
Explore women's history behind the camera this Women's History Month. What have women chosen to capture on film, as they record and live through history?
If photographs aren't enough, branch out into art, journalism, fiction and nonfiction writing, and other ways of recording and responding to the world, all meant for the public eye. What have women created and documented? What were their (myriad, uncountable) reasons for crafting "snapshots" and composing reactions? Women make history when they're behind its lens, as well as in front!
Looking for more resources? Take a quiz on women in history, with our weekly quiz archive! See how well you do on quizzes with subjects like women in the West. Search our Website Reviews, as well—we've reviewed and annotated more than 200 websites with women's history content.
If you'd still like more, these organizations feature content and pages created just for Women's History Month:
Speaking of photographs, the Smithsonian is looking for help identifying women in photographs with missing or incomplete background information. Take a look and see if you can help out!
According to the History of Photography Podcasts website:
"During his 29-year tenure as director of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, curator and photographer John Szarkowski (1925-2007) changed the way the world saw photography."
This recording of Jeff Curto's class session introduces Szarkowski's work.
This collection presents 1,395 photographs by the American photographer, music and dance critic, and novelist Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964). The site consists primarily of studio portraits of celebrities, most of whom were involved in the arts, including actors, such as Marlon Brando and Paul Robeson; artists, such as Marc Chagall and Frida Kahlo; novelists, such as Theodore Dreiser and Willa Cather; singers, such as Ethel Waters and Billie Holiday; publishers, such as Alfred A. Knopf and Bennett Cerf; cultural critics, such as H. L. Mencken and Gilbert Seldes; and figures from the Harlem Renaissance, such as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston.
More than 80 photographs capture Massachusetts and Maine landscapes and seascapes; others include eastern locations and New Mexico. Many photographs of actors present them in character roles. Searchable by keyword and arranged into subject and occupational indexes, this collection also includes a nine-title bibliography and background essay of 800 words on Van Vechten's life and work. A valuable collection for the documentation of the mid-20th-century art scene.
More than 300 U.S. government publications from World War II have been digitized for this site, an ongoing project that plans to add another 200 documents.
Materials include pamphlets and books emphasizing home front issues, such as air raids, preservation, child labor, and victory farms. All materials are searchable by title, author, subject, and keyword. Browsing is also available.
A companion collection of photographs, the "Melvin C. Shaffer Collection," depicts the home front situation in Germany, North Africa, Italy, and Southern France from 1943 to 1945. Shaffer was a U.S. Army medical photographer assigned to document the medical history of the war through major campaigns. Shafer took the photographs on this site—totaling approximately 340—unofficially with the goal of recording the war's impact on civilians.
In this Face-to-face Talk, Ann Shumard of the National Portrait Gallery details the life of Samuel Morse (1791-1872), including his early interest in portraiture and art, his career as an inventor and his work on the telegraph, and his support of Louis Daguerre's daguerreotype.
The Union soldiers defending this pile of giant boulders just west of Little Round Top found themselves on the far left flank of the Federal line July 2, 1863. They were the first to take on Confederate Gen. James Longstreet's assault that day. This audio tour covers the fight for Devil's Den and the true story behind one of the Civil War's most famous photographs.
The Amon Carter Museum houses paintings and sculpture by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell, artists who focused on the American West. It also presents exhibits of artwork by other American artists, on subjects ranging far from the original collection's American West focus.
The museum offers exhibits, self-guided and guided tours for student groups (including custom tours and tours for AP students), professional development opportunities for educators, videoconference outreach programs, teaching materials borrowable by Texas educators, research library access, and other recreational and educational events.