>> Kaleena Black: Hi everyone.
I am Kaleena Black.
And I work in the
Library of Congress
in the Professional Learning
and Outreach Initiatives Office.
And, welcome to the
first of four sessions
of the Double Take
Webinar Series.
We're really glad that
you're joining us today.
And, just so you know,
this even will be recorded.
And, so any questions or other
specific contributions may be
made publicly available as
part of the Library's archives.
So in this Double Take Series,
we're going to be
exploring intriguing
and sometimes puzzling
images from the Library
of Congress's collections.
And, we'll also be learning
some research tips along the way
with an expert from the Prints
and Photographs Division.
And, so today will be led
by Kristi Finefield a
Reference Specialist
in Prints and Photographs.
Kristi's Double Take series,
her blog series is actually the
basis for this set of webinars.
So hopefully she'll be able
to talk to us a little bit
about that, once she
finishes her presentation.
We really encourage you
to participate via chat,
whether it's with responses
to Kristi's questions,
comments, questions.
You know, please feel
free to participate
and let us know what
you're thinking.
Just to get started
using the chat,
if you could just tell
us your first name
and where you're joining
us from, that'd be great.
Just make sure that you have
all presenters and attendees
or everyone selected so that
we all can read what you have
to say.
So just before I turn
things over to Kristi,
I just want to give a
quick just heads up,
shout out to our library
colleagues for joining us
in the chat as well today.
We have some colleagues
who are joining us
in the chat as well today.
We have some colleagues from
the Prints Photograph Division
who will help answer questions
and support us in that way.
And, also my colleagues
Dana will be posting URLs
in the chat as we go along.
So with that, I'm really
happy to pass things
over to our presenter Kristi
Finefield from the Prints
and Photograph Division.
>> Kristi Finefield:
Good afternoon.
And, thank you Kaleena
for that introduction
to our new web series.
I want to thank everybody who
is here for joining us today.
I'll repeat a few things
from what Kaleena said.
My name is Kristi Finefield and
I am the Reference Specialist
in the Prints and
Photograph Division
of the Library of Congress.
And, if we have any readers
in the audience of the blog,
of the Prints and
Photograph Division,
which is called Picture
This, you might be familiar
with the occasional series
there known as Double Take.
Posts in that series tend
to be inspired either
by my own curiosity
while conducting research
in our collections or a question
from a researcher
about an image.
In these posts and throughout
the series, we'll look closely
and deeply into images to try
and address the question asked
about that particular image.
And, at the same time,
teach you a little bit
about photo research technique
and how reference librarians
like myself, and in our other
presentations in the series,
curators and catalogers interact
and interpret our selections.
So today's talk sprang
from a blog post
in the Double Take
Series from July 2019.
It had its origins
in a researcher asking me a
pretty straightforward question.
Does this photo include
the White House or not?
I hope you'll enjoy joining
me today as I take you
on this research
journey to the process
of answering this question as
well as many other questions
that arose along the way.
And, as Kaleena said, this
will be an interactive webinar.
So when I post questions,
please feel free to jump in
and respond in the chat.
But, if we have some DC
locals and you recognize some
of the sites or buildings
shown, try to play along
so that everyone else without
that local knowledge can work
the questions out with me.
Well, let's get started.
Next slide please.
So one of the premises
of photo research
and visual literacy
techniques is look closely.
A really simple concept
but really useful,
especially if you're patient
and take time with it.
So when we say to look closely,
we want you to study an image
in detail, front and back if
there is a back to look at.
If it's a physical photograph,
we often suggest you
use a magnifying glass,
so you can really
get into the details.
And, if it's a digital image or
an image that's been scanned,
like the one we're going to look
at today, to really zoom in,
look a the details, and try
to see all that you can see.
And, the best way to then
interpret what you seen is
to write down key words,
observations, things like that,
anything you see in the photo.
So we're going to start
with that exercise today
with the photo that launched
this particular blog post
from a researcher.
And, we're going to put up the
photo next and, if you can jump
in the chat, and tell me.
What do you see in this photo?
So hopefully while
you've been looking,
even though I can't see the chat
results, you've been picking
up some of the details
in this photograph.
And, I'm going to show you,
the next slide is
whee I recorded some
of the things I saw in the photo
and see if we observed the same.
So there's a, across the top
of the photo, we have a title
that includes names
of people; Mirza,
Ali, Kuli, Khan, and Wife.
Sorry for that possibly
terrible pronunciation.
There looks to be a
carriage to the right,
which I would think is led by
a horse or some kind of animal.
It might be a married couple.
That's an assumption.
But, looks like a couple
standing there together.
It looks like they just exited
or are entering that carriage.
They're dressed rather formally
wearing some fancy clothes,
going to an event maybe.
Might be cold outside,
there's furs.
Possibly, maybe the gentleman
on the left is foreign
based on his costume.
Hard to know that.
That's an assumption
you have to test out.
On the bottom left corner there
looks to be a date written
into the, this is
actually a graph negative
in its original form, reversed
and written on the negative.
If you zoom in very
closely on this gentleman,
he is wearing metal on his
waste coat there or his garment.
They're not smiling,
so hopefully they're
happy to be there.
They're outdoors.
And, the building behind them
could be the White House.
It has that look.
Right?
So I've collected now, just
from the scene of the photo,
we've collected up some
details about the image.
So let's go on and think
about how else we can
gather information.
So if we go to the next slide.
So other ways to expand
your circle of understanding
about an image is to seek
and explore the context
of that image.
And, there's a couple
different ways to go about that.
One of the ways we'll talk
about now is about looking
at the accompanying
information with that image.
So in this case that might
be information on the object.
And, in the last
slide we observed
that there was a title
written across the top,
directly on the item and
what looks to be a date
in the bottom left corner.
So that's two pieces
of information
that are directly on the item.
We can look at the
catalog description.
Meaning, if it's been part of a
collection like at the Library
of Congress and it's been
catalog and described,
we can see what information
is there.
And, we can also, if we know
it's part of a collection,
we can look at that
collection and find
out what is the subject
matters of the collection,
the time period, focus of it,
might go a little bit towards
understanding the intent,
intent of the image.
And then, when you're taking
in all of that information,
one of the things you want
to notice is what are the
sources of that information?
And, do you consider
them reliable?
I see we might have
fixed the chat problem.
If someone could put something
in the chat just to see.
Oh I see someone.
Okay. There's Cheryl
Davis, great.
Okay great.
Next questions you'll
be able to jump in
and talk to me this time.
So hopefully, if anyone
has observed anything
about those photos that they,
that I didn't or didn't note,
you can feel free to jump in
and say it now while we
go on to the next thing.
So if we go to the
next slide, this is,
if you would find this image,
which is how the researcher
found it in the first place,
in the Prints and Photograph's
online catalog, this is the kind
of information you would read.
This is a fairly
straightforward record.
It has a title at the top,
and that's taken directly
from the object transcribed.
And, then it has the
date which was taken also
from the object in this case.
And, it's May 28th 1913.
Now we have a particular time.
I've blocked out
what's a summary note.
The summary note usually
describes the photograph,
like what is happening
in the image.
And, I don't want to give
way spoilers for our talk.
So I'll keep that
obscured for now.
But, you can look at it later.
And, then at the bottom
what I've highlighted is
that we do let you
know that this is part
of the George Grantham
Bain collection.
And, right below that,
there's a link that's going
to tell you more
about that collection.
And, right above the box
I didn't highlight it,
but where it says title
and date from data provided
by the Bain News
Service on the negative.
So that's where we confirm
where the information
in this record comes from.
So that's a good observation.
That's true the White
House building is far away.
So that's a little fuzzy.
They're not looking at
the camera operator.
That's a good observation.
And, it's surprising,
if it's in May,
the fact that there
are no leaves
on the trees, a little
interesting.
Ah and she thinks maybe
it's February 28th
because the months, the number
and the months looks the same.
And, of course that number
inverted and reversed.
So there's always a
chance it's misread.
So that'd be interesting
to try and find out if
that is actually the wrong date.
So let's go on to
the next slide.
So the link that was in the
previous record leads you
to this homepage for the George
Grantham Bain collection.
And, this is where you can kind
of set the scene for the photo.
Why did someone take the
photo in the first place?
And, that's always a
good question to ask.
So the Bain collection,
we sometimes also call it the
Bain News Service Collection,
the photographic files of one
of America's earliest
news picture agency.
It was based in New York City.
A lot of the images
are in New York.
But, they covered
events in other cities
as well, like Washington DC.
And, what they were doing
is taking photographs
that were then distributed to
their subscribers to be used
in newspapers generally or
other kinds of publications.
So I'm going to say
people were photographed,
if the photographer's taking
your picture and they're working
for Bain, they think it's
news worthy in some way.
So you're someone well known
or you're attending an important
event, etcetera, etcetera.
So that kind of just
sets our scene.
Also, most of the photos in the
selection were taken around,
between the 1900s and the 1920s.
So that's, this one
sits kind of right
in the middle of
that time period.
So keeping all that in mind,
let's go to the next slide.
So we've gathered up a
little bit of information.
We've looked at the item really
closely, we've read a little bit
about it, what we know.
But, none of that
information really told us
if this is the White
House or not.
And, that was the question
the researcher brought to us.
So what would you suggest?
What would you do next if you
were trying to figure out if
that building in the
background is the White House?
That's a good suggestion.
Find another image of the
White House to compare with it.
Look for information
on the two people,
another pretty good idea.
Another kind of context.
Look for other DC
photos to compare.
Yeah. You got the,
you've all got the idea.
So let's go on to
the next slide.
Because you guys are
definitely fit right
on the two approaches
I would take.
So what we're going to do
is expand our understanding
of the photo and try to find
some more context to set it in.
So we would look for
related photographs
to the photo we're setting.
Look for ones that are of
similar subject matter.
In this case look at
the White House pictures
to see a similar time period.
You might look at other
photos in the same selection .
And, then you use those
photos to help kind
of question the assumptions
you made at first glance,
like things that you
thought were true,
you can see if they are true.
The other way to approach it is
to look for textual information,
the newspapers and periodicals,
especially from the time period.
So I'm going to talk about
the second thing first
because we're going to
focus a little bit more
on the related photos aspect.
So I did search, at the
time, when I was researching
for this question, looked
for more information
about Mr. Khan and his wife.
And, I did learn some things.
I found out that he was,
originally from Persia,
which is mostly modern day Iran.
And, he was the the
[inaudible] pardon my accent,
of Persia to the U.S. So he
had a diplomatic position
with the United States.
He was married to an American.
Her name is Florence Reed.
We added that information
later, but not as you saw,
she was just referred
to as wife in the photo.
Married her in 1904.
And, they moved to the U.S.
permanently around that,
after that time period.
And, so at this time they
probably lived in DC.
You can probably confirm
that, but, at this point,
based on things that I read,
they probably lived in DC
at this point because he
was doing this job for the,
through the State Department.
So that definitely helps us
say well the photo was probably
taken in DC.
But, the other thing I
tried to explore was tried
to find information based
on the date, which again,
we're going with the date
on the item, as to why he
and his wife were in DC at that
time or why they were going
to an event, or just, you know,
something in the
social pages, etcetera.
And, I did come upon anything
that gave me that information.
And, it could be out there.
But, I'm a visual person,
obviously, from working
in the Prints an
Photographs Division.
So I went back to the first
idea which was to look
for a related photograph.
So if we go to the next
slide, what I did was
to through our online catalog.
And, you have to be prepared,
you know our, our division has,
I think at last count,
almost 16 million images.
And, there's well over 1.25
million in our online catalog.
It's real easy to get kind
of lost in the catalog.
So what I did here was,
I tried to find a picture
of the White House so I could
compare it to our photo and see
if it was the same building.
So what I did was I
searched for White House.
I put that in quotes to kind
of narrow down the results.
And, I looked for
an image from 1913.
I didn't really find an image
that was the right type of image
and show the right, I want
to say the right
side of the building.
It wasn't as clear.
So I went to 1914 and this
is the image I came up with
that came really close to
the same angle of the image.
So if we look, before I go to
the next slide, if you just kind
of look closely, kind
of take in the details
of this photo keeping
in mind that we're going
to do a comparison on the
next slide, from thinking
about what you thought
on the first one.
Now obviously, if you were doing
this research not online with me
on the computer, you
could actually look
at the two photos
next to each other.
We have to kind of
improvise, you know,
when we're doing it this way.
So the event here, and
actually I should go back.
The caption for this photo is
Easter Egg Rolling, White House.
So this photo is also good
because we could be 100%
sure this is the White House.
I can see much more
of the building.
I can see the wing
over there to the left.
The Easter Egg Roll is an
annual event at the White House.
So we had a lot to go on here
to say we've definitely got
a picture of the White House,
relative to the other one
which wasn't a definite.
Right? So if we go
to the next slide.
I'm going to take the two photos
and I zoomed in on the details
and put them side by side.
So if we kind of look closely
at the two areas I highlighted,
do you see any similarities
or differences
that stand out to you?
That's true.
You can't see the stairs
in the first photo.
And, it's kind of hard because
that one isn't as focused.
And, let's see.
A person says is that a fountain
to the left of Mr. Khan?
It might be.
It might also just
be a strange tree.
It's a little hard
to tell, you know,
when the people are
the focus of the photo.
So it would be the
buildings were,
the buildings are out of focus.
The windows look different.
Yeah, I think, I would say
without having super chart
comparison that the details,
the condentive that's
on top of the windows,
if that's the right term,
look a little bit different.
The columns seem higher
on the right picture.
I would agree.
I think those columns
are narrower and smaller.
Yeah. And, it's hard to see
if those arches below
the portico are visible
in the picture with Khan.
It does, it's hard to tell
because we do have a slightly
different angle on the photo.
That's tricky.
And, I do think, I do think the
capitols might be different.
This person observed that the
ones on the left look more
like an ionic capitol
and the ones
on the left would be Corinthian.
And, I think they're
even a little bit
of a modified capitol style.
There's a railing in the photo
on the right and not the left.
And, of course, like
I said we are
within a year, these two photos.
But, one thing to keep
in mind with a building
like the White House, of course,
is that it's been
renovated many times.
And, that was kind of
important that we got an image
that was close to the same
time period as possible.
It's pretty easy also to find
out what things have
changed over time.
There's lots of books
written about the White House.
So one thing I noticed
and I'll point out,
you can see on the
right there's a chimney
that is not visible on the left.
You can see the roof
line the dark roof
on the left but not the right.
I can tell if that's
because of perspective,
but these were both
taken by a person,
they're not up on a
crane or something.
But the most telling detail
for me was the portico.
If you look of the left
photo, there is an extension
of the curved portico and
then an additional column.
You can see there's a shadow
that shows you this is an
actual column not a plaster,
which is a column that's
flat against the building.
In the White House picture
you can see it's flat.
And, there's no shadow because
it's not a physical column
that has space between
it and the building.
And, it is hard to tell, but the
shadow is pretty big showing you
that it stands out.
So having looked, and
we go to the next slide
and we're going to
look even closer.
And, it's best I
can do with this,
the quality of the left image.
You can see that's
a pretty significant
architectural detail.
So it's unlikely that
they would've added
and then removed the column.
And, I could, you know, confirm
that by researching
the White House.
And, if we just could go
back a slide actually,
I wanted to talk again about the
proportions of these columns.
So if you look at the White,
the ones on the right,
they're narrow, the space
between them is pretty big.
And, on the left it
feels smaller in scale.
So taken all together, if
we go, we go for it again.
What this, what do
you think in the chat?
What do you think?
Is this the same
building or not?
I have a no.
I have a not the same.
Nope don't think so.
No. Not. All right.
Let's go to the next slide.
I agree. This is
not the White House,
but super similar
to the White House.
Right? So we've kind
of addressed
that question, the
first question.
But, how could we now, you know,
why stop at one question, right?
Now that I know it's
not the White House,
I'd love to identify
what building it is
so we can actually add
that to our catalog record.
Because, you can
imagine, it looks so much
like the White House that
people are going to keep seeing
that image and think it is.
So I wanted to keep
going on this question.
So what suggestions
would you give?
How could we figure out what
building this actually is?
And, I am seeing
responses, so that's good.
Hopefully everyone is
responding in a way that.
Someone suggests use
the research on the date
of the event, yeah, to try and
figure out what event that is.
All right.
Someone says do we know
anything about the Khan's life,
where they were on that date?
So keep, keep the ideas coming.
We'll go, let's go
to the next slide.
Ask Mr. Google, buildings that
look like the White House.
That's a good idea.
I don't know, I don't think
I actually tried that.
Research the architect.
So we'd have to find out
who the architect was.
Look for other prominent
buildings similar
to the White House.
That's a good idea.
What events were taking
place in DC on that date.
So sort of doing
what you're doing,
what I did was I reviewed
what I knew at the time.
So I went back through all
that information we gathered.
I knew the man in the photo was
involved in political affairs,
which would bring him to DC.
Because I also wanted to make
sure it was a good assumption
that we were in DC knowing
that, that collection has lots
of photos of New York.
But, it looks like DC.
And, sometimes we do have
to offer it on a hunch.
You know, I work in DC lived
in the area for 20 plus years.
That looks like DC to me.
Those kinds of buildings
are very common in DC
with the neoclassical look.
So it's consistent with
architecture seen around DC.
It's possibly a government
or institutional
building, with that look.
The White House obviously
is the new case.
But, most residences
don't have that look,
especially if you
might be Downtown DC.
But, the real challenge of what
I know is what I don't know.
I don't know anything that lends
itself to keyword searchers.
So something to type into
the magic box, you know,
and type into our catalog
and try to figure it out.
And, I think I even tried,
you know, this was last year.
But, I think I even tried
putting in the image
and doing an image search.
But, that building looks so
much like the White House
that Google can't
figure that out either.
So we go to the next slide.
And, I do think we're probably,
like I said, in DC as well
because I think the Khans
lived in DC at that time.
But, I still wasn't able
to find out anything
about them attending
an event on that date.
That kind of, you know,
stopped me for a second.
So on the next slide, this
is what I call, you know,
you sort of hit a, you
know, research brick wall.
You have to think
about it differently.
You can't sometimes just
roll ahead through the wall.
You have to think about
how to get over the wall.
And, I just, there's
a side comment,
are Bain News Service photos
arranged chronologically?
You can look at related
neighboring images
in the collection.
Sometimes that will give you
images taken on the same date.
And, I did do that when
I was searching it.
But also they're organized
by the negative numbers.
And, sometimes that
doesn't actually work out.
So one of the things I would
suggest, when you're trying
to get over a research brick
wall, is to ask for help.
So one of the best things
you can do is ask someone
who knows more about the subject
than you do or knows more
about like the collection
you're researching in.
So for example, you
might ask me.
If you're in the reading
room doing research
and you had this picture
and you said I want
to know what building that is,
you could talk to me about it
and we would try to work
out a way to kind of get
around the collect,
get around the problem.
The other thing you
have to do is be willing
to browse and be patient.
Because, when you don't know
what to type into Search,
you're going to have to
just look sometimes and try
to find things that way.
So in this case, I
consulted myself.
And, I sat down and thought
about what I knew about this.
And, said how would I identify
and unidentified building in DC?
And, I don't have a lot else
to go on at this time except
for those people on that day.
So I thought about what
collections we have that are
from the same time period that
are of DC and that might feature
in a public buildings, or
buildings that look significant.
You know, DC's a tourist
town and people come and look
at these fancy buildings we
have and take pictures of them.
So a collection that came to
mind, and of course I did a lot
of other browsing and
looking around in between,
but didn't have a lot of
success that way, so continued
to keep coming at the
problem from different angles.
And, then I just saw a
comment from, a regular asker
of Ask a Librarian or Cheryl.
She has asked me questions
before through Ask a Librarian.
And we have gotten
to those answers.
So what came up, came to mind
for me for the next step,
if we go to the next slide.
And, that's a good sidebar.
In the chat, someone had
suggested searching for portico.
And, that can work.
But, the tricky part about it
is our collections are vast.
And, in order to get as much
content online as possible,
we often will rely on the
information on the object.
And, so you might have a picture
that just says South
Front of the White House.
And, those are the key words
that are searchable
in the record.
And, nowhere in the record
do they mention the portico.
So searching sometimes
for architectural details
of photos won't get you
the results you're looking
for in our collections because
we haven't always gone down to
that level of description
in order
to get more images
cataloged faster.
What came to mind, though,
was this particular collection
we have called Souvenir
View Book.
And, this page is clipped out
of a book that was just shared
in a chat introducing our
readers just to this collection.
And, one reason we use,
one way we use our blog is
to share collections that aren't
digitized or only a little bit
of the content is digitized.
So you know that there's
a reason to come visit us
in person and explore our
collections there and to talk
to the staff and get some ideas.
So Souvenir View Books
are things that people,
don't know if there's
really a parallel anymore,
but a little book of views
of the city you visit in.
sometimes they're on a
theme of a type of building,
this particular one
is General Government
and State Capital
Buildings of the U.S.
So someone who's interested
in that subject would
buy this book.
And, it would be postcard
size, but also larger,
views of those kinds
of buildings.
You might go to New
York City and buy one.
You might go to the Great
Lakes and buy pictures.
So there's all kinds of things
that people bought as souvenirs.
So I thought, well we have a
pretty good size collection
of view books of Washington DC.
So maybe if flip through
them I can spot a building
that has this distinctive
White House like look.
You can even see, in this image,
how many government buildings
have the columns in their front.
So I started going through our
DC Souvenir View Books and,
next slide.
There you go.
Happily I saw this picture.
And, I said, well that's,
that looks like the building.
You know, it has that,
the curved portico
that I remembered
seeing in the other one.
But, it's from a
different angle.
So it would be nice to
get a different image.
But, the key thing
I found here is
that I got some words
to search by.
So at the bottom of
the page we get this,
this is the Memorial
Continental Hall.
If you're a DC local,
you may recognize
that name but, and you may not.
But we'll proceed.
So the good news from there
is that, by my browsing,
I've come up with something
I can actually search by.
So if we go to the
next slide, I went to,
I backed out of the files,
the browsing files and went
into online catalog again.
And, I searched by
Memorial Continental Hall.
And, you can see in
the caption that,
because of words were
appeared in our title,
I was able to get this image.
And, this image definitely
shows, it's a little closer
to the same angle as
the original photo.
And, you can see that, that
bump out we were observing
in that blurry photo
is pretty visible here.
You can see that there's an
extra little corner extending
in another column that
looks to be, you know,
almost attached to the building.
It's not, not flat,
but it's not as big
as the other column maybe.
And, you can see that dark roof
line is visible and the chimney
that we noticed or think there's
probably symmetrical chimneys.
So this seems to be the
building in the photo.
So we've answered two
questions at this point.
And, you know, I did a lot of
comparing before I decided that,
because I see a lot more
details on this particular image
because this has been
scanned at high resolution.
So I said okay, I'm pretty
sure it's not the White House
and it is this building.
But, I still have a
few more questions.
And, I'd love to address them.
And, you'll notice as well,
if you read the caption,
it was taken between
1910 and 1919.
So I know that it is of
the same time period,
which is really important,
obviously.
So let's go on to what I'm
calling the Bonus Round.
Do you think this
couple's visiting
from Memorial Continental Hall?
Why or why not?
Let's look at the image
in the photo again
because it's been a while.
So this is our first photo.
So what we think is
in the background is
Memorial Continental Hall.
Okay. So it looks, some
people think it looks
like a stage photo, that
they're standing in front
of a photo of the hall.
That's interesting,
not [inaudible].
What do you think about
where they are relative
to that building?
Someone says are they
across the street?
They're pretty far away from it.
And, someone says it looks
like they're visiting somewhere
else in the neighborhood.
So let's go back
to the photo of,
or go forward to the next slide.
So if you look at that building,
if you were visiting
Memorial Continental Hall,
where would you be?
Let's go, let's go
to the next one.
So what I'm pointing out
here is, so on the right,
that arrow points to kind
of the entry or carriageway.
That's probably where, if
you were going to an event
in this building wearing
those fancy clothes,
I feel like that's where
you would be dropped off,
not where they seem
to be standing.
Or at least, at the very least,
the left side, that road,
that street leads to another
entrance to the building.
So it seems a little, you know,
unlikely that they're actually
going to this building,
based on that distance.
You know, I don't think
they're meant to be dropped off
and walk away in
their fancy clothes.
So let's go to yet
another question.
How can I figure out
where they're standing.
I see some folks in the chat
have done a little research.
They're figuring out
that this, the building,
the Memorial Continental Hall,
is related to the Daughters
of the American Revolution.
That, it was actually built as
the DAR headquarters in 1910.
And, so that's, that's, then it
was called Memorial Continental
Hall [inaudible].
To get it, so other suggestions,
look at a map from
the time period.
Go for a walk near the building.
I do that a lot virtually,
through Google Street View,
especially right now, and
walk around the neighborhood.
All right.
Let's go to the next slide.
So if we go back to our, some of
our original concepts, you know,
looking for related photographs.
Often related photographs
give me answers.
And, I love to go
visual when I'm trying
to figure out a question.
So I took what I've learned,
which was that that's
Memorial Continental Hall,
and thought well let me try
to search further by that name
and see what other kind
of photos I find of it.
Maybe I can get more clues.
So if you read the
caption of this photo,
Memorial Continental Hall
National Headquarters of DAR,
from steps of Pan-American
Union.
So that gives us some
brand new information.
And, if we look at little closer
of this image on the next slide.
We've got, you know, it looks
like we are, we have a much,
more trees are visible, so we
can't see the building as well
as in the original photograph.
But, that looks like
the same driveway.
What does everyone
think about that?
Seems more likely they
are maybe in that drive.
Yeah, this one is a
really close angle
to the original photograph,
I would say.
I agree with that comment.
When we get, let's go
forth on the next slide
and I'll show you the
original photo again
so you kind of keep
that in mind.
We can't see that
curve in the drive.
But, we can certainly
see below the carriage
that there's some kind of
change in the pavement,
so it's sidewalk and driveway.
And, so if we look at
their position relative,
let's go back, let's go
back one slide again.
You can kind of imagine that,
to your left there's more
building that we can't see.
We saw a little bit of it in
the slide before this one.
And, this photo was taken in
1917 so there's some differences
in landscape and I think
actually the pavement,
we're looking, that's going
to be a four year difference.
So it looks like they
actually repaved that driveway.
So if we go forward.
So at this point, I would say,
actually let's go back one
slide before I put that.
I'm feeling like
it's very likely,
based on all this context,
that they're being dropped off
at the Pan-American Union,
which is another building in DC.
And, that gives us, you
know, yet another bit
of information we can
use in searches to try
to keep expanding our, expanding
and exploring our functions.
Because you're always trying
to like make links in a chain,
basically, in research.
You're trying to think of
clear up something and then use
that to link to the next
piece of information.
And, then you continue to move
forward until you build enough
of a story to confirm
your original function.
So at this point
I'm thinking, okay,
we know this isn't
the White House.
We think it's the
Memorial Continental Hall
in the background.
But, based on the
distance from the building,
they're more likely to be
visiting the Pan-American Union.
And, someone says they'd
love to see the side
of the building facing away
from Memorial Continental Hall.
And, you certainly could explore
that in the online catalog.
You know, our division
collections,
we have about three quarters
of a million photographs
of Washington DC
scattered throughout
different collections.
So you can find.
I wound say you can find a
picture of every building in DC.
But, our well known buildings,
for sure you can get
multiple views, usually.
And, we don't know, also,
I guess what time
of day this one is.
It certainly doesn't seem to be
a very sunny day if anything.
We're still wondering if
maybe it's Winter and not May.
So at this point, I'm going
to continue to explore my,
my new assumption that this is
the Pan-Am building relative
to Memorial Continental Hall.
So I went back to the online
catalog and I searched
for Pan-American Union to try
to find pictures of the building
because you really can't
see it in that other photo.
So if we go to the next slide.
What I came upon is this really
interesting aerial photograph.
It's an aerial not exactly,
it's taken from the
Washington Monument.
You find that there are lots of
early images that are as close
as you'll get to
an aerial photo.
There are some aerial photos.
But, this one is from a
great height, you know.
So this is taken from
the Washington Monument.
And, you'll find these
where they take pictures
out of all the windows and
you'll get a great kind
of a prefix view of DC.
So this particular one,
the reason I got it
in my searches was that I
typed in Pan-American Union.
And, because it's the building,
that white building kind
of dead center is the
Pan-American Union.
The caption is Washington
Monument view
of Pan-American Union and
Northwest from the Monument.
It dates between 1913 and 1918.
So we're right there
in that sweet spot
for the time period again.
And, if we zoom in a little bit.
Next slide, right.
We've got a pretty familiar set
of buildings to our right there.
So I think, you know, based on
the the clues we've collected
so far, we've got Memorial
Continental Hall on the right,
which at the time was
the only DAR building.
Constitution Hall had not yet
been built at this time period.
It's going to end up being
to the left where the rows
of barracks type buildings are.
And, then that star kind of
marks the spot, you know,
with all these connective
clues we landed on the spot
where those folks are likely
standing, attending something
at the Pan-American
Union most likely.
It's now called the
Organization of American States.
So you could use all the search
terms you know to keep digging
and figure out, you know, maybe
there was an event at the,
you know, maybe searching
by the Pan-American Union
you could actually figure
out what event it was, maybe
their names were mentioned
in the paper, I think.
But, for now, I feel like I've
answered the original question
and expanded on it further
to actually give us the full
picture of this picture.
Or at least as far as we can go
with just seeing some images.
And, I would point out as well
that, the lawn you're seeing
to the right, that
is the Ellipse.
So the White House is about less
than a mile away
from this photograph.
So that little kind of
mini looking White House
and the real White House
were actually quite close
to each other.
So at that point, I think
we, you know, reached the end
of this particular
research journey.
But we could definitely think of
some things we could keep going
to search for and learn
a little bit more.
And, so I thank everyone
for their attention
and for all their interaction.
And, I'd love to take
anymore questions you have.
And, we can go on
to the next slide.
>> Kaleena Black: Thank
you so much Kristi.
And, thanks everyone for
being part of [inaudible].
Glad everyone was
able to attend.
Please do put any questions
that you have into the chat.
I
>> Kristi Finefield: There's
a link to the chat just
to see there's a
different aerial photograph
that shows you how close this
building is to the White House
at the same time period.
And, these buildings
do both still exist.
So you could look at them today.
Keep in mind the foreground
and the background have
such different colors.
In the original photograph.
That's a good question.
I would think that, I'm
not, I will, so actually one
of our photo curators,
I think is in the Fall
as with the photographic
technology at the time,
I think the, that depth of field
was pretty shallow meaning they
were very much in focus,
was very close to them
and very fuzzy and faint
for what's in the distance.
And, you can tell from
that aerial photograph,
that building is actually
pretty far a way from them.
It's half a block.
So I think that accounts for
some of the different lighting.
And the light is
probably, they're in shadow
of the Pan-Am Union and
the other building might be
in full light.
So it's been, also
they obviously were.
The tricky part is though, you
can't actually account for,
someone had mentioned the
photograph may be exposed
to feature the couple.
And, they certainly took the
photo to feature the couple.
But this, the image we're
actually looking at,
that is a scan of
a box negative.
And, we don't modify the
exposure of the negatives.
So it's pretty much
exactly how it was taken.
We have kind of a standard
way of scanning to kind of get
as much information as possible.
They might have modified
this photo a little bit
when they printed it.
But, it certainly does have,
which all of you noticed,
kind of a strange staged look,
like the front, they seem kind
of disconnected almost
from the background.
And, I think that can
be somewhat accounted
for by the distance between
them and the building.
And, someone did ask a question
about is there a
strong connection
between the Bain collection
and particular newspapers?
Offhand, I can't
name newspapers.
But, I definitely have
found credited photos
in the Bain collection
in New York's newspaper
and occasionally
in others as well.
That was a nice union,
whoever did that.
You can really see their
outfits, they're quite lovely.
So you can find, if
you start looking
through newspapers
in that time period.
I think the other New York
newspapers, not the Times,
I found more Bain photos in.
A lot of times, when
the digitize newspapers,
they don't give like
the photo credit.
You end up having to look
for the subject and then look
at the bottom to see
if it credited anyone.
And, it'll say Bain News
Service or just Bain sometimes.
But, what I wanted to share,
I'll share in the chat as well.
Let me see if I saved it.
Yeah. This is another
photo of the same couple.
You ca see him in, so
he's in maybe some kind
of traditional garb
from his, from Persia.
He was also behind and that may
have something to do with it.
But, you can see in the
picture I shared, he's wearing,
you know, standard
American, you know, suit.
So you can't always make
all of the assumptions based
on what they're wearing in that.
If you click the link.
I can't share this
picture in the screen.
But, if you click that
link that I just shared,
you can see that picture.
Does anyone have any other
questions you want to ask?
And, keep in mind I think,
if you go to the last slide
in the presentation, I've
shared a couple of links here.
Ask a Librarian is a way
you can reach out to myself
or any other librarians
in my division.
And, we also share
questions with my curators.
So if you have questions, keep
going and ask us some questions,
I'll be glad to follow up,
especially even questions
based on this.
And, the Prints and Photographs
online catalog is the catalog
dedicated to just
this collection,
or just to our division holing.
And, the Researcher's Tool
Box is full of resources
that help you with
photo research.
It's got all kinds of
presentations over time and tips
for how to do photo research.
And, I will point
out my colleagues
who are running the show,
our, they work a lot
with educators and teachers.
And, their website, which I
think Dana can probably put
up quickly.
They provide lots of help
for curriculum building
and teaching, teaching
teachers how
to use our resources
in their classrooms.
>> Kaleena Black:
Kristi, I saw a couple
of other questions for you.
>> Kristi Finefield: Rebekah.
>> Kaleena Black: One was,
one was do you ever have
to do this kind of
sleuthing to determine
if more recent more
digital images are accurate
and unaltered?
>> Kaleena Black: That
has not come up for me.
I'm not, as a photograph
librarian,
I'm not involved
acquisition very much.
You know, sometimes I will,
I provide some subject advice
or at least mention research
or demand in the collecting.
But, our curators who focus
on collecting new things
for the collection, I think
it comes to them to determine
about our digital images,
what we're collecting,
whether we are concerned
about being modified,
what's acceptable in that way.
So it's a good question.
I haven't personally been
asked that questions.
And, we do tend to address
these kind of questions
about our images,
the collection,
exiting in our collections.
So if someone did
bring a new, you know,
brand new photo we
just got to me
and asked how do
we know that's true
or how do you know it's not
fake, I would certainly try
to figure it out, just use
different tools most likely.
Did I, did I miss
any other questions?
You want to go back with me?
I tried.
>> Kaleena Black: I think that.
Yeah, I think one, a
really important question.
What was in the part
of the photo catalog
entry that we blacked out?
So Dana if you could just
repost the link to the record,
I think that's a big reveal that
would be great for everyone.
>> Kristi Finefield: So this,
actually this photo I'm
going to copy the caption.
And, this is the caption that
I blocked, the summary note.
All we knew was what
was on the photo.
And, we posted this as
part of our Flickr account.
So the Library of Congress
as participated in Flickr,
if you're familiar with
it, a photo sharing site,
for I think 13 years now.
And, we share images
there weekly.
And some of them have
very minimal captions.
And, people in Flickr will
look into the photo and try
to provide more information
for us.
So some of these details
that are there were
provided by Flickr viewers.
They provided alternate
spellings for the man's name.
So you often will find
alternate or misspellings
for especially foreign names.
You can do, have a question,
even your original question.
They provided the
name of the wife,
which was appreciated because,
you know, nice to have her name.
So now, here name
is Florence Reed.
So if you searched Florence
Reed in our online catalog,
you would now get this photo as
a result where before we added
that note, you would not.
And, then the part about it
being Memorial Continental Hall
was added by myself
through this project.
Anymore questions?
>> Kaleena Black:
I'm scrolling through
and I don't see any other
questions right now.
The comments, I hope that
you'll have a chance to look
through them, Kristi, there's
some nice comments here.
>> Kristi Finefield: Great.
Well I'm glad everybody
enjoyed it.
It's always fun to share
the behind the scenes work.
>> Kaleena Black: Yeah.
Thanks for giving us a
glimpse into your process.
So interesting, so many, it's
so funny how questions kind
of generate other questions
and before you know it you're
really down the rabbit hole.
>> Kristi Finefield: Yes.
Exactly. You just keep following
your curiosity basically
until you get to some
kind of a stopping point.
Because, of course,
I could do this
for every photo in
our collection.
But, we have 16 million
and I have the rest
of my job to do, so.
I love when I can, you
know, spend a little time
on a photo and then share that.
That's why the blog
is so useful.
I can share the process on
the blog and hopefully share,
that I'm getting those tips to
other people to use themselves.
Yeah I, actually, if
we could share a link
to the whole Double Take
blog series, you know,
they're welcome to read about
some of the other explorations.
I'm going to be doing another
presentation in this four,
so far we have four
sessions planned.
I'll be doing another one
on another blog post that's
from the Double Take series.
But, on the other sessions,
you'll get to enjoy hearing
from my other colleagues
and photograph curators
and catalogs talking
about some of their work.
That's mentioned in the chat.
This is some of the other
blog posts in that series.
>> Kaleena Black: Yes.
Our next session will be on
February 18th and will be led
by Sarah Duke who's
with us today.
She's a Curator in the Prints
and Photographs Division.
So I'm going to put a link
to our webinar page just
so you can learn more about
the upcoming questions
and get more details on
how to register for them.
Just so you know,
this [inaudible]
we've been recording.
So the recording
will be available
to you soon alongside
the PDF of the slide.
So you'll be able to
revisit all those sort
of Kristi's wonderful tips
and get awesome history again.
So thank you all so
much for joining us.
Thank you, Kristi, for
being a wonderful presenter
and for sharing you strategies
and doing research with us.
And, I really hope that you all
will join us again next time.
>> Kristi Finefield:
Yes thank you everyone
for coming and joining in.
And, thanks to all
my colleagues here
for helping make this
presentation go so smoothly.
>> Kaleena Black: Have a good
rest of the day everyone.
>> Kristi Finefield: Bye, bye.