Assignment #7

Previous to this assignment, I was unaware that this resource existed. I knew that the Library of Congress had digitized some items, but I had no idea the extent of their digitized photo collection. I chose the historical topic of the Women's Suffrage Movement, as it is a topic near and dear to my heart. I was interested to see what kind of records they would have. A few photos of Susan B. Anthony? A sketch of Elizabeth Cady Stanton?

I had no idea that the collection would be so extensive and varied. Political cartoons, pages from newspapers and journals, photographs of women marching and hiking and protesting, photos of many many women giving their time and energy to gain the right to vote. I wasn't even aware that this many photos of the movement existed, let alone were available for free access on the internet. I was impressed by the extensive collection, as well as the historical record that it represents.

My first search term was “Women's Suffrage”. This turned up 18 search results, several of which being print only collections that could not be viewed digitally. About 8 of the ten were photos that I could view, about only about 5 were relevant. (The remaining three having to do with civil rights.) My second search term, “American Suffrage”, was far more successful. That turned up 108 results, most of which were relevant hits. This set included a wide array of photos of historic buildings, leaders of the movement, and ordinary women coming out to march. It also included newspaper clippings and scanned journal pages.

My main criteria for choosing photographs was trying to represent a complete view of the movement. I tried to pick photos that showed groups of women gathering for marches and meetings. I chose a few of iconic leaders of the movement. I also tried to include some print photos and cartoons to give the sense of the larger societal commentary. I believe that the Library of Congress collection allowed me to do that well, giving me many excellent historical photographs to choose from.

I found this collection to be easy to use and fairly self explanatory. I also admired all of the information attached to the photos. I had all the data that I would need to find, cite, and do further research on these images. I was also impressed that they could be downloaded in multiple image formats. Tiffs are of course wonderful for archival quality photos, but they do have a very large footprint on your hard drive space. Having the jpeg option as well is convenient. I believe that this is an excellent service provided by the Library of Congress and I shall certainly be using it for future projects.