The Civil War Photographs Collection (7,000 photographs, 1861-65) does not provide much coverage of women's involvement in this national conflict. But the inclusion
of women in scenes of military camp life, in hospitals, and in a few images showing African American families fleeing northward
does provide visual clues suggesting the profound ways in which the war affected women's lives and vice versa.
Photographs in this collection are often associated with the name of Mathew Brady, although Brady really acted more as an
entrepreneur, planning the documentation effort, commissioning other photographers to make the images, and attempting to market
the resulting photographic record to the American public.
View in the “Burnt District,” Richmond, Va., showing two women dressed in black approaching shell of four-story building,
gutted by fire. 1865 April. Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZC4-4593. bibliographic record
A growing proportion of the collection can be searched in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, where the collection
has its own listing. Digital images accompany most records.