Civil War Photograph Collection
Civil War photographs by
Mathew Brady's staff and others
Collection digitized?: More
than 7,000 are available in the Prints
and Photographs Online Catalog.
For further information, see "About
the Civil War Photographs" in the online
catalog.
The best known pictorial records of the American Civil War
are the photographs commissioned by Mathew Brady (1823?-1896),
a leading portrait photographer of New York and Washington.
At the outbreak of the war, Brady sent photographers into the
field to record the progress of the conflict in various regions.
Although taking few of the photographs himself, Brady employed
twenty photographers at the height of his operations. Brady's
staff included at one time or another, Alexander and James
Gardner who left Brady to work for the Army in 1863, James
F. Gibson, Timothy O'Sullivan, and Thomas C. Roche.
ln 1943
the Library of Congress purchased
a collection which brings together
10,000 original and copy glass
plate negatives attributed
to Brady's staff or made by
independent field photographers.
These images of camp life, artillery,
fortifications, railroads, ships,
bridges, towns, battlefields,
officers, and men in the
ranks were published in a series
of illustrated works on the
Civil War, among them Photographic History of the Civil
War (New York: Review
of Reviews Co., 1912. 10 v.
E468.7.M64 1912), edited by
Francis Trevelyan Miller. In
addition to the
so-called Brady Collection,
the Prints and Photographs
Division maintains photographs by other Confederate and Union photographers,
such as Haas and Peale, whose work is discussed in Milton
Kaplan's article, "The Case of the Disappearing Photographers," in the U.S. Library
of Congress Quarterly Journal, v.
24, January 1967, p. 40-45; reprinted
in A Century of Photographs, 1846-1946, Selected from the Collections of
the Library of
Congress (Washington: Library of Congress,
1980. TR6.U62.D572), compiled
by Renata V. Shaw.
More
than 7,000 negatives and prints can
be viewed in the Prints
and Photographs Online Catalog.
For further information, see "About
the Civil War Photographs"
in the online catalog.
Note: Information
for this entry was compiled in the
late 1970's for
inclusion in: Special Collections in the
Library of Congress: A Selective
Guide. Compiled by Annette Melville. Washington,
D.C.: Library of Congress, 1980. The entry has
not been revised, except to include information
about digitized
images, online catalog records, and further information
available online.
Related Publications and Guides
U.S. Library of Congress. Reference Department. Guide
to the
Special Collections of Prints & Photographs in the Library of
Congress (Washington: 1955. NE53.W3A52), compiled by Paul Vanderbilt.
no. 78-80, 317, 557.
Milhollen, Hirst D., "Mathew B. Brady Collection," Library
of Congress Quarterly Journal, v. 1. April/June
1944: 15-19; reprinted
in A Century of Photographs, 1846-1946, Selected from the Collection of
the Library of Congress (Washington: Library of Congress, 1980. TR6.U62.D572),
compiled by Renata V. Shaw.
U.S. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Civil
War Photographs, 1861-1865: A Catalog of Copy Negatives Made
from Originals Selected from the Mathew B. Brady Collection
in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of
Congress (Washington: 1961. 74 p. E468.7.U57; reprint,
Washington: 1977), compiled by Hirst D. Milhollen and Donald
H. Mugridge.
U.S. Library of Congress. Prints and Photographs Division. Viewpoints,
a Selection from the Pictorial Collections of the Library
of congress; a Picture Book by Alan Fern, Milton Kaplan,
and the staff of the Prints and Photographs Division of the
Library of
Congress (Washington: 1975. 223 p. illus. E178.5.U54 1974; reprint. New
York, Arno Press: 1976.
E178.5.U54 1976), no. 75, 77, 79-82, 84-85.
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