P&P ONLINE CATALOG - CIVIL WAR PHOTOGRAPHS
Background and Scope
The online Civil War Photographs provides access to about 7,000 different
images made during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and in its immediate
aftermath. The images were scanned from the Prints and Photographs
Division's collection of original glass plate negatives. In addition,
this online offering includes copy negatives made from many of the
photographic prints the Division holds. The images were acquired from
various sources.
The bulk of the collection
consists of original glass plate negatives. Through high resolution
scans, researchers now have access to all of the original Civil War
negatives in the Library of Congress collections. Some images lack corresponding prints in the collection and have not been seen
widely
before.
Of special interest are the stereo negatives, including the full plate
stereo negatives and both sides of the cut plates.
The
high resolution scans allow researchers to examine the negatives
for
details such as facial expressions, buttons on uniforms, and building
signs.
The scans are of such superb quality that they will be suitable
for publication purposes, making it no longer necessary to handle the
fragile original glass plates.
The online Civil War Photographs collection includes material
from several sources, as outlined below.
Anthony-Taylor-Rand-Ordway-Eaton Collection
The largest proportion of the online Civil War Photographs are
from the Anthony-Taylor-Rand-Ordway-Eaton Collection. It
contains negatives taken during the war under the supervision of Mathew
B. Brady and Alexander Gardner and
passed through many owners.
During the war, Brady transferred many negatives to the photographic
supply firm of E. & H. T. Anthony & Company to pay for his
debts. Anthony & Co. published these images in its "War
Views" series.
In 1879 the negatives were purchased by Colonel Arnold A. Rand and General
Albert Ordway, veterans of the war, and collectors of war memorabilia. Their
collection
also included approximately 2,000 negatives by Alexander Gardner and his team
of photographers. Gardner had originally managed Brady's Washington studio,
but he left Brady's employment in November 1862 to set up his own business.
Rand and Ordway sold the entire collection to Civil War veteran John C. Taylor,
who published lantern slides and stereo views during the 1880s and early 1890s
under the imprints Taylor & Huntington and the War Photograph & Exhibition
Company.
In 1907 Edward B. Eaton bought the negatives. He used them in several
books he published on the Civil War. The most notable of these was the ten-volume
work, The Photographic History of the Civil War.
In 1916 the collection was placed in storage, where it remained until the Library
purchased it in 1943. The Library's acquisition included 7,500 original
glass plate negatives and about 2,500 glass and film copy negatives, providing
a total of about 3,750 different views and about 2,650 different portraits.
The Library of Congress selected 1,047 of these images for publication as a microfilm in 1961. The introduction
to the microfilm includes a table of contents that indicates how this portion
of the collection was organized into five major sections and numerous subsections.
The catalog records for these 1,047 negatives contain more information and
subject headings than the catalog records for the remainder of the negatives.
(See Cataloging the Collection for further details; see the Search
Tip for
information about strategies for searching the records effectively.)
The Library grouped the negatives into
series by size and broad subject area. Each
negative series has a distinct numerical
prefix. The general content of each of the
negative series is outlined in the section, The
Civil War Negatives: Arrangement and Online
Access. |
Brady-Handy Collection - Three Negative Series
Some negatives from the studio of Mathew B. Brady came into the hands
of his nephew, Levin C. Handy, who operated a photographic studio
in Washington, D.C. The Library of Congress purchased the L.C. Handy
Studio negatives in 1954. Negatives from this source are distinguished
by the prefix LC-BH8. Three Brady Handy negative series
have been incorporated into the Civil War Photographs because of their
close
connection
to the
other
items
in this pool of records and images. The content of the three negative
series is outlined in the section, The Civil War Negatives: Arrangement and Online Access. (The remainder of
the Brady Handy negatives, which deal primarily with post-Civil War
subjects, are available separately
as
the Brady
Handy
Collection.) |
Civil War Photograph LOTs - Some Copy Negatives
The Civil War Photograph LOTs consist of photographic
prints arranged by subject matter
into LOTs (groups). The Library acquired the prints from three main sources:
- In 1905 the Library purchased gelatin silver prints from John C.
Taylor.
- In 1948 the Library purchased a large group of mounted albumen
prints from General Ordway’s son.
- In the 1950s and 1960s, the Library's Photoduplication Service made prints from the glass plate negatives.
As requests for reproductions
have been made over time, copy negatives have been made from some of these
prints. |
Civil War Stereograph Collection - Some Copy Negatives
The Civil War Stereograph Collection consists of stereographs
published by a variety of firms including E. & H.
T. Anthony & Co. and The War Photograph & Exhibition Company acquired
through various means. The Library has made copy negatives from some of these
stereographs to respond to requests for reproductions. |
Glass negatives of Union soldiers
at Folly and Morris Islands during the siege of Charleston, South Carolina,
photographed by Haas & Peale.
Philip Haas of Company A, 1st New York Engineers, and Washington
Peale photographed General Quincy A. Gillmore's efforts to capture
Charleston, South Carolina,
in 1863. This small batch of negatives show Union troops patrolling
the islands off the Carolina coast. The Library acquired Haas and Peale's original glass
plate negatives in 1966. |
Images of Enlisted Men
In the 1950s and early 1960s, the Library
copied approximately 50 images of enlisted
men from daguerreotypes, ambrotypes,
and tintypes
in private
collections.
(The resulting negatives are in the
B8184 series.) The original photographs
were returned to their owners, but the
Library
did
not retain a
record
of the
collector's
names
and
addresses. Any
information on the provenance of these
original photographs would be welcomed.
Please write to the Prints and Photographs
Division,
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
20540-4730 or contact us through our
Ask-a-Librarian form. |
What is Not in the Civil War Photographs Pool
of Online Records and Images?
Many additional Civil War photographs are housed in the Prints & Photographs
Division. These include:
- Photographic prints in the Civil War Photograph
LOTs that either do not have a corresponding original negative or do
not have a corresponding copy negative that has been made available
online. The
division plans
to add
these
to
the
online
collection.
- Original
prints
by George
Barnard and Andrew J. Russell (see Related
Resources for a list of these and other groups of Civil War photographs).
- The
Division
has a few original portrait photographs of Abraham Lincoln, but most
of its Lincoln portraits are copy prints. Online catalog records are
available for some
daguerreotypes and other
portrait photographs relating to Lincoln (see a sampling).
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