Snapshots of the Past

[A messenger (Beckley) on horseback in front of the White House] – Vintage Print

[A messenger (Beckley) on horseback in front of the White House], [no date recorded on caption card] — historic photograph
[A messenger (Beckley) on horseback in front of the White House], [no date recorded on caption card]. Historic photograph from the Horses collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

A window into the past: [A messenger (Beckley) on horseback in front of the White House], preserved in this historic photograph. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

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[A messenger (Beckley) on horseback in front of the White House]

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A messenger named Beckley sits astride his horse in front of the White House, in a plain street scene photographed by Frances Benjamin Johnston, a Washington photographer known for her documentary views of the city. Horseback couriers like him carried dispatches and packages around the capital before telephones and motor vehicles became common, so the picture preserves a working role that is easy to overlook beside the building behind him. The record gives no date, and the name and details come from an old caption card that has not been verified, so the photograph is best read as a glimpse of its period.

Created / published[no date recorded on caption card]
Medium1 photographic print.
NotesPhoto by Frances Benjamin Johnston. Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection. This record contains unverified, old data from caption card. Caption card tracings: Occup; D.C.; PI; Shelf.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,211 × 1,536 px · prints to 4 × 5 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-127159

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