Snapshots of the Past

[Group of young women studying plants in normal school, Washington, D.C.] – Vintage Print

[Group of young women studying plants in normal school, Washington, D.C.], [1899?] — historic image
[Group of young women studying plants in normal school, Washington, D.C.], [1899?]. Historic image from the Washington DC 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

Few images capture their era like this historic image of [Group of young women studying plants in normal school, Washington, D.C.]. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.

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[Group of young women studying plants in normal school, Washington, D.C.]

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Young women bend over plant specimens in a Washington, D.C., normal school, the kind of training institution that prepared students to become public school teachers. Frances Benjamin Johnston, one of the leading women photographers of the period, made the picture around 1899, and she often turned her camera to schools and everyday institutional life. It is a cyanotype, a contact process that produces the deep blue tones associated with early "blueprints" and that was cheap and simple enough for use outside a studio. Hands-on botany like this reflected reform ideas about learning by direct observation that were spreading through teacher education in the late 1800s.

Created / published[1899?]
GenreCyanotypes 1890-1900.
NotesFrances Benjamin Johnston Collection (Library of Congress).
SubjectsBotany--Washington (D.C.)--1890-1900. Women--Education--Washington (D.C.)--1890-1900. Classrooms--Washington (D.C.)--1890-1900.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan4,096 × 3,279 px · prints to 14 × 11 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-177220

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