Snapshots of the Past

[Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress under construction] – Historic Print

[Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress under construction], [between 1890 and 1910] — historic photograph
[Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress under construction], [between 1890 and 1910]. Historic photograph from the Historic Print Archive 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: [Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress under construction], preserved in this historic photograph. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

Framed, it is ready for the wall; unframed, it is ready for the frame you choose. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Since 2001, Snapshots of the Past has shipped historic prints to tens of thousands of customers around the world.

[Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress under construction]

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Before the octagonal Main Reading Room opened to readers, its beneath-the-dome space was a scaffolded work site, and this photograph captures that stage of the Library of Congress's Thomas Jefferson Building. The building was erected between 1890 and 1897 in the Beaux-Arts style, and the reading room, with its ring of tall windows and its high dome, was among its most ambitious interiors. Pictures like this one show the scale of the labor involved, from the raw structure to the decorative finishes that followed, and they remain useful evidence of how the building was made.

Created / published[between 1890 and 1910]
Medium1 photographic print.
GenrePhotographic prints 1890-1910.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,536 × 1,217 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-148196

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