Snapshots of the Past

[Ethnological heads for the Jefferson Building, Library of Congress] – Historic Photograph Print

[Ethnological heads for the Jefferson Building, Library of Congress], [between 1890 and 1910(?)] — historic photograph
[Ethnological heads for the Jefferson Building, Library of Congress], [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

Few images capture their era like this historic photograph of [Ethnological heads for the Jefferson Building, Library of Congress]. An authentic image from the Library of Congress, it carries the weight of the real historical record.

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[Ethnological heads for the Jefferson Building, Library of Congress]

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Ethnological heads, a series of sculpted faces meant to represent the peoples of the world, formed part of the decorative program for the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, which opened in 1897 after years of construction. They reflected the late nineteenth-century habit of sorting humanity into racial types, a framework now widely rejected and worth reading critically. This view, dated somewhere between 1890 and 1910, documents the heads during the years the building's ornament was being made, when the library was meant to present human learning as a grand achievement.

Created / published[between 1890 and 1910(?)]
Medium1 photographic print.
GenrePhotographic prints 1890-1910.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan4,096 × 3,277 px · prints to 14 × 11 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-178764

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