18th Century American Women is a blog dedicated to eighteenth century portraits featuring women and the history behind both the subjects and artists of these portraits. Authored by Barbara Wells Sarudy, this blog features portraits by John Singleton Copley, Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauvior, and a number of other North American and European artists. For instance, one recent entry discusses a 1729...

Universal Music Donating 200K Master Recordings to Library of Congress http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/universal-music-donating-200k-master-69817 A Digital Library Race, and Playing Catch-Up [Free registration may be required] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09stream.html?src=busln Performing Arts Encyclopedia http://www.loc.gov/performingarts/ Music for the...

Over a century ago, Yiddish theater was all the rage in New York and other major American cities with a sizable Jewish population. A wide range of well known performers (such as Paul Muni and Leonard Nimoy) cut their teeth on these stages. Of course, the 2nd Avenue corridor in New York City held many of these Yiddish theaters and this site from the New York University Libraries seeks "to capture...

This lovely addition to the expanding universe of web-accessible, digital versions of primary sources, was created by the New York Public Library and includes color lithographs, engravings, and other types of prints documenting the history of dance in Italy, collected by Walter Toscanini (son of the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini). The collection is named for the younger Toscanini's wife,...

Why do most women's clothing lack adequate pockets? How did plaid become such a ubiquitous fabric pattern? What can we learn from examining an old, well-worn pair of jeans? These and other questions about our clothes and textiles are examined in Articles of Interest, a six-part mini-series within the podcast 99% Invisible. Each approximate half-hour episode addresses a different aspect of clothing...

These engrossing diaries, currently on exhibit at the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian, provide exceptional snapshots into the lives of American artists - as well as European artists living in America. Entries cover such topics as New Year's Eve dinner parties, reflections on the war efforts of World War I in France, musings on dreams, marriages, friends, and the quotidian details that...

In the century after Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type, books and other printed materials began to flourish, and in doing so, many artisans began to decorate such items with marvelous woodcuts. Three centuries after their publication, Lessing J. Rosenwald (the retired chairman of Sears, Roebuck, and Company) acquired many of these masterworks at a sale sponsored by their then owner, C.W....

Long-Lost 1913 Lincoln Film to Premiere at the Putnam http://keeneweb.org/newsline/2010/04/06/long-lost-1913-lincoln-film-to-premiere-at-the-putnam/ National Film Preservation Foundation http://www.filmpreservation.org/ The Bioscope http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/ Internet Archive: Abraham Lincoln http://www.archive.org/details/abraham_lincoln Silent...

Noted collectors of American crafts, Fleur and Charles Bresler, donated a collection of 66 pieces of turned and carved wood objects to the Smithsonian. This exhibition celebrates this fine gift, and the turned wood provides the revolutionary name of the exhibition's title. In 2002, Fleur Bresler invited Kenneth R. Trapp, then curator at the Renwick Gallery, to come to the Bresler's apartment to...

Born in 1828 in Nunda, New York, Andrew J. Russell worked as a portrait and landscape painter as a young man. In 1862, he organized a local militia unit for service in the Civil War and he learned the craft of photography along the way. Several years later in 1868, he began a project to document the construction of the Union Pacific railroad during its long march to its meeting point with the...