Mark Stoneman Profile Photo

Mark R. Stoneman

Historian, editor, and translator for hire (German to English). Longtime resident of Washington, DC, now in Conway, NH, as a caregiver (he/him).

  Old Photos

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    Photograph shows librarians, mostly women, in large room with alphabetized drawers of catalog cards; 1917 Red Cross poster by Hayden Hayden hangs on the wall.

    Catalog card processing at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, ca. 1917–1920.

    Via Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2016649543/.

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    Black and white photo of a woman at a behind-the-scenes catalog with a library cart with books and other items she's apparently pulled for researchers or for Congressional staff. She is squatted down with an open book, a card she is consulting, and an open card catalog drawer.

    Jewel Mazique at a Library of Congress card catalog, Washington, DC, ca. 1942.

    Via Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information photograph collection, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017828946/.

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    Photo of 1909 Child Labor Protest

    Library of Congress summary: photograph shows half-length portrait of two girls wearing banners with slogan 'ABOLISH CH[ILD] SLAVERY!!' in English and Yiddish, one carrying American flag; spectators stand nearby. Probably taken during May 1, 1909 labor parade in New York City.

    Child labor protest, probably in New York City on May 1, 1909. Note the U.S. flag that the girl wearing a sash in Yiddish is holding. The girl with a sash in English seems to be holding a flag, too, albeit one in a single color, perhaps socialist red. The message on the sashes is uncompromising: “ABOLISH CHILD SLAVERY!”

    Bain News photograph, via Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/97519062.

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    Black and whitephoto of a young woman teacher and six children of varying ages, four of them girls and two of them boys. More details in the caption.

    New York World-Telegram photograph by Fred Palumbo, 1964:

    Miss April Lou, teacher at PS 1, Manhattan, with six Chinese children, recent arrivals from Hong Kong and Formosa [aka Taiwan], who are holding up placards giving his or her Chinese name (both in ideographs and in transliteration) and the [American English] name to be entered upon the official school records.

    Library of Congress, New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/94512334/.

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    Photograph of two women and a child exiting a building with pots hanging on the outside wall. Maybe this was a place the Hungarian woman was considering?

    “Mexican miner’s wife and child are visited by another miner’s wife (Hungarian) who is interested in starting a maternal health clinic there. Scotts Run, Bertha Hill, West Virginia” by Marion Post Walcott for the Farm Security Administration, 1938. NYPL Digital Collections, image id 58749987.

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    A 1943 Photo of Welders for Women's History Month

    Four African American women welders employed to work on the Liberty ship SS George Washington Carver, kneeling and holding welding equipment. Bits of the port and shipyard are also visible, as are three men, two black and one white.

    “Skilled women workers helped build SS George Washington Carver.” Photo by E. F. Joseph for the Office of War Information, Kaiser Shipyards, Richmond, California, ca. 1943.

    With nearly 1,000 Negro women employed as burners, welders, scalers and in other capacities at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, Calif., women war workers played an important part in the construction of the Liberty Ship, SS George Washington Carver, launched on May 7, 1943. Welders Alivia Scott, Hattie Carpenter and Flossie Burtos await an opportunity to weld their first piece of steel on the ship.

    Repository: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL Digital Collections, image id 1206635.

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    Four women in a row with their backs to the camera dressed in indigenous Pueblo dress with a large United States Army seal in the middle of their backs and related service patches.

    Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, July 18, 2015:

    Members of the Native American Women Warriors, a Pueblo, Colorado-based association of active and retired American Indians in U.S. military service, at a Colorado Springs Native American Inter Tribal Powwow and festival in that central Colorado city.

    Credit: Gates Frontiers Fund Colorado Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Further details, including names and ranks, at https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2015633463/.

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    Two Suffragettes

    Black and white photo: Fay Hubbard full-length, standing, showing publication to young man, bag labeled 'American Suffragette' slung over her shoulder.
    Black and white photograph: full-length portrait of elderly woman, standing, facing slightly right, holding an umbrella and wearing a top hat and tails. She's got chains suggesting a pocket watch and wallet of some kind, but also a rose. She's also wearing a medal of some kind, probably the Congressional Medal of Honor.

    1. “Fay Hubbard, 13-year Old Suffragette” in New York on February 9, 1910.

      “Suffragette! Suffragette!” This is the cry of little Fay Hubbard as she goes through the crowd at the suffragette meetings in New York selling copies of the paper… Miss Hubbard is a niece of Mrs. E. Ida Williams, the recording secretary of the Suffragette…

    2. Mary Edwards Walker (1832–1919). Dr. Walker served as a surgeon in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. She was a Medal of Honor recipient, a suffragette, and a dress reformer.

    Images via Library of Congress, PPOC, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/92510578/ and https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2005684835/.

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    Photo is described in common caption. Ernestine Eckstein can be seen from the side, one Black woman in the midst of white men.

    Photo is described in common caption. In this one Ernestine Eckstein is facing forward and enough of her sign is visible to deduce the rest.
    Photo is described in common caption. In this one Barbara Gittings is facing forward, and her sign reads

    Intersections: three photos of Ernestine Eckstein in a 1965 picket line outside the White House protesting Federal discrimination against gay people in civil and military service and their obtaining security clearances. Her sign reads, “DENIAL OF EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY IS IMMORAL.” Eckstein was a Black woman, whereas most of the other picketers appear to have been white men. Another lesbian activist, white, is visible in one photo: Barbara Gittings. The photographer was Gitting’s white partner, Kay Tobin.

    Photos via the Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs Collection, NYPL Digital Collections, images 1605765, 1605764, and 1605766

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    Black and white photo: Looking up at circular fire escapes around bay windows, and bas-reliefs under windows on hotel, Chrysler Building just visible at right.

    “Murray Hill Hotel, Manhattan” by Berenice Abbott on November 19, 1935, for her “Changing New York” Federal Art Project.

    Via The New York Public Library, image id 458449867.

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    Black and white photo of a dumpster in a DC alley. The message in block letters painted with stencils reads, 'WHEN THIS IS ALL OVER'.

    “When this is all over, Adams Morgan, Washington, DC” by Tracy Meehleib, April 8, 2020. Via Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2020632316/. License: CC BY-NC-ND.

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    Photo of Mixed Race Sociability in Jim Crow Washington, DC, 1944

    Black and white photo of a convivial scene. More details in caption.

    Pete Seeger at twenty-five entertaining federal workers, sailors, and soldiers with a banjo and song at the opening of the Labor Canteen in Washington, DC, on February 13, 1944. This unsegregated place in a Jim Crow city was sponsored by the Federal Workers of America and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.1 Note First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt enjoying herself in the mixed race and sex audience. On the wall behind the merrymakers are sketches of a hapless character undergoing physical training, perhaps Private Snafu.

    Source: Office of War Information, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017864322/

    1. For further details about the Labor Canteen, see the long caption for Washington Area Spark, “Social equality at the Labor Canteen,” https://www.flickr.com/photos/washington_area_spark/54266105006/. ↩︎

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    Color photograph. Top half of African American boy in a buttoned up shirt with a collar and light brown corduroy overalls. He's wearing a black hat with a brim. He's facing the camera, the sun lighting most of him.

    Negro boy near Cincinnati, Ohio by John Vachon for the Farm Security Administration, 1942 or 1943.

    Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017877922/.

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    Inspiring Photo from 1971 for Our Troubled Times

    Black and white photo of men and women conference goers in a social situation of some kind, standing. The women described in the caption are in the foreground. They are the focal point.

    “Isabel Miller and Barbara Gittings hugging librarians” in 1971 at the American Library Association Conference in Dallas, Texas. (Miller is on the left. Gittings is on the right in the floral sleeveless dress.)

    Librarians can be central in the fight against bigotry and for equal rights, which might explain why some gay rights activists were there. (An important example: early professional Black librarians.)

    Photo by Kay Tobin, via the Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs Collection, NYPL Digital Collections, image ID 1606079. 🏳️‍🌈

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    Photo of Joy and Love, 1962

    Her head, one shoulder, and one hand is visible. Soap in hair and forehead. In a shower, the rest of her behind the plastic shower curtain. But all one sees are her radiant eyes and face, the big spontaneous smile or laugh. So much joy.

    So much joy in this photo, so much love: “Barbara Gittings in shower, circa 1962” by Kay Tobin. 🏳️‍🌈

    Via Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs collection, NYPL Digital Collections, image ID 1605708.

    Postscript

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    Black and white photo of group of African American men. Twenty are wearing flight suits with pilots headgear and goggles on their heads. Nine sitting on the ground in front are dressed in more ordinary military uniforms.

    Group portrait of a Tuskegee Airmen squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps, ca. 1939–45. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL Digital Collections, image ID 1823641.

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    At least nine kids are visible on the ice, one having fallen and holding the leg of another. The kids most clearly visible are boys. Leafless trees surround the pond, and some buildings are visible.

    Color photo by Jack Delano of kids skating and playing hockey on a pond in the vicinity of Brockton, Massachusetts, in December 1940.

    Source: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017877371/.

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    Color photo of three women installing things in a shiny metal round structure. The front part (image foreground) has a wider circumference than the rear part (image background). The bodies of the women, one standing and doing something overhead, framed by the other two working on something closer to the floor, seem almost choreographed, embodying the dignity and high purpose of their labor.

    Women installing assemblies and fixtures in the tail fuselage of a B-17F bomber (Flying Fortress) under construction at the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, California, in October 1942. The bodies of the women seem almost choreographed, embodying the dignity and high purpose of their labor. Photo by Alfred T. Palmer for the U.S. Office of War Information.

    Source: Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Color Photographs, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017878924/.

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    Black-and-white photo of a nurse, medical bag in hand, wearing snow shoes in order to make her way across the snowy land. There's a pine tree as well.

    Rural health nurse, upstate New York, by Lewis Wickes Hine for the Milbank Memorial Fund, ca. 1934. The New York Public Library, image ID 460823.

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    Black and white photo of eight sled dogs pulling a man in a race, Mt. Chocorua in the background.

    Sled dog race in Tamworth, New Hampshire, on February 28, 1990 with Mt. Chocorua in the background. Source: Bruce Bedford Archive.

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    Black-and-white photograph with parts of two train carriages visible, Pullman sleeping cars. Snow-covered mountains in background, piles of snow in foreground. People from urban areas further south, presumably Boston, are gathering outside in their winter coats. Some suitcases and skies are present.

    “Skiers arriving early in the morning with the weekend ‘ski-meister.’ North Conway, New Hampshire, center of the Eastern Slopes ski territory,” 1940, by Marion Post Walcott.

    Source: Farm Security Administration Photographs, New York Public Library Digital Collections, image ID 58859979.

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    Black-and-white photo: six Black men outside of what seems to be an eatery of some kind in New York City. Four are wearing glasses. Two are wearing light-colored suits, i.e., their work uniforms, with white smocks tied around their waists. Three of the others have suits of other colors, and hats typical of American men in 1940s movies. One portly man has on a grid-patterned shirt, long sleeves and collar. One of the two workers is seated on a wooden crate turned upright. Next to him is a portable radio (maybe 18 inches wide by 12 inches tall and 8 inches deep). He's got one hand on the radio and is pointing at it with the other. Two other men are pointing at it. All are leaning in, engaged with the program, some smiling and perhaps about to speak.

    The caption reads, “Residents listening to radio outside storefront, circa late 1940s.” There are some signs and goods visible, but they’re too small to make out. The uniforms with white smocks of two of the men suggest food.

    Source: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division (Street Scenes, Harlem, 1940s), New York Public Library Digital Collections, image ID 1800852.

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