Mrs. Orme Thornberry, balloon girl at the Near East Relief Benefit Garden Fete. Between 1920 and 1930. Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62-106968. bibliographic record
During the administration of Presidents Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, the National Photo Company supplied photographs
of current news events in Washington, D.C., as a daily service to its subscribers. It also prepared sets of pictures on popular
subjects and undertook advertising work and special photographic assignments for organizations, businesses, and government
agencies in the Washington, D.C., area. The company's proprietor, Herbert E. French, encouraged his photographers to go after
exclusives—subjects not covered by other news photographers. He also sometimes purchased photographs from other sources to
supplement the coverage provided by his photographers.
The National Photo Company Collection (80,000 photographic prints and negatives, 1850-1945, bulk 1909-32) documents many aspects of Washington, D.C., life and,
to a limited extent, events elsewhere in the United States and the world. It is one of the Prints and Photographs Division's
best sources for coverage of the 1920s and pointedly conveys the impact of technology in the early part of the twentieth century,
particularly the spread of automobiles and radio. Coverage that features women includes:
Girl steel workers [in automobile] on picket duty on steel mill property. 1919. Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62-77535. bibliographic record
portraits of members of socially and politically prominent families
the women's suffrage campaign
the social scene
sports and recreational activities
scenes of business, industries, occupations, and services
Searching the Collection
The photographic prints in the collection consist of:
photos mounted in albums, each with a chronological or subject focus, to which LOT numbers have been assigned; most of the
photos are accompanied by original captions
loose photos that have been grouped into LOTs by subject matter
Most images for which copy photographs exist can be searched in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog, where the collection
has its own listing. Digitized images accompany most online records.
To look for images for which no online records exist, onsite researchers can:
consult the Divisional Catalog for images grouped by subject/chronological period into LOTs
consult the LOT record to determine whether an associated, unpublished finding aid is available; such finding aids give greater
detail about the subject matter represented in the group
