#National Archives Catalog

[usnatarchives]

“I was in Monmouth battle and many others and received a wound in my face from a ball, the scar of which is still visible.” – Robert Green, veteran

Robert Green gave this testimony at the age of 65 when applying for a federal pension for his service. Green’s story embodies the courage and resilience of African American patriots during the Revolutionary War. Wounded at the Battle of Monmouth, Green’s journey is a testament to the sacrifices made for the liberties we cherish today.

We invite you to be a part of a monumental effort to bring these stories to light. By joining our Revolutionary War Veterans Transcription Project, you’re not just transcribing documents; you’re helping to preserve and honor the legacy of African American soldiers.

You can ensure their stories, their sacrifice, and their dreams are not forgotten. Dive into history, transcribe with us, and help make the legacy of heroes like Robert Green accessible for generations to come.

Visit https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist/missions/revolutionary-war-pension-files for details!

[todaysdocument]

The National Archives Catalog makes access happen! 

The Catalog contains over 200 million pages of digitized or born-digital records–and that number is growing every week. 

#SunshineWeek2023 

[petsincollections]

Farming (Chickens)

Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Series: Photographs

National Archives Catalog

[danniswrites]

Library Petition! on change.org Libraries need funding! Is your library listed on worldcat.org? If it isn't, maybe your library system can't afford to be a member of OCLC, the nations database of catalogued books and documents. OCLC saves a librarian's time, which is sparse, and saves your taxpayer money!

For those of us who can't afford to buy books, or as many as we want, the local library is a godsend. With a free library card, we can access many books in electronic form from Galileo.org or other online sources. Ebooks on every subject you can name, electronic versions of your favorite magazines, all of this is free for every person with a library card.

Government funding has always been low for libraries, and pay low for their workers. When I worked in libraries, I was a government employee and had great benefits, though pay was a lot lower than I would have made at a similar job for a private company. Now, government employees might suddenly have to take a day or a week off WITHOUT PAY because of government furloughs. Back in the 90's, most library workers I knew had to have roommates because their full-time jobs didn't pay enough for them to live by themselves. It's worse, now. Please sign this petition. Libraries and the people who work in them are important. Your taxes pay their salaries and buy the books and databases in them. If you enjoy libraries, please let your government representatives know you think they are important!

Things you can learn in your local library:

Value of antiques you might have in your attic Manuals to repair your car Enjoy reading a popular magazine Newly-released bestsellers Classics If the library you visit doesn't have the physical book you want, you might be able to order it via Interlibrary Loan for a small fee. Local files of interest, including resources for family history researchers that aren't on the Internet yet!

Did you know there are many interesting things that aren't scanned and therefore, aren't on the Internet?

Many of these resources for researchers and family history researchers are crumbling to dust. Literally. Library workers are the ones to save this material for our posterity! The average library worker is very busy, so things like scanning materials in the archives aren't a high priority.

If research is important to you, please sign this petition! Write to your local senator and representative, and tell them how vital your research is and how it benefits people. https://www.change.org/p/require-federal-funding-for-libraries-oclc-subscriptions-and-basic-needs?recruiter=1340264102&recruited_by_id=5086dc10-21d9-11ef-bc0c-4fdea37820d7&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=petition_dashboard_share_modal&utm_medium=facebook Video was made with Canva and Clipchamp #libraries, #government employees, #archives, #history, #databases, #OCLC, #cataloging, #basic library needs, #government, #funding, #petition

[youmight-know]

NRDS-BUILDINGS & EQUIPMENT, NEVADA TEST SITE

[callmepip]

Explaining Internet Horror Things Badly

Local 58 - the moon is one scary ass motherfucker.

Gemini Home Entertainment - neptune is one scary ass motherfucker.

Mandela Catalog - what if jesus, but like among us.

The Monument Mythos/Nixonverse - THE STATUES ARE MOVING! Anyways, America is a country built on the suffering of oppressed peoples, and-

FNAF VHS - What if FNAF made sense?

Welcome Home - tumblr sexyman muppet feeds people to house (REAL) (NOT CLICKBAIT)

SMILE Tapes - Don't Do Drugs :)

Gilbert Garfield - WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING.

Kane Pixel's Backrooms - 🎶 My life is like a videogame-🎶

Vita Carnis - meat is everywhere.

The June Archive and Restoration Project - Fuck you nintendo, deleting hatena flipnote killed a junillion innocent stickmen

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared - funny muppet become scary muppet.

Mystery Flesh Pit National Park - It is a lovely morning in The Flesh Pit, and you are a horrible capitalist.

VibingLeaf - creepypasta if it was good

TMK - the whole thing was leading up TO A DAMN KARL MARX JOKE!

[valdevia]

Hi, I love your works!! I was wondering where you find the original, unedited pictures you use for your art? Do you take them yourself or find them online?

Hey there! I get them from many different sources! Whenever I can I use my own, and sometimes my followers send me cool pics to use (or put them up in the Sacrificial Altar channel in my Discord), but I find most of what I use through public domain sources online!

For the online part, I put this little list together with some of the common resources I use! Feel free to share it around and copy it:

For an easier experience, I'll copy the relevant part below:

STOCK SITES

- Unsplash: Usually the best quality out of the free stock sites. They’ll try to sell you a subscription plan but you can ignore that.

- Adobe Stock: Select “Free” on the dropdown menu next to the search bar. The free image selection here is big and high-quality, though they feel more like stock pictures than natural photos. Note: They limit how many pictures you can download per account per day, but you can make several accounts to circumvent this if you use it a lot.

- Texturelabs: lots of free, very high-quality textures!

- Pexels: Similar to Unsplash, but it has more pictures with people. If you need a photo with models, this is usually the best place.

- Pixabay: Widest selection, but worst quality control. Go here if you haven’t found anything in other sites and don’t mind sifting through a bunch of garbage pics and occasional AI images.

PUBLIC DOMAIN SOURCES

- Wikimedia Commons: an enormous selection of CC and public domain pictures. Super useful, especially for the really specific images that you'd expect to find on a Wikipedia article. Always check the copyright conditions! To filter by license, search something and then click on the License dropdown under the search bar. Select “No restrictions” for public domain images.

- Picryl: A repository of public domain sources, ranging from ancient historical books and artifacts to fairly modern pictures. If you're looking for something old/historical, chances are it's here! This website is probably one of the most complicated ones to use, so here are three important tips before you use it:

This site added a paywall that appears after the 3rd page of search results. To remove it, install uBlock Origin, go to the “My Filters” page (clicking on the gear icon after opening the extension), and paste this filter: picryl.com##._9oJ0c2

After searching, use the timeline on the top right to narrow down the result by year.

It won’t let you download the full picture without paying, but it always has a link to the source site below the description. Click on that, then copy-paste the image’s name to find it in the original source. That way you can get it for free, and often in better quality than Picryl offers.

National Archives Catalog, The Library of Congress, NASA, and Europeana have wide selections, but they are included in Picryl so it’s usually better to search there and then download them in the source as mentioned above!

- Flickr Search: a ton of usable pictures with a generally more amateur feel, just remember to filter by license using the “Any license” dropdown menu. When you find an image, make sure to check its specific license (you can find it below the image, on the right side).

- Openverse: The official Creative Commons archive, has many sources! Includes other sites on this list, but has a lot of clutter if you don’t filter.

- iNaturalist: a repository of user-submitted images of animals, plants, and fungi. Look for a genus or species, then navigate to the photo list and filter by license.

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

- The Met: An amazing selection of artifacts from all over the world, with top quality photographs of most of them (usually with several angles for each). You can filter images by material, location, and era.

- Getty Museum: Another smaller selection of museum pieces, but this one includes old photos as well as artifacts. You can also filter by dates, materials and cultures. Make sure you include the “Open Content” filter to only see public domain things!

- Smithsonian: Big selection of around 5 million museum pieces, with some 3D scans of museum pieces. Most pieces just have a single picture that can sometimes be low quality, but pieces with 3D models sometimes also include a lot of high quality photos from multiple angles. This collection also includes things from museums of natural history, so you can also use it to search for bones and specimens.

- Artvee: public domain classical art. They make you pay to download high-quality images.

If you guys got any others, please let me know and I'll add them to the collection!

[bremser]

Robert Frank on Ocean Boulevard

The late afternoon light, palm trees, their shadows and a covered car are elements so classic to LA and Southern California that Robert Frank's "Covered car -- Long Beach, California" could have been taken anywhere from San Diego to Santa Barbara.

I’ve been living in Long Beach for a handful of years and the photograph lives in my head rent free, in a good way, considering how much the prints can hammer for. I was out doing errands recently, stuck behind a delivery truck on Ximeno Ave, saw a covered car next to a palm tree for the 100th time and decided to find out where this was. The actual location is not obvious, Long Beach isn't a small city, without a street sign or house number, you can spend a lot of hours on Google maps.

In 1955 Frank was awarded a Guggenheim grant to document America through a road trip. He drove 10,000 miles, took 767 rolls off film, made 1,000 work prints from those selections. And edited those down to the 83 photographs of "The Americans," which became one of most influential photo books of the 20th century. (A signed, first edition can sell for $10-25,000.)

In the final edit of "The Americans," Frank pairs the covered car in a devastating way with a covered body ("Car accident—U.S. 66, between Winslow and Flagstaff, Arizona") on the following page. The sequence is a classic example of the art of photography in book form.  

work print for "Covered car -- Long Beach, California" with related contact sheet number in red pencil

A big 2009 exhibit about "The Americans" displayed many of Frank's work prints, contact sheets, along with prints for every page in “The Americans.” The exhaustively researched catalog included each contact sheet for those 83 final prints. The Frank archive is at the National Gallery of Art and they have over 600 contact sheets from the project online. In the contact sheets, you can see frames Frank shot before and after the frame that ended up in the book. The Long Beach visit occurs in contact sheets 537-540.

10 Frames from Contact Sheet 537 related to Ocean Blvd, Long Beach

Contact sheet 537 has the sequence with “Covered Car -- Long Beach.” It combines two different rolls of film, ten frames are from Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach (made famous by LBC’s 2023 poet laureate, Lana del Rey). The other twenty frames are from a roll of film shot at a recreation center or school auditorium, of a marionette show for children.

Robert Frank, frame 5 on contact sheet 537, facing south, 13th Place, Long Beach

Seven of the ten frames feature the covered car. Frame 1 is missing, possibly a throwaway while loading film. In the first five frames, Frank shoots the covered car at the end of the street, you can tell he's interested in the scene. He could have parked his car and got out, or shot these frames from his car window. The photos show a dead end, leading to … white sky. Living here, I immediately had an idea of where this might be. 

On the west side of Long Beach along the bluff overlooking the beach, there's a series of half block streets named "place" that jut south from Ocean Boulevard. Each dead-ends at the bluff, allowing beach access and real estate with water views. Some still have the “end” signs you can see in Frank’s frames. So, which one was it? In 68 years the bluff has experienced a lot of development, large towers built, original Craftsman-era homes torn down.

The details help identify the location: low slung garages (frames 2-6), the space carved out in the sidewalk for the palms, the glimpse of a two story building in the frame (frame 7), with a vent in a particular location. When you overexpose the MOMA jpeg, you can see a number: 20. 

(left) 13th Place, Long Beach 1956, (right) December, 2024

Frank’s covered car was located at 20 13th Place. The garages there still have the number 20, though some have been rebuilt. The two-story building, built 1917, still has the vent in the same location. Interestingly, after taking five shots of the dead end, he only takes one frame of the covered car framed by the palm trees.

The next frames were taken further down Ocean Boulevard, about a half mile. A man, woman and child walk towards Frank, while on the right side of the frame the beach is visible. A woman is on a bench facing the beach.

Robert Frank contact sheet 537: Ocean Boulevard, Long Beach, (left) facing east, (right) facing north

He stops and takes a portrait of her. She’s near the corner of Ocean and Lindero - a house and bus stop are visible in the background, that (infrequently arriving) bus stop is still in that location. The angle of the shadows from the palms indicates very late afternoon.

(left): Woman seated on bench--Los Angeles [sic], 1956, (right) Ocean & Lindero, 2024

In between “Covered Car” and “Woman seated on a Bench” is the Municipal Art Center (now called Long Beach Museum of Art). If Frank had stopped there, the 1955 Long Beach Juried Art Show was up, a show of mostly local painters. The museum was housed in a distinctive historic mansion on the bluff that would have been impossible for Frank to miss on foot or even if he had driven the half mile.

Robert Frank contact sheet 537: the marionette show

The remaining question about contact sheet 537 is: where is the location of the marionette show? There's a park one block north of Ocean Boulevard that had a recreation center with a stage. It's possible Frank skipped the art museum for the rec center.

Besides identifying the location of the covered car, the other question I had: What was Robert Frank doing in Long Beach? He didn’t just drive down to look for cars and palm trees. The other contact sheets (538-540) and work prints answer this. In a follow-up post we'll look at the rest of Frank's day in Long Beach and give it an exact date.

Related to the topic of locating places and people in "The Americans":

"Robert Frank Goes to Bunker Hill" - a 2021 investigation to find the location of Frank's photo of a building on Bunker Hill, downtown Los Angeles. Deliciously deep dive that involves building permits for the neon sign in the photo and a tour of Bunker Hill via the contact sheet.

In Search of the Places in Robert Frank's "The Americans" - Nicholas Dawidoff, 2022, locates a handful of photos

"Elevators, Americans, Missed Connections" at the SFMOMA version of the 2009 exhibit, a woman (the elevator operator) recognized herself in one of the photos!

Alamo Square, San Francisco - my 2008 photo of the spot Frank's portrait of the couple was taken (he said this was his favorite photo in the book). He was probably using a wider 28 or 35mm lens to take the portrait.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Ancient Necklace from Georgia (South Caucasus), c. 100-200 CE: this necklace is almost 2,000 years old; it includes an amulet case with a ram's head carved in amethyst, a garnet-studded perfume vial, and a chain woven from gold

This necklace features two pendants:

The uppermost pendant is a hollow, puck-shaped medallion with a removable lid that opens from the front, allowing the pendant to be used as a container/locket (possibly for a textual amulet or similar item); the lid is decorated with an amethyst relief of a ram's head, along with a ring of alternating turquoise and garnet stones. Turquoise tiles can also be seen running along the outer edge of the amulet case, and a chain is attached to each side, with a second pendant hanging below.

The second pendant is a hollow, pear-shaped container used for storing perfume or incense. The body of this second vessel (and its cap) is decorated with a series of garnet "spikes."

Both pendants are made of gold, as is the primary chain, which is crafted from a series of gold strands that have been twisted into a thick wicker-work pattern.

The necklace was found in the ancient necropolis of Armaziskhevi (located near Mtskheta, Georgia) which is a site that was once used by members of the local aristocracy, including the provincial governors (Pitiakhsh) and high-ranking nobles (Eristavi) of Kartli/Iberia, in what is now the Republic of Georgia.

I know I've mentioned this in some of my previous posts, but just for reference, here is a map showing the location of modern-day Georgia:

Sources & More Info:

Georgian National Museum: Necklace with Medallion & Perfume Vial

Caucasus Travel Guide: Archive of Georgian Artifacts

Georgian National Museum: Archaeology of the Roman Period in Georgia (essay & catalog)

[uwmarchives]

Native American Heritage Month at UWM Archives

In honor of Native American Heritage Month, we offer this selection of materials from our collections that begin to illustrate Native American presence and power at UWM.

📸: Sandra Harris Tran tables for the Native American Student Movement (NASM) at UWM, circa 1980. The NASM has been a key vehicle for Native student organizing, support, and expression since the late 1960s. NASM is now known as the American Indian Student Association. Call Number: UWM Photographs Collection, UWM AC 6, Box 18.

📸: A Milwaukee Sentinel clipping pictures American Indian students organizing for a dedicated academic program outside Chapman Hall in 1971. Call Number: UWM University Communications & Media Relations Records, UWM AC 134, Box 2.

📸: The cover to a 1974 catalog shows the fruits of Native student organizing in the form of the UWM Native American Studies Program (now American Indian Studies). Call Number: UWM Office of the Chancellor Records, UWM AC 46, Box 54.

📸: The UWM Native American Studies Program announces the pilot of the Wisconsin Native American Languages Project (WNALP) in 1974. This announcement is from "Anishinaabe News: UW-Milwaukee American Indian News," a newsletter of the Native American Studies Program and NASM. Call Number: UWM Office of the Chancellor Records, UWM AC 46, Box 54.

📸: Margaret Richmond offers language instruction to a class of Native "youngsters" as a Menominee Language Resource Consultant for the WNALP in 1976. Call Number: UWM Photographs Collection, UWM AC 6, Box 18. The earlier Native American Studies Program WNALP announcement anticipates an appropriate caption: "We've a lot to learn from our elders!"

In cooperation with the Great Lakes Intertribal Council, UWM Archives stewards the Wisconsin Native American Languages Project Records, 1973-1976 (UWM Mss 20). With extensive instructional materials from the WNALP, the collection continues to serve as an important resource for the study and revitalization of Wisconsin's Native languages for citizens of Wisconsin's Ojibwe, Menominee, Oneida, Potawatomi, and Ho-Chunk nations.

- Eli

[cosmic60s]

June 27, 1978

Happy 100th birthday to President Jimmy Carter - here he is with Jerry in the White House!

(sourced from the National Archives Catalog)

[usnatarchives]

WWI coffee break - wounded American GIs pause for coffee while recuperating in a Red Cross outpost NARA gif, NARA ID 8953.

Hooray, hooray, it’s National Coffee Day! ☕

Our records clearly show that coffee is a health food! See product label below.

COFFEE IS:

"A drink for the sick and the well"

"A drink for the young and the old"

"palatable, wholesome and nourishing"

"A drink for morning, noon and night."

"Healthful and delicious, wholesome and appetizing."

Coffee is a health food! Grains of Health Label, Records of the Patent and Trademark Office, Product label 1906, NARA ID 5714039.

Coffee samples from various areas are tested for taste and aroma by Sr. Aldo Cabella. Oficina Central de Cafe, Guatemala City, 4/3/1947. NARA ID 30805841.

Coffee in SPACE!

Commander Richard Richards drinks coffee on the Space Shuttle Discovery's during STS-64, 1994. NARA ID 22837732

Glorious, glorious beans!

Coffee drying in concrete patio is turned at intervals to expose all beans to the sun. Finca Chocola. Guatemala. Mitchell. 13-17-45

Coffee at the North Pole?

Original caption: This image depicts Coast Guardsmen on a trawler in the Arctic enjoying a cup of coffee.

[todaysdocument]

Happy Constitution Day! 

Can’t make it to the National Archives Building in person? Check out the hi-res scans in our catalog:

Record Group 11: General Records of the United States Government Series: The Constitution of the United States

Image description: Zoomed-in portion of the first page of the U.S. Constitution, including the words “We the People.” 

Transcription: 

We the People of the United States in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article. I.

Section.1. All Legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section.2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained the Age of twenty-five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section.3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Section.4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

Section.5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and maybe authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one-fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section.6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Section.7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a Law, be presented to the President of the

[petsincollections]

Painted Turtles

The creator compiled or maintained the parent series, Photographs from the National Digital Library, between ca. 1998–2011.

National Archives Catalog

[judgemark45]

MURDERERS' ROW

Third Fleet aircraft carriers at anchor in Ulithi Atoll, 8 December 1944, during a break from operations in the Philippines area. The carriers are (from front to back): USS Wasp (CV-18), USS Yorktown (CV-10), USS Hornet (CV-12), USS Hancock (CV-19) and USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). Wasp, Yorktown and Ticonderoga are all painted in camouflage Measure 33, Design 10a.

Photographed from a USS Ticonderoga plane. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Catalog #: 80-G-294131

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

Untitled, 1939

Self-Obliteration No. 1 and No. 2, 1962-67

A Pumpkin, 1999

Women of Shangri-La (Infinity Nets), 2002

Women Wishing for Peace, 2004

Yayoi-chan & Toko-ton, 2013

I'm Here, but Nothing, 2000/2018

My Heart with Many Worries, 2013

Tomb of Downfall, and my Spiritual Poverty Dominates my Entire Body, 2017

January 22nd is National Polka Dot Day and to celebrate we’re sharing artwork from the Queen of Polka Dots, Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929)! Kusama’s first recorded use of polka dots dates back to around age ten when she covered a drawn portrait of her mother in a field of frantic dots. More than a stylistic choice, Kusama has since shared the use of polka dots reflects the “infinity nets” present in the visual hallucinations she often experiences in relation to her mental illness. Incorporating them into her art became a way for Kusama to share and coexist with the fears prevalent in her life.  

Yayoi Kusama: All About My Love, published by Thames & Hudson in 2019, is an intimate overview of Kusama’s life and career documenting the artist’s retrospective exhibition of the same name that was on view at the Matsumoto City Museum of Art in 2018. One of the many exhibition catalogs held within Special Collections, Yayoi Kusama: All About My Love offers nearly 200 color reproductions of Kusama’s work accompanied by numerous photographs of the artist, archival paraphernalia, poetry, interviews and her exhibitions throughout her long career.  

Read other Milestone Monday posts here! 

– Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern