|
|
TABLE of CONTENTS :
[CLICK ON TITLE LINK FOR SLIDES]
|
On January 1, 1801, the first public reception was held in the President’s House, and a democratic social custom began. From 1801 until its end in 1932, the New Year’s Reception at the White House was a tradition met with anticipation by diplomats, government officials, military officers, and the public alike. Everyone from the common citizen to the highest-ranking diplomat was welcomed. By the early 20th century, crowds swelled to more than 6,000, and a line on the sidewalk outside the White House snaked out beyond the gates and around the block bordering the old State, War, and Navy building (Eisenhower Executive Office Building).
Year after year details of the reception--floral decorations, dresses worn by the ladies, and musical selections--made front-page stories in the Washington newspapers. Spanning more than a century and a quarter and only cancelled a few times because of wars, illness or the president’s travel schedule, the New Year’s Reception became a major event on the social life of the nation’s capital. The newspapers delighted in coloring their annual review of the reception with anecdotes. During the Great Depression, one man mistook the line of people waiting at the White House for a bread line. President Herbert Hoover held the last New Year’s Day reception in 1932. Yet, J.W. Hunefeld, a man who prided himself with being first in line for many years, waited forlornly at the White House gates in 1934, because "he wanted to make sure the president hadn’t changed his mind."
|
|
|
|
|
|
French photographer Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre invented the first commercial photographic process known as the Daguerreotype, in 1839. The process involved a plate of polished copper with a coating of light sensitive silver-halide. Once exposed, the latent image on the copper plate was developed using open flame and liquid Mercury. Daguerre published a precise description of this process titled, Histoire ET description du procede nomme le Daguerreotype, allowing anyone who purchased the booklet to make their own daguerreotypes.
American Photographers such as Mathew Brady marveled at this process, with its ability to capture a "truthful likeness.” Brady, a famous American daguerreotype photographer created a gallery of images, ranging from presidents to the common man. This remarkable series of early presidential and first ladies photographic portraits reproduced on this page are public domain images from a daguerreotype collection in the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
|
|
America's Court Photographer
Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1962) was an early photo-journalist and a noted freelance photographer. Johnston’s documentary work was exemplary and included a renowned series of photographs commissioned by Booker T. Washington for the Hampton Institute in 1899 and the Tuskegee Institute in 1906. However, she also made her mark as portrait photographer. From the late 1880s to the 1910s, Johnston captured remarkable images of the White House that document the lifestyles of the first families, workers, and visitors as well as its architectural design in that period. Johnston studied art in Paris and Washington and through family connections met the elite of Washington society and gained access to the first family. With this opportunity and hard work, Johnston established a business as a professional portrait photographer and moved into the field of photo-journalism, working freelance for numerous magazines and illustrated journals. In the early 1910s, Johnston began to specialize in architectural photography. The culmination of her career as an architectural photographer came with the Carnegie Corporation’s support of a survey of the early buildings and estates of nine southern states. The Library of Congress holds her papers and the bulk of her photographs.
|
|
Theodor Horydczak was a prominent Washington commercial photographer from the early 1920s until his retirement in 1959. Very little is known about Horydczak. It is believed that Horydczak was born in Eastern Europe and that he took up photography during or after World War I. He may have been assigned to the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Horydczak worked freelance and usually shot his images with a large-format camera, the Gold Ansco. Horydczak favored the 8 x 10-inch negative format and captured many views of the city’s landmarks. His night photography of familiar public buildings was particularly striking. Horydcak’s White House subjects focus mainly on the architecture of the house, but there were a number of shots that are photojournalistic in character. His collection resides in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs collection and can be seen on line.
|
|
During the administrations of Presidents Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, the National Photo Company provided extensive coverage of events at the White House and throughout Washington, DC. The National Photo Company was a local agency that supplied photographs of current news events in Washington, D.C. as a daily service to its subscribers. The photos of the company captured many historic and candid moments at the White House covering a variety of subjects: noteworthy visitors to the White House, New Year’s receptions, inaugurations, Easter Egg Rolls, White House workers, presidential families, and restoration work. The Library of Congress acquired the photographic files of the National Photo Company from the proprietor of the collection, Herbert E. French in 1947.
|
|
|
|
