Ho! Ho! Ho! — a little nonsense for the end of the year

I found a photo. It needs a better caption. Something funny, and perhaps seasonal, too?

Highsmith, Carol M, photographer, “Santa and Mrs. Claus milk a cow. Why, we’re not exactly sure.” c. 1980-2010. Library of Congress

Send your entry (or entries, as many as you like!) to me via the blog’s “Leave a Reply | Write a Comment…” space. I’ll publish all the comments (let’s keep it clean and non-partisan) and I’ll pick a winner.¹ Go to it, history lovers!

Needless to say, this photograph is—to the best of my knowledge—not related in any way to the Jonathan Clark House Museum, its board, staff, or volunteers. Except that it has a cow. And a barn. As did the Clark family back in the 1840s-1850s.

Where on earth…?

Where did I find this, er, remarkable photo? Well, I spend a lot of time looking for just the right images to illustrate these Clark House Historian essays. I like to support my conclusions with digital versions of many kinds of historical documents, manuscripts, and newspaper clippings. I also like to enhance our understanding of the past with a variety of historical and contemporary photographs, drawings, lithographs, and other visual images.

I have a simple criteria for choosing the visuals for the blog. Each image needs to enhance the post and (since I have no budget for reproduction or publication royalties) all the images I use need to be free from copyright restrictions or, in a pinch, useable under Fair Use provisions of the U.S. copyright law. Not surprisingly then, one of my go-to sites for American history and related images is the Library of Congress (LOC).

Highsmith, Carol, photographer, [Main Reading Room. View from above showing researcher desks. Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.], 2007. Library of Congress.

And if I need beautiful color photographs of modern-day America, I look for them in the LOC’s fabulous Carol M. Highsmith Archive.

Carol M. Highsmith, photographer

Carol M. Highsmith (b. 1946) is an accomplished photographer. As her LOC archives site explains:

Highsmith, a distinguished and richly-published American photographer, has donated her work to the Library of Congress since 1992. Starting in 2002, Highsmith provided scans or photographs she shot digitally with new donations to allow rapid online access throughout the world. Her generosity in dedicating the rights to the American people for copyright free access also makes this Archive a very special visual resource.

To date the online portion of the Highsmith archive includes:

Photographs of landmark buildings and architectural renovation projects in Washington, D.C., and throughout the United States. The first 23 groups of photographs contain more than 2,500 images and date from 1980 to 2005, with many views in color as well as black-and-white. Extensive coverage of the Library of Congress Jefferson Building was added in 2007. The archive is expected to grow to more than 100,000 photographs covering all of the United States.

Highsmith, Carol, photographer. “Library of Congress’s Thomas Jefferson Building taken from the dome of the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.”, c. 1980-2006. Library of Congress.

Previously, I have used two of Ms. Highsmith’s photos on this blog, each illustrating parts of our series about the Bonniwell gold rush expeditions to California in 1849 and 1850. Her photo of Chimney Rock, Nebraska, is here, and a beautiful view of the American River in El Dorado County, California, is here. As always, be sure to click the image to open a larger, higher-resolution version of the photo in a new window. And for more on Ms. Highsmith and her work, see her website, Carol Highsmith’s America.

Generosity

Professional photographers, especially in our digital era of easy and inexpensive photo making and sharing, don’t usually make a lot of money. Often, a major part of their income comes from the sales of books and individual prints of their photographs. Carol Highsmith’s donation of her life’s work, a vast archive of photographs of the USA from about 1980 to the present, to our Library of Congress, to be used and enjoyed by all was described by the LOC’s C. Ford Peatross as “one of the greatest acts of generosity in the history of the Library of Congress.” It was and is an inspiring example of selfless generosity that deserves our respect and appreciation.

And speaking of generosity, as we close the year it’s worth remembering how our cultural institutions and museums—including the Jonathan Clark House Museum—can inspire us as individuals and connect us as a community, and these institutions depend upon our generosity. In this season of giving, if you are able to donate to the Clark House, please click over to this link for information on how to support the museum and its mission to “collect, preserve and share the history of the Jonathan Clark House and the early settlers of Mequon and Thiensville” through 2024 and many years to follow.

Thanks!

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NOTES:

1. Choice of winning caption is at my discretion. The prize for winning is Eternal Glory in the Clark House Historian’s Pantheon of Good Jokes and an hour of my historical or genealogical research time spent on a topic to be mutually agreed upon. And just to avoid future complications, copyright for all entries will be assigned to Clark House Historian Reed Perkins, who will gladly donate especially fine entries to the Clark House for possible use—someday—on Official Jonathan Clark House tote bags, t-shirts and suchlike, if something like that ever comes to pass.