Burns Night celebrates the birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), which was January 25. If you like Burns’ poetry, haggis, rutabagas, and Scotch whisky, you might like to find a Burns Night observance near you. Or just recite your favorite poem aloud and have a look at some appropriate images from across the Commons.
| At a Burns Night in 1958, the festivities include the Piping in of the Haggis. |  Galt Museum & Archives |
| It’s not necessary to dress up for Burns Night, but these boys posed in their finest for an Ellis Island photographer. |  New York Public Library |
| Some music perhaps? The 92nd Gordon Highlanders at Edinburgh Castle in 1846. |  National Galleries of Scotland |
The Flickr Commons project lets us see the 19th-century beginnings of photography represented in a very 21st-century space. And among those early treasures, we have reminders that women were there at the very beginning, some of the first to embrace photography as an art and as a tool. Consider these four founding mothers:
| Anna Atkins (1799-1871) is represented in the Commons by her Photographs of British Algae, found as a set in the New York Public Library’s Flickr stream. Atkins studied science as her father’s assistant and made illustrations of shells for his 1823 translation of Lamarck’s book on the subject. She collected botanical samples, and through both her father and her husband came to know William Fox Talbot, inventor of the negative/positive process. By about 1841 she had access to a camera, but she’s best known for her 1843-45 cyanotypes (sunprints) of algae specimens. She collaborated with another woman, Anne Dixon (1799-1864), on other albums of botanical cyanotypes. |  Fucus nodosus (1843-53), New York Public Library |
| Mary Dillwyn (1816-1906) was also acquainted with William Fox Talbot through family networks: her older brother John Dillwyn Llewelyn (himself a photographer) married Talbot’s cousin Emma. Mary was using a small camera in the early 1850s, and made a specialty of rather informal portraits for the time. After she married a clergyman in 1857, she gave up photography. Her work is to be found in the LIGC-NLW (National Library of Wales) Flickr stream, including this self-portrait from 1853. |  Mary Dillwyn M.D. 1853 [self-portrait], LIGC-NLW (National Library of Wales) |
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879), who was raised in India, only started taking pictures at age 48, in 1863, when someone gave her a camera as a gift. Through her sister, she knew Tennyson and other writers and artists, and drew from their work in her subjects and poses. Cameron was also forward-thinking enough to get each of her images registered with the copyright office. She continued to make photographs when she moved back to Ceylon in 1875, but it was hard to get the necessary supplies there. The George Eastman House and the National Media Museum Flickr streams both include examples of Cameron’s work.
 Ophelia Study No. 2, 1867, George Eastman House |
 Baby “Pictet”, 1863, National Media Museum |
| Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake (1809-1893) wasn’t herself a photographer. She was an art critic who wrote one of the first and most influential essays about photography as an art form, in 1857, declaring that “[p]hotography is intended to supercede much that art has hitherto done, but only that which it was both a misappropriation and a deterioration of Art to do.” She was married to Sir Charles Eastlake, the first president of the Royal Photographic Society. A Hill and Adamson portrait of Lady Eastlake (an early subject of photography as well as an early supporter) c. 1845 can be found in the Flickr stream of the National Galleries of Scotland. |  Hill and Adamson, Lady Elizabeth (Rigby) Eastlake, 1809-1893. Writer, c. 1845, National Galleries of Scotland |
The Commons is busting with activity with various institutions preparing for Common Ground! You’ve got until 16 September 2009 to VOTE.
…turns out the #lightcycle has made it to Sydney where @paulabray and @erikajoy are cooking up something http://yfrog.com/5hfersj – Brooklyn Museum tweet
 The Cockburn – National Galleries of Scotland |
 The Svithun – Robin Hutton |
| THEN: 1843-46 | NOW: 1976 |
 Europa & Rhapsody – insulaner |
 Muckle great floating thing – Lucky Poet |
| NOW: 2003 | NOW: 2009 |
All of these images are taken from a Flickr Commons group discussion topic on “Landscapes across the Commons”. Those of us who posted in that topic found that while we knew there was a lot of historical landscape photography in the Commons, it was often not tagged to make it easily searchable. If you find more, please add tags, in English and other languages you may speak, to help later users find it as well.
| Hakone Lake, Japan, late 19th century, chosen by Nina. |  New York Public Library |
| Swallow Cliff Woods area, Illinois, 1917, chosen by Nina. |  Field Museum Library |
| Sintra, Portugal, 20th c., chosen by Penny. |  Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian |
| Loch Earn, Scotland, about 1864, chosen by Penny. |  National Galleries of Scotland |
| Percé Rock, Quebec, 1898?, chosen by Criz. |  Musée McCord Museum |
| Willoughby Falls, Australia, turn of the century, chosen by Criz. |  Powerhouse Museum |
| Ryfossen, Norway, 1890?, chosen by Criz. |  Swedish National Heritage Board |
| Diamond Lake, Oregon, 1945, chosen by Nina. |  Oregon State University Archives |
| Castelet falls, France, circa 1900, chosen by me. |  Bibliothèque de Toulouse |
Read more about the NYPL’s plight at the Daily News.
The History of Household Technology, from the Library of Congress
Now through 30 June — 1969: The Year of Gay Liberation at the New York Public Library. The 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, New York, is this month. There’s also a collection of GLBT books on display at the D.C. Public Library. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!
12-14 June – Fantastic Films Weekend at the National Media Museum. Oohhhhhhhhh, scary movies!
13 June –Garden Fest 2009: The Scenic Route, the annual all day family-friendly event presented by the Horticulture Services Division (HSD) at the Smithsonian Institution.
13 June — Alice Waters book signing at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
15 June – Kick-Off Event: Juneteenth DC 2009 at the D.C. Public Library. Featuring performances, remarks and a reception in celebration of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. More info on Juneteenth here.
16 June – What Is a Conversation Piece? at the National Galleries of Scotland. Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, explores this fascinating type of art, which is such an important tradition within European painting.
-hat tip to george for this one!
One neat thing about the Flickr Commons is the ability to see what a decade in time looked like across the world. I went on a little mission to gather up photos across the Commons from a particular era: the 1860s. Why the 1860s? Because by then, photography had more or less taken off, as explained here by the University of Houston, and because there was a wider representation of 1860s photos across the Commons than earlier decades.
| The U.S. underwent one of the most significant milestones in our history in the 1860s, the U.S. Civil War. This war is quite well documented in photos. One photo that stood out is this photo of Lincoln on the battlefield at Antietam in 1862. |  Library of Congress |
| Sadly, here is Lincoln’s funeral procession in Chicago, 1865. |  Library of Congress |
| Venturing away from the agony of war, we find so many interesting items about the 1860s: dress, transportation, architecture, even style of photography (think sepia!). This photo is of a rural scene in Australia. |  State Library of New South Wales |
| And here we see the view over Lysekil old harbor, Sweden. I love the outfits. |  Swedish Heritage Board |
| Here’s an intriguing tourist shot of León de San Marcos, Venice, Italy. Again, the outfits catch my eye. |  National Galleries of Scotland |
| It’s great to see a woman photographer in that era. Here’s one from Julia Margaret Cameron. | George Eastman House |
| Here are containers of pottery being shipped along the Nile River, Egypt. |  New York Public Library |
The gelatin process was developed in 1871 — stay tuned for photos from the 1870s next time!