Ethan Persoff has a new neat gallery with 35 Anti-U.S. Chinese Political Cartoons, circa 1958-1960.

Culled and restored from reviewing hundreds of Eastern newspaper pages and illustrations, this set of 35 images represents what we consider the best late 50s editorial cartoons (Manhua) from China and Indochina. Set during a time of escalating western imperialism, these images react against U.S. military actions in Laos and Vietnam, and represent a unique moment of political commentary. It seems to be a hidden history, too.

Related posts:
The Art of War
Chinese Pamphlets
America in Caricature 1765 – 1865
The Heritage of the Great War

During the summer and early fall of 2003 The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library featured the exhibition Ohio Cartoonists – A Bicentennial Celebration shown in the Philip Sills Exhibit Hall of the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library, The Ohio State University Libraries, and The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library.

Ohio has remarkable place in the history of American cartooning. The number of well-known cartoonists who were born, educated and/or worked in the state is amazing. It was fitting during this bicentennial year to honor our state’s extraordinary legacy with this exhibition.
The digital version of the exhibition Ohio Cartoonists: A Bicentennial Celebration highlights the accomplishments of six of the state’s most notable late nineteenth and early twentieth century newspaper and magazine cartoonists.

The on-line version presents the works of only six cartoonists: Edwina Dumm, Billy Ireland, Winsor McCay, Charles Nelan, Frederick Burr Opper and Richard Outcault. However, the images of comics and cartoons worth a visit.

Flickr Blog announced The Commons: a pilot project created in partnership with The Library of Congress.The Library team contributed choosing around 1500 photos from their most popular collections to share on Flickr. The result is presented in two incredible photosets: 1930s-40s in Color and News in the 1910s.

These beautiful, historic pictures from the Library represent materials for which the Library is not the intellectual property owner. Flickr is working with the Library of Congress to provide an appropriate statement for these materials. It’s called “no known copyright restrictions.”
Hopefully, this pilot can be used as a model that other cultural institutions would pick up, to share and redistribute the myriad collections held by cultural heritage institutions all over the world.

You can help the project describing the photographs, adding tags and comments in the The Library of Congress’s collection on Flickr. All you need is being a Flickr member, and you can do it for free.
Related posts:
Bound for Glory
America’s Library
The great Houdini
Creative Americans
Panoramic Photographs
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii
Ansel Adams’s Photographs of Japanese-American

Morning Sun: a film and a website about Cultural Revolution. A very interesting site with full of information of the Cultural Revolution and its changes in the Chinese culture, with articles, photographs, posters, paintings, artwork, artifacts, audio, badges, videos, suggestions of links and books.

A range of techniques and perspectives are used in the Morning Sun website to reflect on the origins and history of the Cultural Revolution (c.1964-1976). We approach the period not from a simplistic linear perspective, but from a panoptic one, encompassing a broad overview while allowing the user to focus in on individual histories, narratives and events that reveal the complex contradictory forces that led to an era of unrivalled revolutionary fervor and political turmoil.

Related posts:
Chinese Pamphlets
Chinese Pop Posters
Chinese Public Health Posters
Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages
Vintage Chinese Propaganda Posters

Thanks to politics of Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s, and the Nazi dislike for independent thought, Germany lost a huge number of intellectuals, artists and scientists to other countries, specially the U.S.. In cinema, the list of directors, actors and workers that moved out is long and it includes Otto Preminger, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder. Max Reinhardt – also a theatre director, Oskar Fischinger, Douglas Sirk and Peter Lorre.
Artists like film directors didn’t have much choice in that period. The Jewish had to move out when they could. The others had the option of staying and joining in the team of UFA, which had turned into a studio to produce Nazi propaganda films. In the tiny mind of the new producers of UFA, any attempt of avant garde and expressionist films were considered “degenerative art”. Happily, not everything produced at UFA after Alfred Hugenberg and his nazi fellows took control was anti-Semitic propaganda.
But it was not the case of Leni Riefenstahl. Already known as a great actress and film director, she stayed in Germany and worked for the Nazi party. Her 1930’s commissioned documentaries are sublime examples of how beautiful propaganda films can be. The first film of this series was the short Der Sieg des Glaubens. In 61 minutes the film shows that Leni had domain of the film techniques to manipulate the spectator: angles, perspective, use of music, lightning, frames and edition.

Her following work was Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens), a documentary of the 1934’s Reich Party Day. As a documentary and visual registry, the film is stunning. It’s definitely a landmark in the documentary history and the best example of the power of propaganda. Everything looks great in it. If you have knowledge of history or a critic point of view it is very disturbing. Imagine how perfectly its promise of grandeur should have fit the anxious minds of millions of battered and humiliated Germans.
I was perplexed after watching the film and comparing it with the words of Riefenstahl saying that she had no idea of what the Nazis were doing, and that she didn’t agree with their politics. I can’t conceive she is so naïve, working as she had been with cinema for so long. It’s a known principle that images are powerful enough to manipulate the perception of the viewer. So, even if she didn’t agree with their politics, she was responsible for the message on it. Guilty or not, get to your own conclusions. Triumph of the Will is available on-line at Google Video and at Internet Archive here or here.
Other remarkable film of Riefenstahl, during the Nazi period, is Olympia. This documentary of the 1936 Summer Olympics is visually even more extravagant than Triumph. However the political content follows the same line of her other films of that period. Many advanced motion picture techniques, which later became industry standard but were groundbreaking at the time, were employed, including unusual camera angles, smash-cut editing techniques, extreme close-ups, setting the railway tracks on the stadium to shoot the crowd and the like. A part of if is available on-line.

Scary and wonderful. With Leni Riefenstahl’s films we can learn about history, mass manipulation, propaganda and film language. Her visual contribution could have been given for a better purpose (or maybe not), but she used all to get the best. She left us a spectacular legacy, which has to be watched carefully.
Check also: Triumph des Willens (Triumph Of The Will) and Tag der Freiheit at Videos with Bibi.

The on-line exhibition from the Bibliotèque nationale de France Comics Before Comics (La BD avant la BD) presents precious panorama of the comics beginning. The visual travel begins with the ancient illustrated bibles made for Kings and the aristocracy’s books, inquires about its style origins, it shows the story of narrative, the page layout procedures and it ends with the use of sound in images – dialogues and onomatopoeia.
The exhibition gives a short vision of the comics pre-history, using great examples, like the Bible of Stephen Harding, Danse macabre, Cantigas de santa Maria, Histoire de la fondation de l’ordre cartusien and Little Sammy Sneeze by Winsor Mac Cay, among the several other examples. For a fast visual panorama try iconography page.

A fabulous exhibition: Women of Our Time – photographs of some of twentieth-century America’s famous and influential women. Even without big pictures, the site is very interesting covering those influential women of many different areas: photographers, writers, actresses, poets, athletes, designers, civil rights activists, singers, reformers, journalists, dancers and the aviator Amelia Earhart. There are brif biographies with the portraits, an audio explanation from the exhibition’s curator and very “documentary” about the evolution of photographic portrait.
Some other women portrayed in this exhibition: Rosa Parks, Althea Gibson, Jeannette Rankin, Josephine Baker, Helen Keller, Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, Ella Fitzgerald and Margaret Sanger.

I would like to congratulate all the women for our International Women’s Day. I won’t write any manifesto or any protest about the injuries that we are still suffering, all the prejudice and violence that keep happening against us. I will do something I do much better to celebrate this important day: blog links about it.
- American Women!: A Celebration of Our History. The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum’s exhibit to celebrate 106 female personalities have shaped our American experience
- A Petal from the Rose: Illustrations by Elizabeth Shippen Green. It’s the first exhibition in decades to focus solely on Green’s art, and this and the accompanying essay highlight distinctive features of her illustrations and working methods.

- By Popular Demand: "Votes for Women" Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920. A pretty nice collection of 38 pictures including portraits related to the campaign for woman suffrage in the United States. Also featured are photographs of suffrage parades, picketing suffragists, and an anti-suffrage display, as well as cartoons commenting on the movement – all evoking the visible and visual way in which the debate over women’s suffrage was carried out.
- Classic Feminist Writings: the on-line archive contains classic feminist writings that helped define Second Wave feminism. (via Plep)
- Humor’s Edge: Cartoons by Ann Telnaes. This exhibition celebrates Ann Telnaes’s generous gift to the Library of Congress of eighty-one original drawings that represent the range of themes that engage this gifted artist who has recently emerged as a leader in American editorial cartooning.
- IdeaFixa, a Brazilian art e-magazine, homages the women’s day in its fifth issue with the theme “woman”. Highlights to the illustrations by Jonathan Weiner, the Jorge Bispo’s portraits of men in wedding dresses, the collages by Kareem Risz and the social critic of Lauren Greenfield’s pictures. In Portuguese and English, with NSFW images.

- International Women’s Day 2007 site: information about IWD events in many countries, news and pictures.
- Pages from Her Story: diaries, journals, memoirs, reminiscences, letters, speeches and interviews of American women divided in nine historical eras.
- Nine nice posters of Women’s day at the Museum of Russian Posters.
- Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture’s Special Collection Library acquires, preserves and makes available to a large population of researchers published and unpublished materials that reflect the public and private lives of women, past and present.
- The Hannah Arendt Papers at the Library of Congress. The papers span the years 1898 to 1977, with the bulk of the material beginning in 1948, three years before Arendt’s naturalization as an American citizen. The collection is organized in the following series: Family Papers, Correspondence, Adolf Eichmann File, Subject File, Speeches and Writings File, Clippings, Addition I, Addition II, and Addition III.

- The Water-Babies: Illustrations by Jesse Willcox Smith. Her works evoking the innocence of youth and demonstrating the artistry of illustrated books are among the Library’s great graphic treasures.
- The Zora Neale Hurston Plays present a selection of ten plays written by Hurston (1891-1960), author, anthropologist, and folklorist.
- United Nations’ special site: International Women’s Day 2007, which theme is “Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls”.
- Women’s History Month: The Library of Congress recognizes the wisdom and tenacity of women throughout U.S. history, highlighting the 2007 theme, “Generations of Women Moving History Forward.” It isn’t new that the LoC has an impressive archive, but it’s always great when they point to many of the hidden treasures of the site. Explore the sessions of audio and video, images (pictures and illustrations) and the collections. Visit also the National Women’s History Project.

For all of you that celebrate… a happy Valentine’s Day. I won’t celebrate, but that isn’t an excuse to not blog about it – it never was. And that’s why I made a selection of links to all the romantic souls that read this blog, or that are just searching for pretty Valentine’s day images.
- A Sampler of things with happy Valentine’s day through his posts: Valentines Day Card, More Valentines Wishes, Vintage Valentines and Happy Valentines Day.
- Craftbits have a good list of Valentines Day Crafts: 20 Valentine’s cards ideas, crochet hearts, Valentines Day survival kit, jar of hugs & kisses, and much more.
- CRAFT blog has a Valentine’s Day Card Contest and Inspirational Links. If you want to join in you’ve got until this Friday at 5pm PST to get your entries in for the “Recycle Your Heart” CRAFT Valentine’s Day Card Contest. Made you craft including some sort of recycled goods in your card, and submit it at The CRAFT Pool.

- Google’s Valentine’s day logo of this year looks yummy – Official Google Blog explains the logo. Melted chocolate just could be better with ice-cream! Anyway, the previous Valentine’s Google logos: 2005, 2004, 2003, 2001 – and a Heart, 2000 – and that Heart.
- Love in the stacks is a nice post of the blog of the Digital Library Services from The University of Iowa Libraries pointing to highlights of their Valentine’s day collection.
- Many Faces of Valentine’s Day: Love and romance through the ages, presented by the Virtual Museum of Canada. An excellent on-line exhibition with many images of vintage Valentine’s cards, images and ephemera.
- Send some love with fd’s Flickr Toys, creating a a customized Valentine’s day card from you to your contacts. I did one for the last valentine’s day.
- The Firefox’s maniacs have a very coloured card full of hearts to send from Spread Firefox.

- The Woodland Park Zoo offers four Valentine’s Day Greeting E-Card with pretty pictures of animals.
- WikiHow explains How to Make Valentine’s Day More Meaningful and How to French Kiss. What? Who needs to learn how to kiss? Eleven-year-old teenagers?
- Will it Blend? shows what you can do with annoying Valentine gift. Actually they said to not try this at home: too bad.
- YouTube also celebrates the Valentine’s day with Dump Cupid video cards. Strange stuff.
And to those are so lovely as I am, a nice Wikipedia article about St. Valentine’s Day massacre.

More about Valentine’s day: Flying Pig, Zombie Valentine, Recipes to Valentines’ Day, The Comic Valentine of mid-Victorian England, How-to Fold Paper Roses, A Flowering of Affection, For your Valentines’ day, Valentines Book of Styles: a better use for furniture and Valentine’s Day.

Women Physicians: 1850s – 1970s. This interesting collection contains thousands of visual registries divided in five areas: the early years of the college; student life, academic life and student culture; racial and ethnic diversity among women physicians; missionary and public health work, at home and abroad; and medical women in the military. (via Plep)

This collection consists of correspondence, scrapbooks, clippings, college records, images, diaries, publications and ephemera documenting the history of women physicians beginning with the first medical school for women, Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP). Founded in 1850, WMCP trained thousands of women physicians who practiced in all parts of the world, and provided rare opportunities for women to teach, practice, perform research and manage a medical school. WMCP was also a long time refuge for women students and faculty who faced quotas and discrimination elsewhere.