Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

in Washington, D.C. is a collection of photographs and ephemera related to the American Civil War. The bulk of the collection comprises

ambrotype The ambrotype, also known as a collodion positive in the UK, is a positive photograph on glass made by a variant of the wet plate collodion process. As a cheaper alternative to the French daguerreotype, ambrotypes came to replace them. Like a ...

tintype A tintype, also known as a melanotype or ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal, colloquially called 'tin' (though not actually tinplate, tin-coated), coated with a dark lacquer or Enamel paint, ...

s, and '' cartes de visite'' of individual soldiers and officers from both sides of the conflict.

History

The collection, still in progress, was assembled and donated by Tom Liljenquist, a business owner from

McLean, Virginia McLean ( ) is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community and census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The population of the community was 50,773 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is ...

, and his three sons, Jason Liljenquist, Brandon Liljenquist, and Christian Liljenquist. Liljenquist owns four jewelry and watch boutiques in the

Delmarva The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a peninsula on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Eastern Shore of Virginia. The peninsula is l ...

area of the United States. The family assembled the first 700 items in the archive through online auctions and visiting Civil War memorabilia vendors. & Research into a drummer boy from Maine, who served three years with what he wrote home was "the greatest army that was ever known" and died at age 21 from malaria complications, inspired the Liljenquists to donate their assembled collection to the Library.

Ambrotype The ambrotype, also known as a collodion positive in the UK, is a positive photograph on glass made by a variant of the wet plate collodion process. As a cheaper alternative to the French daguerreotype, ambrotypes came to replace them. Like a ...

s, an early photographic process with a unique "tonality," were an early focus of the family'scollection. The collection now numbers over 7,000 items and the family continues to make donations of new items. The Liljenquist Collection was the basis of the 2011 Library of Congress exhibit ''The Last Full Measure: Civil War Photographs from the Liljenquist Family Collection'', which was organized to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War. Many of the photographs have been dispersed over time from their families of origin and lack identifications, so the Library of Congress created a Flickr stream and has a contact email for the collection, as it is actively soliciting potential IDs from genealogists and volunteer Civil War researchers. Community identifications have been made, either tentatively, or conclusively, such as a "famous" photo of a Confederate, initially cataloged as unidentified but familiar to hard-core Georgia historians, and a group photograph that was connected with Company H of the 124th New York Volunteer Infantryan image including both a future Congressman and a Medal of Honor winner.

References

{{commons category, Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs Library of Congress Historiography of the American Civil War Works about the American Civil War Photography in the United States

History

See also

References