History Museums Archives - Maureen Taylor https://maureentaylor.com/category/history-museums/ The Photo Detective Tue, 21 Feb 2023 23:33:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://maureentaylor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/cropped-site-icon-32x32.png History Museums Archives - Maureen Taylor https://maureentaylor.com/category/history-museums/ 32 32 99869351 Episode 196: Early Color Photos and More: American Museum of Photography™ https://maureentaylor.com/episode-196-early-color-photos-and-more-american-museum-of-photography/ Sun, 13 Nov 2022 05:01:00 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=72778 This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Bill Becker, who is the curator of The American Museum of Photography, as well as an award-winning author, and Emmy-award winner for his writing and production work.  The two discuss the importance of imagery, storytelling, and preservation through images. Related Episodes: Episode 173: Cabinet Cards […]

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This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Bill Becker, who is the curator of The American Museum of Photography, as well as an award-winning author, and Emmy-award winner for his writing and production work. 

The two discuss the importance of imagery, storytelling, and preservation through images.

Episode 173: Cabinet Cards of Broadway and Silver Screen Stars

Episode 167: Victorian Photo Studio Secrets

About My Guest:

Undeterred by a New York Times report confirming an alarming national shortage of Museum Directors, Wm. B. Becker blithely tackled the job of establishing The American Museum of Photography™. A noted historian of photography whose research has been published in American Heritage, History of Photography: An International Quarterly, and other forums, Bill Becker is also a television producer and writer whose work has been honored with four EMMY® awards. He is the author of Brady of Broadway, a one-man play about the photographer Mathew Brady that’s been performed at the Smithsonian Institution and other venues.

The American Museum of Photography™ is “A Museum Without Walls…for an Art Without Boundaries.” Its predecessor, Photography’s Beginnings: A Visual History, made its debut on the World Wide Web on May 25, 1996.

About The Museum

The American Museum of Photography is an award-winning Virtual Museum dedicated to educating, informing, and sharing great photographs with millions of visitors world-wide. Exhibitions are drawn from the Museum’s Collection, started by Wm. B. Becker more than 35 years ago. The Collection includes five thousand individual images, from the earliest daguerreotype portraits to the work of Ansel Adams. Each photograph has been chosen for its visual impact as well as for the importance of its content.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.   She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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]]> 72778 Episode 195: Imperfect History with Curator Sarah Weatherwax https://maureentaylor.com/episode-195-imperfect-history-with-curator-sarah-weatherwax/ Sun, 06 Nov 2022 04:01:00 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=72639 This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Sarah Weatherwax, Senior Curator of Graphic Arts at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Sarah has worked at the Library Company for nearly thirty years. From political cartoons to incredible daguerrotypes, these images are preserved for generations to come at the Library. In addition, the two […]

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This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Sarah Weatherwax, Senior Curator of Graphic Arts at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Sarah has worked at the Library Company for nearly thirty years. From political cartoons to incredible daguerrotypes, these images are preserved for generations to come at the Library. In addition, the two discuss visual literacy and how this can be key for working with any type of image.

Episode 182: The Archive Lady, Melissa Barker


Episode 165: Reading the Clues in World War I Images

About My Guest:

Sarah Weatherwax has worked at the Library Company of Philadelphia since 1993 and has been the Senior Curator of Graphic Arts since 2020. She is responsible for a collection of approximately 125,000 items including photographs, prints, and original works of art. She has written articles about photography for the Daguerreian Annual and Pennsylvania History, and has co-authored a book about 19th century photographic views of Center City Philadelphia from the Library’s collections. She has curated exhibitions on diverse topics including Philadelphia daguerreotypes; the work of William Rau, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s official photographer; and most recently, Imperfect History: Curating the Graphic Arts Collection at Benjamin Franklin’s Public Library, a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Graphic Arts Department at the Library Company. Her research interests include women in photography and Philadelphia’s built environment. She currently serves on the board of the Daguerreian Society and is Assistant Editor of the Daguerreian Annual. 

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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]]> 72639 Episode 182: The Archive Lady, Melissa Barker https://maureentaylor.com/episode-182-the-archive-lady-melissa-barker/ Sun, 10 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=71578 This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Melissa Barker, who is known affectionately as The Archive Lady and is a Certified Archives Manager and Public Historian, currently working at the Houston County Tennessee Archives & Museum. The two discuss how archives and genealogy overlap, how you can preserve your ancestor’s heritage through […]

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This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Melissa Barker, who is known affectionately as The Archive Lady and is a Certified Archives Manager and Public Historian, currently working at the Houston County Tennessee Archives & Museum. The two discuss how archives and genealogy overlap, how you can preserve your ancestor’s heritage through archives, and how sometimes an archive can help you discover something about your ancestor that you never knew.

Episode 56  Disaster Preparedness for the Family Archive

Episode 82: Building an Archive for Our Times

About My Guest:

Melissa Barker is a Certified Archives Manager and Public Historian currently working at the Houston County, Tennessee Archives & Museum. She is affectionally known as The Archive Lady to the genealogy community. She lectures teaches, and writes about the genealogy research process, researching in archives and records preservation. She conducts virtual presentations across the United States and other countries for various genealogy groups and societies. She writes a popular blog entitled A Genealogist in the Archives and is a well-known published book reviewer. She has been a Professional Genealogist for the past 17 years with expertise in Tennessee records. She has been researching her own family history for the past 32 years.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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]]> 71578 Episode 165: Reading the Clues in WWI Snapshots with Curator Lora Vogt https://maureentaylor.com/episode-165-reading-the-clues-in-wwi-snapshots-with-curator-lora-vogt/ Sun, 06 Feb 2022 05:01:00 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=70858 Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined this week by Lora Vogt, who is the Curator of Education at the National World War One Museum and Memorial.  She and Maureen discuss what was happening during WWI, and how photographs, amateur photographers, civilians, and soldiers, helped document a time that felt chaotic and ever-changing around them. […]

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Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined this week by Lora Vogt, who is the Curator of Education at the National World War One Museum and Memorial. 

She and Maureen discuss what was happening during WWI, and how photographs, amateur photographers, civilians, and soldiers, helped document a time that felt chaotic and ever-changing around them. They delve into the importance of photography and how it can be stabilizing in a word that’s only constant is change. 

Episode 75: One Man’s World War One Journey

Episode 31: An Online World War One Resource

About My Guest:

Lora Vogt is the Curator of Education at the National WWI Museum and Memorial. Founded in 1926, the Museum and Memorial holds the most comprehensive collection of Great War artifacts in the world and has been ranked one of the top 25 museums in the country. Under Vogt’s guidance, the Museum and Memorial has consistently broken records for public program attendance, learner participation and developed internationally recognized online exhibitions and curricula.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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]]> 70858 Episode 163: Saving the Sounds of Our Past with the New York Public Library https://maureentaylor.com/episode-163-saving-the-sounds-of-our-past-with-the-new-york-public-library/ Sun, 16 Jan 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=70704 This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Danielle Cordovez, who is a senior librarian for the Music and Recorded Sound Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. She and Maureen discuss how sound and music are achieved, and why that matters. They discuss how something as simple as […]

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This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Danielle Cordovez, who is a senior librarian for the Music and Recorded Sound Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. She and Maureen discuss how sound and music are achieved, and why that matters. They discuss how something as simple as a sound recording can show us how a generation speaks, and fill in clues that we may not know about our past. 

Episode 137: Using Twitter for a Photo Reunion

Episode 127 Beautiful but Deadly: Toxic Fashion and Criminal Dress

About My Guest:

Danielle Cordovez is a senior librarian for the Music and Recorded Sound Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts – serving as the lead reference and outreach librarian for Recorded Sound. Danielle advocates for patrons to support onsite research, including orientation to collections and discovery tools, and collaborates with branch libraries and partner institutions to create public programming.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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