Barbara Beirne Portrait Photoprints
name: label: Donor
content: Beirne, Barbara T., 1933-2021
label: Names
content: Anderson, Kay
label: Names
content: Baker, Dave
label: Names
content: Berrigan, Philip
label: Names
content: Bolden, Jackie
label: Names
content: Cleaver, Eldridge, 1935-1998
label: Names
content: Coffin, William Sloane
label: Names
content: De Gennaro, Jane
label: Names
content: Garrell, Nancy
label: Names
content: Hawk, David
label: Names
content: Hoffman, Bruce
label: Names
content: Keegan, Leone
label: Names
content: Knight, Dee
label: Names
content: Lewis, John
label: Names
content: Libby, John
label: Names
content: McAllister, Elizabeth
label: Names
content: McNamara, Craig
label: Names
content: Montfort, Bill
label: Names
content: Montfort, Susan
label: Names
content: Moore, Irma
label: Names
content: Rubin, Jerry
label: Names
content: Simon, Doug
topic: label: Topic
content: Civil rights
label: Topic
content: Peace movements -- 1960-1970
label: Topic
content: Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Protest Movements
label: Topic
content: Photography -- United States -- Portraits -- Photographs
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Collection donated by Barbara T. Beirne, September 6, 1991.
creator: label: Donor
content: Beirne, Barbara T., 1933-2021
setName: label: See more items in
content: Barbara Beirne Portrait Photoprints
abstract: label: Summary
content: Twenty portraits, taken in the 1980s, of twenty-one men and women who were active in the civil rights and peace movements of the 1960s.
bioghist: label: Biographical
content: Barbara T. Beirne (1933-2021) was a free-lance documentary and portrait photographer from Mendham, New Jersey. She worked primarily for non-profit organizations and newspapers, focusing on social justice issues, especially those faced by women and children. Ms. Beirne additionally authored and photographed for five children's books, taught and lectured in schools and libraries in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and was an adjunct professor of photography at County College of Morris, Randolph, New Jersey. She held a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, and a Bachelor of Political Science from Marymount College, Tarrytown, New York.

During her 35-year career as a photographer, Beirne turned her lens toward the struggles, aspirations, and accomplishments of marginalized people, which resulted in a wide array of projects, including "Serving Home and Community: Women of Southern Appalachia," "Becoming American: Teenagers and Immigration," "Fire Over Belfast," and a collection of portrait photographs of civil rights activists for a book by Joan and Robert K. Morrison, From Camelot to Kent State.

Her work was exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions, and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) sponsored two nation-wide tours of "Women of Southern Appalachia" and "Becoming American." These shows respectively featured the resilience of women in the poverty-stricken region of Appalachia during the 1990s, and teenage immigrants adapting to life in the United States during the early 2000s. Beirne traveled extensively for her projects, documenting Belfast, Northern Ireland during "The Troubles," Kosovar refugees in New Jersey, and children's lives in India, Nepal, Mexico, and Ecuador. She developed connections with the communities and subjects she photographed, often employing use of the photo interview.

"Serving Home and Community: Women of Southern Appalachia," "Becoming American: Teenagers and Immigration," and Beirne's portraits of civil rights activists are housed at the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
label: Historical
content: In 1985, Joan Morrison and her son Robert K. Morrison conducted approximately one hundred oral history interviews with a diverse group of Americans about their experiences in the civil rights and peace movements of the 1960s. They also collected photographs of the interviewees--pictures taken during the 1960s and photographs taken at the time of the interview.  Portions of some of these interviews and the photographs are published in their 1987 book,From Camelot to Kent State. Some of the new photographs, taken by Barbara T. Beirne, were exhibited at the Bridge Gallery, The New School, New York City, from October 2 to October 31, 1989.  The Morrison collection of audiotapes, transcripts, and other materials from this project was donated to the Archives Center as Collection number 359. Later in 1991, Barbara Beirne donated twenty exhibition quality, matted photographs from the Morrison project. These prints apparently were made in 1989 and were included in the New School exhibition.

Bibliography

Author and photographer, A Pianist's Debut. Carlrhoda Books, 1990.
 
Author and photographer, Under the Lights. Carlrhoda Books, 1988.

Photographer, What Do You Mean I Have a Learning Disability? Walker Publishers, 1991.

Photographer, Water is Wet.  G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1985.

Photographs in: Joan and Robert K. Morrison.  From Camelot to Kent State:The Sixties Experience in the Worlds of Those Who Lived It.  New York: Times Books, 1987.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 0.1 Cubic feet (1 box)
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1985-1986.
custodhist: label: Ownership and Custodial History
content: Portraits were made for the book described above, but this set of prints apparently was created specifically for the Smithsonian in 1990.
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0356
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Photographs
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: Collection is arranged into one series.
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Processed by David E. Haberstich, curator, 1991. Photographs digitized by Tess Harmon, intern, 2024.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Copies of some photographs also exist in the Joan and Robert K. Morrison Collection, NMAH.AC.0359.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs -- Black-and-white photoprints -- Silver gelatin -- 1980-2000
originalsloc: label: Location of Originals
content: Original negatives in photographer's collection.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The collection consists of twenty silver gelatin prints, as described on the container list attached.  These are exhibition-quality prints, matted, signed by the artist, with subject identification.  The prints are arranged in no particular order, but are numbered according to the list. Note that each
print therefore has an individual museum catalog number, e.g., 1991.0886.01-
unlike the majority of Archives Center collections--and these numbers should be referenced in exhibition and loan transactions.