Collection of rare photographs offers a new look at the Civil War

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  • JUDY WOODRUFF:

    Finally to our NewsHour Shares of the day, something that caught out eye that might be of interest to you, too.

    The Library of Congress recently acquired more than 500 rare Civil War-era images from 87-year-old Robin Stanford, who has been collecting the stereograph photos, an earlier form of three-dimensional images, for five decades. They were mostly made by Confederate photographers. The Library has already digitized the first 77 and made them available to view online.

    Speaking with the Associated Press, Stanford explained why she decided to donate them now.

  • ROBIN STANFORD:

    Bigger than he is, I swear.

    Bought a viewer and, oh, a few cards, miscellaneous cards at an antique show and thought that would be fun for the kids. Well, like I said, you know, the camel stick its nose in the tent and the first thing you know, it's sitting down to dinner at your table. And that's how it happened.

    I just started. I liked them. I found them intriguing, because they brought past times, quality of life more immediately. And I liked history all my life. And this was a real slice of history.

    I was planning to leave these to my son. He loved history also. And I lost him a year ago. And the air just went out of the balloon. I stopped collecting. That was it.

  • JUDY WOODRUFF:

    The images are fascinating. And you can see all of them at the Library of Congress Web site. That's LOC.gov.

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