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Archive: 2017 (228 Posts)

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

New Online: Mapping the U.S., Block by Block

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Located midway between Tucson and Phoenix, Casa Grande, Arizona, now has a population of about 50,000, making it fairly small by today’s standards for cities. But it’s a lot bigger than it used to be. In 1898, only 200 people lived alongside the Southern Pacific railroad tracks there. Besides scattered dwellings, Casa Grande had a …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Free to Use and Reuse: 19th-Century Portrait Photos

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Military brass, senators, socialites and even babies—these are a handful of Washington, D.C., subjects photographed by Charles Milton Bell (1848–93) during the last quarter of the 19th century. The Library recently digitized more than 25,000 glass plate negatives produced by Bell and his successors between 1873 and the early years of the 20th century. The photographs document …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Pic of the Week: Pride in the Library!

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Panels from the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt are on display in “Pride in the Library,” a special pop-up exhibit open to the public from June 8 through 10. Shown here are current and former Library staff members who constructed the Library’s section of the quilt to honor Library colleagues who died of AIDS during …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Gallery Talk: Immigrant Voices of the Veterans History Project

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This is a guest post by Owen Rogers, liaison specialist for the Veterans History Project. Library of Congress specialists often give presentations about ongoing Library exhibitions. This post relates to a presentation Rogers prepared for the exhibition “Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I.” My great-grandfather, Stephen Basford Young, served in …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Inquiring Minds: Diaries Shed New Light on Laos’ 20th-Century Upheavals

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Ryan Wolfson-Ford spent two weeks at the Library of Congress in May thanks to the Library’s Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship Program. It supports scholars pursuing research in Asian studies using the collections in the Library’s Asian Division. Wolfson-Ford is completing his doctoral degree in history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research focuses on Laos …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

National Garden Week: How Does Your Garden Grow?

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

(The following is an article by Erin Allen from the May/June 2017 issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. Read the entire issue here.) April showers bring May flowers, but it’s the summer months that give green thumbs a chance to cultivate, nurture and experiment. National Garden Clubs Inc. has proclaimed June 4–11, 2017, …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Pic of the Week: Kids Celebrate Reading Milestone

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Seventy-six students from Tyler Elementary School in Washington, D.C., visited the Library of Congress on May 31 to celebrate a big accomplishment: together, they read 1,436 books during the school year with mentors from the Library’s staff and the House of Representatives. Mentors and students came together through the Power Lunch Program of Everybody Wins! …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Inquiring Minds: Setting the Record Straight on Pirates and Their Wives

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Pirate lore has long captivated us and, through the centuries, worked its way into our literature, movies and popular culture. But many depictions of pirates are wrong, distorting our understanding of them. So writes Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos in her new book, “The Pirate Next Door: The Untold Story of Eighteenth Century Pirates’ Wives, Families and …