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You’ve Heard The Phrase “100-Year Storm?”

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

As the world turns its sympathy toward the Philippine islands devastated, just days ago, by the largest typhoon in recorded history, a fascinating fact has emerged and moved explosively across the Internet: Just over a century ago, those same islands – indeed that same nearly destroyed town on the island of Leyte, Tacloban – were …

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

A Celebration of Mexico: Masterpieces of Aztec Material Culture

Posted by: Erin Allen

One in 10 people living in the United States of America is of Mexican origin. One in five Americans is Hispanic. The Library of Congress is hosting a special “Celebration of Mexico” next month to honor this segment of the population and provide some important educational opportunities along the way. The Library has the largest …

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

Welcome to Folklife Today

Posted by: Erin Allen

Today we welcome the  newest member of the Library of Congress blogosphere: Folklife Today, a new blog produced by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. AFC has one of the largest archives in the world relating to traditional folk culture.  The center’s team of bloggers will be posting regularly with interesting information about its …

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

Inquiring Minds: Sabor! Latin American and Hispanic Cookbooks in the Library of Congress Collections

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a guest post by Kaydee McCann, humanities editor for the “Handbook of Latin American Studies” and reference librarian in the Hispanic Division.) Historian Natalia Silva Prada is a visiting researcher in the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress. Supported by a fellowship from Goya Foods, she spent two months preparing an annotated bibliography …

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

A Congressional Legacy: The Peter Force Library

Posted by: Erin Allen

Purchased through an act of Congress in 1867, the Peter Force Library became the foundation of the Library’s Americana collections.  As the nation sought to reconstruct the Union after the Civil War, so, too, did the Library of Congress seek to build a collection that documented fully America’s history. At the time, the nearly 100,000 volumes …

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

Inquiring Minds: An Interview with History Prize Recipient Danielle Johnson

Posted by: Erin Allen

Earlier this summer, the Library of Congress awarded the first “Discovery or Exploration in History Prize” as part of National History Day (NHD) to Danielle Johnson of Faiss Middle School in Las Vegas. Johnson was honored for her project, “The Erie Canal: ‘A Little Short of Madness.’” The prize is sponsored by the Elizabeth Ridgway …

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

If You Build It, They Will Learn

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a story written by Daniel De Simone, curator of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division, for the September-October 2013 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine. You can download the issue in its entirety here.) The year 1912 was a pivotal one for African American …

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

One Day, 15 Hours, 53 Minutes and Counting …

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

The Library of Congress National Book Festival is just hours away! It’s free … it’s open to the public on the National Mall … and it’s got fun and fascination for readers of all ages and tastes. No fewer than 112 stellar authors – historians, novelists, children’s and teens’ authors, poets, biographers, illustrators and graphic …