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

Trending: Summer Vacation

Posted by: Erin Allen

All across the country, people are traveling for summer vacation. The Library’s collections document this age-old trend. HOTEL RESERVATIONS? CHECK. CAR GASSED UP? CHECK. It’s time for summer vacation. Prior to industrialization, people rarely traveled for pleasure, with the exception of the wealthy and those making religious pilgrimages. The advent of paved roads in the …

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 Author Jason Emerson

Posted by: Erin Allen

Jason Emerson is a journalist and an independent historian who has been researching and writing about the Lincoln family for nearly 20 years. He is a former National Park Service park ranger at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Ill. His previous books include “The Madness of Mary Lincoln,” “Lincoln the Inventor” and …

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

Inquiring Minds: Historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a guest post by Jason Steinhauer, program specialist in the Library’s John W. Kluge Center.) Historian Sanjay Subrahmanyam is now concluding his tenure as the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at The John W. Kluge Center. His research looks at the first person narratives of early modern India …

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

A Presidential Fourth

Posted by: Erin Allen

Recently my dad gave me an interesting little tidbit concerning further research he has done on our family tree that is particularly auspicious for the occasion of today’s Fourth of July celebrations. (As you may recall from this previous blog post, my father has found a new hobby in ancestry research.) As it turns out, …

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

Trending: Juneteenth

Posted by: Erin Allen

More than 40 states celebrate the day that Texans learned of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The news came late—two-and-a-half years late—and in the form of an official pronouncement. Known as “General Order No. 3,” the edict was delivered by U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger from the balcony of a mansion in Galveston, Texas on June …

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

Experts Corner: The Art of Collecting

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is an interview from the May-June 2013 edition of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM.) Martha Kennedy, curator of “The Gibson Girl’s America: Drawings By Charles Dana Gibson,” discusses illustration art with Richard Kelly, curator of his collection of American illustration. Martha Kennedy: You have developed a remarkable collection of illustration art along …

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

A Special Recording to Celebrate Casey’s 125th

Posted by: Gayle Osterberg

There is joy in Mudville today, as we mark the 125th anniversary since “Casey at the Bat” was first published on June 3, 1888, in the San Francisco Examiner. The poem, dubbed the “single most famous baseball poem ever written” by the Baseball Almanac, has inspired everything from political cartoons to entire operas. Written by …

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

A Cabinet of Gold

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a story written by Martha Kennedy for the May-June 2013 edition of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM.) The Library’s new exhibition “The Gibson Girl’s America: Drawings by Charles Dana Gibson” features works by a great American master of pen-and-ink drawing selected from the Library’s Cabinet of American Illustration. The story of …

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

In Retrospect: April Blogging Edition

Posted by: Erin Allen

The Library of Congress blogosphere published lots of great content in April. Following is just a highlight. In the Muse: Performing Arts Blog An “Appalachian Spring” Collaboration Students from the Baltimore School for the Arts talk about working with the Music Division collections. Inside Adams: Science, Technology & Business The Great Sheet Cake Mystery Jennifer …