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Category: Curators

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Here Comes Hayden: New Librarian Gets Busy Start in First Week

Posted by: Erin Allen

To say that Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden is all smiles, excitement and curiosity is an understatement. On her first official day in office last Thursday, her inquisitiveness and thirst for all things was almost palpable. Hayden began her day with a meeting on the National Book Festival. “This is so exciting,” she said, a …

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

World War I: Bad Romance — Gibson’s Chilling Personification of War

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a guest post by Katherine Blood of the Prints and Photographs Division.) Illustrator Charles Dana Gibson was already a celebrity when tapped in April 1917 to lead the federal government’s Division of Pictorial Publicity — an arm of Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information. He was enlisted by Committee head George Creel, …

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

Rare Book of the Month: “I Am Anne Rutledge…”

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a guest blog post written by Elizabeth Gettins, Library of Congress digital library specialist.) This week, we not only celebrate the birthday of author Edgar Lee Masters (Aug. 23, 1868) but also observe the untimely death of Ann Rutledge (Aug. 25, 1835), who figured in his best-known work. Masters spent his childhood …

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

Curator’s Picks: Signature Sounds

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is from the July/August 2016 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM. You can read the issue in its entirety here.) Matt Barton in the Library’s Motion Picture and Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division discusses some of the nation’s most iconic radio broadcasts. DATE OF INFAMY SPEECH President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a Joint …

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

World War I: A Wartime Clipping Service

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a post by Arlene Balkansky, reference specialist in the Serial and Government Publications Division, and Will Elsbury, military history specialist in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division.) The Library of Congress’ historical newspaper collections are extensive in their coverage of World War I. From the beginning of the war to America’s involvement to …

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

New Online: William Oland Bourne Papers

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

As a hospital chaplain during the Civil War, William Oland Bourne collected the names of the wounded soldiers he tended and, in doing so, noticed a terrible trend: Many soldiers used their left hands to sign his autograph book because their right arms were missing. How, Bourne wondered, could these grievously wounded men adapt – …

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

Rare Book of the Month: From the Snows of Vermont Comes the “Jungle Book”

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a guest blog post written by Elizabeth Gettins, Library of Congress digital library specialist.) When you think of the “Jungle Book,” what comes to mind first? For some, it is the classic 1967 Walt Disney movie; for others, the new 2016 Disney release. However, for many bibliophiles, there is no substitute for …