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Category: History

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

Bringing the “Banner” to Light

Posted by: Erin Allen

The story of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” for many decades, seemed as murky as the smoky haze over Fort McHenry on the morning two centuries ago when Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics that still inspire a nation. No one knew for sure who wrote the music. No one fully understood the circumstances of the tune’s creation (but, no, it wasn’t a …

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

Rare Map on Display at Library Scored Some “Firsts”

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Engraver Abel Buell “came out of nowhere,” at least in terms of cartography, when he printed a United States map in 1784. “He’d never done a map before,” says Edward Redmond of the Library’s Geography and Map Division. Nonetheless, Buell set records. He was the first U.S. citizen to print a map of the United …

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

The Library in History: Library Analyst Helped Launch NASA

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a story written by Cory V. Langley, a communications specialist in the Congressional Research Service, that is featured in the May – June 2014 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM, now available for download here. You can also view the archives of the Library’s former publication from 1993 to 2011. Amid fear and anxiety …

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

CRS at 100: Informing the Legislative Debate Since 1914

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is an article compiled by Cory V. Langley, a communications specialist in the Congressional Research Service, that is featured in the May – June 2014 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM, now available for download here. You can also view the archives of the Library’s former publication from 1993 to 2011. The centennial …

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

The Power of One: Roy Wilkins and the Civil Rights Movement

Posted by: Erin Allen

Civil Rights activist Roy Wilkins devoted his life to achieving equal rights under the law for the nation’s African Americans. The legacy of slavery, Roy Wilkins once wrote, divided African Americans into two camps: victims of bondage who suffered passively, hoping for a better day, and rebels who heaped coals of fire on everything that …

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

Photos Document Japanese-American Wartime Internment

Posted by: Erin Allen

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. This annual recognition of Asian Pacific Americans’ contributions to the American story started with a 1977 congressional resolution calling for a weeklong observance. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush extended it to the entire month of May. At the Library of Congress, Asian American Pacific Islander resources …

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

Jewish American Heritage: A Surviving Text

Posted by: Erin Allen

May marks Jewish American Heritage Month, and this year’s theme, designated by the Jewish American Heritage Month Coalition, honors the 100th anniversary of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). From its founding in 1914 to aid starving Jews in Palestine and Europe during World War I to life-saving rescues during war years to settling …