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Category: Manuscripts

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

Play Ball!

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This is a guest post by Jeffrey Flannery, head of the Reference and Reader Services Section of the Manuscript Division. Spring has arrived, which all fans know marks the beginning of the baseball season. Opening day was April 2 for major league baseball, and the new season brings hope that this year may be the …

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

World War I: Norvel Preston Clotfelter

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a guest post by Rachel Telford, archivist with the Veterans History Project.) In 1917, Norvel Preston Clotfelter’s life was upended when he was drafted into the United States Army. He postponed his wedding, left his job as a school teacher in Mazie, Okla., and began his service at Camp Travis, Texas; he …

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

New Online: Walt Whitman, Alan Lomax and More

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

(The following is a guest post by William Kellum, manager in the Library’s Web Services Division.)  Before we jump into new offerings, we’d be remiss if we didn’t remind you of December’s release of the upgraded presentation for the George Washington Papers Collection. Read all about it in Julie Miller’s excellent blog post here. African American …

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

Women’s History Month: Zora Neale Hurston Dramas

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Zora Neale Hurston died in obscurity in a Florida nursing home in 1960. But her standing as a distinguished writer of African American literature was already on the rise in 1997 when a retired Copyright Office staff member serving as a volunteer identified 10 little-known play scripts she had deposited decades earlier for copyright registration. …

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

Women’s History Month: The Legacy of Hannah Richards

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

(The following guest post was written by Beverly W. Brannan, curator of photography in the Prints and Photographs Division.) The Library purchased the collection of William Henry Richards (1856–1941), a law professor at Howard University, in 2013. The collection includes manuscript and visual materials, including a tintype of Hannah Richards, William’s grandmother, who was born …

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

“Roots” – Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of an African-American Saga

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following post is written by Ahmed Johnson, African American genealogy specialist in the Library’s Humanities and Social Sciences Division.) I’d like to begin with a story – a personal story. I remember being in a sociology class at Hampton University and discussing the government’s unfulfilled promise, in the aftermath of the Civil War, to …

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

Freud Collection: The Opening of the Eissler Interviews

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

(The following post is by Louis Rose, executive director of the Sigmund Freud Archives since 2015. It is the last of three weekly guest blogs by current and former executive directors of the Sigmund Freud Archives (SFA), an independent organization founded in 1951 to collect and preserve for scholarly use Sigmund Freud’s personal papers. The …

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

Love in the Ex-Slave Narratives

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a guest post by Sabrina Thomas, a research specialist with the Library of Congress’s Digital Reference Team.) Finding stories of love within the narratives of ex-slaves shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, for the millions of men, women and children who endured atrocities and injustices under the institution of slavery, the …