Top of page
Posted by: Anne Holmes
The following is a guest post by Pat Padua, Digital Conversion Specialist in the Library of Congress’ Music Division, on the occasion of Emily Dickinson’s 187th birthday (December 10). “I play the old, odd tunes yet, which used to flit about your head after honest hours.” One of the most iconic of American poets, Emily …
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources, Guest Posts
Posted by: Anne Holmes
This coming Sunday, December 10, marks what would be Emily Dickinson’s 187th birthday. Around the country, Dickinson lovers will gather together to read all 1,789 of her known poems in a “marathon” tradition and tribute to the Belle of Amherst. The Library, in partnership with the Folger Shakespeare Library, hosted one such marathon in 2014. …
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources
Posted by: Peter Armenti
On November 8, 1894, a poem by Robert Lee Frost, then a 20-year-old grammar school teacher in Salem, New Hampshire, appeared on the front page of the New York newspaper The Independent. The poem, titled “My Butterfly: An Elegy,” was the first poem Frost ever sold, and his first professionally published poem. Readers of Frost’s …
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources
Posted by: Anne Holmes
The following is a guest post by Stephen Winick of the American Folklife Center. An earlier version was published on “Folklife Today,” the center’s blog. Halloween is here, and the Library of Congress has released a new web guide to Halloween resources at the Library. It features select materials on the folk customs, fine art, pop …
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources, Guest Posts
Posted by: Anne Holmes
The following post by John Sayers, a public affairs specialist in the Library’s Office of Communications, originally appeared on the Library of Congress Blog. Today we launched our newest podcast series, “La Biblioteca” (The Library), in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Every Thursday for the next eight weeks, Library specialists will explore the Library’s …
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources, Guest Posts, News and Events
Posted by: Peter Armenti
On this day in 1772, a letter providing an “account of one of the most dreadful Hurricanes that memory or any records whatever can trace” appeared in St. Croix’s The Royal Danish American Gazette. The letter, written weeks earlier by a “Youth of this Island” to his father, who lived beyond the storm’s reach, caused …
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources
Posted by: Peter Armenti
This post explores the poetry of Alexander Hamilton. It offers a unique glimpse of the original manuscripts and publications in which Hamilton's poems appear.
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources
Posted by: Anne Holmes
The following is a guest post by Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints, Prints & Photographs Division. It originally appeared on Picture This, the division’s blog. When Juan Felipe Herrera was exploring Library of Congress collections to share through his Poet Laureate project El Jardín (The Garden): La Casa de Colores, he was interested to …
Posted in: Collections, Guest Posts, Poets Laureate
Posted by: Peter Armenti
Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, adapted and released as a feature film earlier this month, is the latest in a long line of fantasy fiction to receive the big screen treatment. While, like many works in its genre, The Dark Tower was partly influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series, the work …
Posted in: Collections, Digital Resources