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Posted by: Arlene Balkansky
Abhorrent in their treatment of people as property, these brief descriptions of African-Americans who escaped enslavement bear witness to the bravery and unique characteristics of individuals who defied a massively powerful system allied against them.
Posted in: African American History, Digitized Newspapers, U.S. Presidents
Posted by: Arlene Balkansky
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal…” On July 20, 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, the first Woman’s Rights Convention approved a Declaration of Sentiments, which had been drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and modeled after the Declaration of Independence in its commitment to secure women’s …
Posted in: Digitized Newspapers, Newspapers, Women's History
Posted by: Arlene Balkansky
In 1860, the 3rd edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass received a wildly varying reception in newspapers. At opposite ends of the spectrum, it was advertised as “America’s First Distinctive Poem” and reviewed as “armless, witless, pointless.” The advertisement was from the volume’s …
Posted in: Digitized Newspapers, Newspapers, Walt Whitman
Posted by: Arlene Balkansky
Catherine Wolfe Donohue is not a well-known name, but in the late 1930s newspapers featured her as she lay dying. She was among the women who painted luminous numbers on watch, clock, and instrument dials using radium-laced paint in factories in New Jersey, Illinois, and Connecticut. Dubbed “Radium Girls” and “Living Dead,” they suffered radium …
Posted in: Digitized Newspapers, Newspapers, Women's History
Posted by: Arlene Balkansky
This is a guest post by Valerie Haeder, a reference librarian in the Serial and Government Publications Division. A handful of presidents are remembered for their greatness, but most are relegated to the footnotes of history. Even fewer vice presidents have achieved fame and favor, with one—Vice President John Nance Garner who served under Franklin …
Posted in: Digitized Newspapers, Newspapers
Posted by: Arlene Balkansky
One hundred years ago, on February 17, 1919, the African-American 369th Infantry Regiment, popularly known as the Harlem Hell Fighters, marched up Fifth Avenue into Harlem in a massive victory parade in their honor. “Hell Fighters” was the nickname the German enemy gave the 369th and the name stuck for good reason. They were among the …
Posted in: African American History, Digitized Newspapers, Newspapers, World War I
Posted by: Arlene Balkansky
One hundred years ago, on January 25, 1919, the delegates to the Paris Peace Conference approved a proposal to create the League of Nations. Nearly a year later, on January 16, 1920, the League held its first meeting with its stated principal mission of maintaining world peace. American newspapers presented conflicting views of the League …
Posted in: Digitized Newspapers, Newspapers, World War I
Posted by: Arlene Balkansky
The massive collection, World War History: Newspaper Clippings, 1914 to 1926, is now fully digitized and freely available on the Library of Congress website. The 79,621 pages are packed with war-related front pages, illustrated feature articles, editorial cartoons, and more. You can search by keywords, browse the content chronologically, and download pages. Coverage begins on June …
Posted in: Digitized Newspapers, Newspapers, World War I
Posted by: Arlene Balkansky
This Veterans Day is the 100th anniversary of the Armistice ending World War I. It is a particularly fitting time for us to focus on newspapers of the era, which provided the day-to-day news of the war. Not only was there no television, commercial radio had yet to be established.
Posted in: Digitized Newspapers, Newspapers, World War I