Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood was an American feminist and lawyer who was the first woman admitted to argue a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Her work “blazed the way for independent womanhood, often in the face of ridicule as well as contemptuous opposition.” At the time of her death, she was the […]
Eileen Jakeway, an innovation specialist on the LC Labs team, first posted this piece to The Signal blog. On September 15, 2020, the Library of Congress announced the release of Newspaper Navigator, an experimental web application which allows members of the public to visually browse 1.5 million photographs from Chronicling America using machine learning. Read more about the […]
The infamous trials throughout the early 20th century provide great theater for the masses. A look at these trials gives a snapshot of the issues of class, wealth, status, and race that pervade the time period.
United States Census records are some of the most important government documents – learn more about the 2020 Census and about historic materials from the Serial & Government Publications Division at the Library of Congress!
On the night of November 12, 1833, the sky fell. This is the story of how one scientist used America’s newspapers to find answers.
Joshua Ortiz Baco is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Texas at Austin. His work combines cultural studies and digital methodologies in the study of 19th-century abolitionist and racial discourses in U.S. newspapers of Cuban, Puerto Rican and Brazilian immigrants. His research is funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation grant-in-aid program […]
Maria Mitchell (1818-1889) is an astronomer, educator, librarian, activist, and the first nationally recognized woman scientist in the United States. She discovers a new comet, which bears her name, and calculates its orbit, and adds several new nebulae to sky maps. She also teaches at a prominent women’s college and fights to advance the cause of […]
This post originally appeared on the Library of Congress Blog. This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division. Over the past 20 years, one would be hard pressed to identify an industry that has undergone as many wrenching changes as newspaper publishing. Allen Neuharth, chairman of the Gannett Co. from […]
Solving puzzles didn’t just pass the time in the early 1900s, solving puzzles could sometimes even win you a prize! Puzzle contests abounded, sometimes run by the newspapers and sometimes run by local companies hoping to get readers’ business. One of the favorites for contests of the era was the rebus. What is a rebus? […]
This guest post by 2020 Junior Fellow Sophia Southard provides a history of African American newspapers with examples from our rich collections. Read more about how these black-owned businesses have provided voices for their communities from 1827 until today.