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Archive: 2010 (74 Posts)

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Disneyland

Posted by: Donna Scanlon

Disneyland opened in Anaheim, CA on this date in 1955.  Having worked for The Walt Disney Company at various points in my career, I have a special fondness for all things Disney. A recent vacation took me to Germany where I was able to visit Neuschwanstein, a castle that was “a tremendous inspiration to Walt …

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Stumbled upon in the Stacks

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

Today’s guest post  was written by our summer intern Brian Horowitz from Montgomery College, Maryland. As an intern at the Library of Congress, Science Business and Technology Division, I have been able to wander in the books stacks of the Library of Congress.  It was there that I met Brevet Major Alfred Mordecai, a man …

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“Resolved, That the money unit of the United States of America be one dollar.”

Posted by: Donna Scanlon

On today’s date in 1785 the Continental Congress set the dollar as the official currency of the new United States. Also on this date it was Resolved “That the several pieces shall increase in a decimal ratio.” As a side note Thomas Jefferson wrote on this very topic in “Notes on the establisment[!] of a …

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Is there a pyrotechnic display in your future?

Posted by: Donna Scanlon

234 years ago the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence announcing the colonies’ separation from Great Britain.  It has been estimated that there were approximately 2.5 million people in this new nation at that time. [1] Today a celebration of our independence takes place every year on the anniversary of the signing of …

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The Business of Congress

Posted by: Donna Scanlon

Our guest author today is Ellen Terrell, Business Reference Specialist. In a letter to Samuel H. Smith offering his collection to Congress to re-establish the Library after it was burned in 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote “I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from this collection …

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Child Labor

Posted by: Donna Scanlon

Child labor in one form or another has existed in America from our beginning. As the country was mostly agricultural, much of the work involved a family’s farm, or in the case of slaves, on plantations. With the advent of industrialization that began to change. In the early part of the 20th century when the …

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Celebrate with a chocolate chip cookie

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

Our guest author today is Constance Carter, head of the science reference section, mentor, and cookie goddess.   Today is the birthday of Ruth Graves Wakefield, “mother of the chocolate chip cookie.”  She was born on June 17, 1903, and Inside Adams is celebrating by unveiling the division’s latest acquisition, the 1938 edition of Ruth Wakefield’s …