Thomas Mann‘s emigration to the United States in 1938 was one of many watersheds in a turbulent life. An important part of this life-change was his association with the Library of Congress from 1941 to 1952.
The 11th Librarian of Congress L. Quincy Mumford was instrumental in the early development of the international collections at the Library of Congress.
The Rare Book & Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress has one of only thirteen known copies of the radical Alexander Radishchev’s banned 1790 novel “Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu” (A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow).
The Library of Congress has acquired a 1538 menologion, or Orthodox Eastern ecclesiastical calendar, from the influential printing press of Božidar Vuković (ca. 1460-1540) whose works were known for their beauty and technical achievement.
It takes a special skill to transcribe old German handwriting, or die deutsche Schrift, for the Library of Congress' "By the People" crowdsourcing initiative.