When Drew Gilpin Faust – historian, former Harvard University president, and author of the Bancroft Prize-winning book This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War – accepted the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, she took some time to sit down with us to discuss the Library of …
In the fourth episode of our African American Passages podcast, former John W. Kluge Center Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Georgetown University history professor Adam Rothman goes in search of Adeline Henson, an African-American woman who makes an ephemeral appearance in the Library of Congress’s Manuscript Collections, through two photographs, a bill of sale, and a …
In the second episode of African American Passages: Black Lives in the 19th Century, John W. Kluge Center Distinguished Visiting Scholar and Georgetown University history professor Adam Rothman looks at the story of Omar Ibn Said. Rothman is joined on the podcast by Mary-Jane Deeb, the Chief of the Library of Congress’s African and Middle …
The following is a guest post by L. Marvin Overby, a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri and 2018-2019 Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the John W. Kluge Center. During my fellowship at the Kluge Center I am researching a book with my University of Missouri colleague James Endersby. Tentatively …
During his time as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar here at the John W. Kluge Center, Georgetown University history professor Adam Rothman recorded an extraordinary series of podcasts. In the podcasts, Rothman examines documents from the Library of Congress’ manuscript collection relating to the lives of African-Americans in the 19th century. He found a number of …
An unusual letter arrived in the mail for the Tennessee planter James K. Polk shortly after he won the 1844 presidential election. Written from Carrollton, Mississippi, and dated November 28, 1844, the letter began “My Dear Master” and was signed by “Blacksmith Harry.” Here’s what Harry wrote: Suffer your faithful survant Harry to say a …
While Adam Rothman, Georgetown University history professor and former Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Kluge Center, was at the Library, he had the opportunity to work on transcribing the Library of Congress’ Omar Ibn Said Collection, which was just released online. Ibn Said was an educated, wealthy man living in West Africa until he was …
The association of directions with colors may be the oldest known set of philosophical ideas in the world, transmitted from ancient Asia to the Americas over 10,000 years ago. Obvious Concepts Some concepts come naturally to humans. In several ancient societies, the moon relates to a goddess, and logically so, for menstruation and lunar cycles …
On Wednesday, January 16, the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress will host “The United States and the World: Legacies of the Paris Peace Conference”. This event marks the 100th anniversary of the Paris Peace Conference, which ended World War I and previewed many of the issues that would define international affairs …