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Archive: April 2013 (10 Posts)

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Duke Ellington’s Film Debut

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a guest post from Mike Mashon, head of the Moving Image Section in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.) One of the great joys of working with the Library of Congress film and video collections is learning more about our holdings from the astonishing variety of researchers the Moving Image …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Perspectives on the Environment

Posted by: Erin Allen

Nature. Environment. Earth. Each of these words points to a particular physical phenomena, but their meanings are different. And people’s perspectives of them are different. On Feb. 28, the John W. Kluge Center brought together three of its scholars to discuss these perspectives and their moral implications in a panel titled “The Evolving Moral Landscape: …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

InRetrospect: March Blogging Edition

Posted by: Erin Allen

While March may have “gone out like a lamb,” the Library’s blogosphere offered a wealth of great posts. Here’s just a sampling. In the Muse: Performing Arts Blog Lincoln and the Blair House Binder’s Volumes Sharon McKinley talks about musical scores belonged to the Blair family, a prominent family during the Civil War. Inside Adams: …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

A Birthday Fit for a President

Posted by: Erin Allen

Saturday is the 270th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birth (April 13, 1743). And, the Library of Congress owes much to this esteemed third president. After the British invaded Washington in the War of 1812, they burned down the Capitol building, including the Library of Congress collection housed there. Jefferson, an avid book collector, sold his …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

In Bloom

Posted by: Erin Allen

We’ve been on cherry blossom watch here at the Library, waiting for our 100-year-old cherry blossom trees to bloom. The grounds of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building are home to two of the original group of 3,020 Yoshino cherry trees given to Washington, D.C., in 1912, by the city of Tokyo as a …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

First Batch of Authors for 2013 National Book Festival

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

Authors and poets Margaret Atwood, Marie Arana, Taylor Branch, Don DeLillo, Khaled Hosseini, Barbara Kingsolver, Brad Meltzer, Joyce Carol Oates, Katherine Paterson and U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will be among more than 100 writers speaking at the 13th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival, on Saturday, Sept. 21 and Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013, …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Supporting Congress: Lawmakers and Their Library

Posted by: Erin Allen

The Library’s mission is to support the Congress in fulfilling its constitutional duties and to further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people. By the time voters went to the polls in November, analysts in the Library’s Congressional Research Service (CRS) were hard at work researching the key public …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

A Turn-of-the-Century “True Hollywood Story”

Posted by: Erin Allen

In the 1890s, illustrator Charles Dana Gibson created the “Gibson Girl,” a vibrant, new feminine ideal—a young woman who pursued higher education, romance, marriage, physical well-being and individuality with unprecedented independence. Until World War I, the Gibson Girl set the standard for beauty, fashion and manners. The Library’s new exhibition, “The Gibson Girl’s America,” which …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

A League of Their Own

Posted by: Erin Allen

The other day at roller derby practice, the subject of women and baseball came up. Okay, to be fair, my teammates may have just been quoting lines from the movie “A League of Their Own,” which was recently inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry. But, nonetheless, with baseball season upon us, it’s …