Every year, the Library of Congress decorates the Great Hall with a tall tree for the holidays, replete with lights and ornaments for the enjoyment of visitors. Zelma Cook of Tryon, N.C., recalls her first Christmas tree and holidays spent with her family and the mill workers of the village in this excerpt from American Life Histories: …
“The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there…” reads the familiar poem most of us know as “The Night Before Christmas.” However, that title isn’t really correct. Clement Moore first penned the poem in 1822, under the title “A Visit From St. Nicholas.” Moore is thought …
(The following is a guest post by Monica Mohindra of the Veterans History Project.) “Home for the holidays”- it’s a sentiment that can cut across lines we might otherwise let divide us. For my dad, it means a longing to be with his family in India for Diwali, a multi-day festival of light that falls …
(The following is a guest post from Francisco Macias of the Law Library of Congress.) Each winter we see poinsettias adorning houses, shopping centers and offices throughout the country. But a little known fact is that the poinsettia is an endemic flora of Mexico. In Spanish it is often called “flor de nochebuena” or simply …
In 2014, December 16 marked the first day of Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration by the forces of Antiochus IV. Also referred to as the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah recalls the event. According to the Talmud, a central text of Rabbinic Judaism, at the re-dedication …
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I spent several days in New York City. The holiday season was in full swing, with several holiday markets around town, lights and decorations adorning street posts and buildings and Rockefeller Center nearly completely decked out – the Christmas tree was up but not yet decorated. One of the things I …
Imagine, military historian Kevin Hymel writes, if George Washington or Ulysses S. Grant had carried a camera and photographed war as he experienced it. How important would those images be as documents of history? Gen. George S. Patton, the brilliant but often-troublesome U.S. Army commander of World War II, did just that during his campaigns …
(The following is an article in the November/December 2014 issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The issue can be read in its entirety here.) Nathan Dorn, the Law Library’s curator of rare books, highlights five favorite pieces from the Library’s Magna Carta exhibition. Statutes of England “Intricate colored-pen work graces this 14th-century miniature …
The Library of Congress featured prominently in November news with the opening of a special exhibition and the celebration of a special individual. On Nov. 6, “Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor” opened with much fanfare, featuring the 1215 Magna Carta, on loan from Lincoln Cathedral in England and one of only four surviving copies issued …