World-champion wrestler John Cena (center) visited the Library on December 6 to talk about his latest endeavor: starring as the voice of the gentle bull Ferdinand in a soon-to-be-released 20th Century Fox Animation feature film based on “The Story of Ferdinand the Bull,” the beloved 1936 children’s book by Munro Leaf. Cena read the story …
Mark Twain impersonators routinely don a white suit to evoke the persona of the famous author. But Twain himself did not make a habit of wearing white at all times of the year until very late in his life. He unveiled his signature style on December 7, 1906, at age 71, when he testified about …
Rob Williams first used the Library’s digital newspaper collections more than a decade ago as a high-school teacher of U.S. history in Powhatan County, Virginia, near Richmond. Today, he’s a recording artist—he released his third album, “An Hour Before Daylight,” in October. But he still draws inspiration from the same online resources that captivated his …
This is a guest post by Lee Ann Potter, director of educational outreach. Thirty-five years ago this month, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated. Three years later, in 1985, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund donated its records to the Library of Congress. But the National Archives actually plays …
Judith Gray joined the staff of the American Folklife Center in 1983 with a goal in mind: she wanted to work on the Federal Cylinder Project. The Folklife Center launched the project four years earlier to preserve early field recordings of the sung and spoken traditions of Native American communities. Ethnographers had made the recordings on …
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas 54 years ago today. Last month, to much anticipation, historians and the public awaited release by the National Archives of the government’s final records on the investigation into his murder—a law passed in 1992 set October 26, 2017, as the deadline for public disclosure of all assassination-related …
Celebrated performer Tony Bennett salutes the crowd on November 15 after Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and a delegation of Members of Congress presented him with the 2017 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Members who joined Bennett on stage were Rep. Kevin Yoder, U.S. House of Representatives Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the …
This is a guest post by Megan Halsband, a reference librarian in the Serial and Government Publications Division. It was first published in “Comics! An American History,” the September–October issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The issue is available in its entirety online. Through an agreement with the Small Press Expo, the Library …
This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. Regular visitors to the Library of Congress website may be scratching their heads right now, thinking, “Aren’t the Abraham Lincoln Papers already online?” It is true that the bulk of the Abraham Lincoln Papers have long been available through the Library’s …