November is National Native American Heritage Month. This annual recognition of the contributions of Native Americans to our national culture began in 1986, when President Ronald Reagan proclaimed November 23–30 of that year “American Indian Week.” In 1990, President George H. W. Bush extended the observance to an entire month. Every year since then, U.S. […]
This is a guest post by folklife specialist Ann Hoog. The American Folklife Center is pleased to announce the online release of the Rhode Island Folklife Project Collection. Between 1977 and 1997, the AFC conducted 25 ethnographic field projects and cultural surveys in various parts of the United States, resulting in a rich body of […]
The advent of recorded sound and moving images has enriched our lives beyond measure. We have heard the voices of presidents and shared the beauty of piano concertos. We have watched tragedies unfold worldwide, and in our own backyards. We’ve been transported by movies that captivate, beguile, frighten and inspire. We have absorbed voices of […]
This post first appeared in the September–October issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The issue is titled “Comics: An American History!” and is available in its entirety online. Two new online collections capture contemporary culture as it is consumed, via the web. The millions of items in Library of Congress collections chronicle human […]
Library of Congress conservators use enzymes and small hand tools to gently remove the cloth backing from the verso of a giant poster created to advertise a 19th-century circus. The treatment is part of an effort to preserve the poster, the earliest surviving one in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division. Titled “Five Celebrated Clowns […]
This is a guest post by Stephen Winick of the American Folklife Center. An earlier version was published on “Folklife Today,” the center’s blog. With Halloween just around the corner, the Library of Congress has released a new web guide to Halloween resources at the Library. It features select materials on the folk customs, fine […]
Baseball and music have a basic affinity, as any fan knows. . . . [E]very pitch ends either with the satisfying pop of the catcher’s mitt or the tension-creating crack of the bat. . . . It should surprise no one that a game with such inherently strong elements of musicality should have attracted scores […]
This is a guest post by Kristi Finefield, a reference librarian in the Prints and Photographs Division. An earlier version was published on “Picture This,” the division’s blog. Can you take a photograph of a ghost? Will a spirit pose for your camera? Looking at “spirit photographs” from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, you […]
This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. On May 17, 1877, former president Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia departed from Philadelphia on an extended trip. Other former presidents traveled after retiring from public office, but none journeyed as far as Grant did. He and Julia spent […]
This is a guest post by digital library specialist Elizabeth Gettins. There is a mystique surrounding libraries with old, rare books, and the Library of Congress is no exception. Just think of all the dark and vast vaults of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division that are closed to the public and imagine what […]