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Archive: 2018 (158 Posts)

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

African-American History Month: Curating Black History

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

In this post, historians from the Library and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture highlight how collection items shed light on the black experience. The post is reprinted from the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The entire issue is available online. Adrienne Cannon is the Afro-American history …

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

African-American History Month: Making Freedom the Law of the Land

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

To celebrate African-American History Month and the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday—Feb. 12, 1809—we are sharing an article from “Building Black History,” the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine, available in its entirety online. The Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln understood, was a wartime measure that wouldn’t ensure the freedom of …

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

EverydayLOC: Cupid’s Arrow

Posted by: Gayle Osterberg

St. Valentine’s Day is upon us, a “holiday” many people love to hate. Even if you shun forced commemoration, there is nothing wrong with a little romance, whether you express it on February 14 or—better still—all year round. Although little Cupid is technically the god of love in the romantic and erotic sense, I can …

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

New Book: Illustrated History of the Library of Congress

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

A new book from Library of Congress historian John Y. Cole, “America’s Greatest Library: An Illustrated History of the Library of Congress,” tells the story of the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and how it came to be the world’s largest library. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden calls the Library “a place where you can …

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

Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Inaugurated

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

Young readers, author Jacqueline Woodson says, need books that serve as both a window and a mirror—a window that allows them to see into other worlds, a mirror that might let, say, an African-American girl or Asian boy see some part of their own identity on the page. The books of such African-American children’s authors …

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

African-American History Month: Happy Birthday, Frederick Douglass!

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Douglass, and this month is African-American History Month. To celebrate, we are highlighting favorite items from the Library’s collections. This post is reprinted from “Building Black History,” the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine, available in its entirety online.   This …

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

Inquiring Minds: Digital Artist Gives New Life to Historical Scenes and People

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Marina Amaral was studying international relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, when she first tried her hand at digitally colorizing a historical photograph. She had no formal background in art or photography, but since childhood she had enjoyed working with Photoshop in her free time. One day, while not feeling terribly …

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

New Online: Senate Watergate Hearings

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This is a guest post by Amanda Reichenbach, a 2017 summer intern with the Junior Fellows Program in the Library’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. She is a history major at Yale University. During her internship, she worked with newly digitized material from the 1973 Senate Watergate hearings and the 1974 House impeachment hearings, …