Mark Eden Horowitz, a senior music specialist in the Music Division, recounts his long friendship with Stephen Sondheim and how the maestro's papers will come to the Library.
China's colossal Yongle encyclopedia, published in the 15th century, comprised 22,937 hand-copied sections bound into 11,095 volumes. It was intended to comprise all knowledge available to Chinese civilizations.
The Library has a delightfully curated selection of 19th- and early 20th-century bartender manuals, "American Mixology: Recipe Books from the Pre-Prohibition Era," composed of 10 cocktail recipe books, from 1869 to 1911, They form a "cross-section of pre-Prohibition cocktail culture in America," our specialist writes.
Native American historical influences on the United States, in everything from state names to influences for the U.S. Constitution, are apparent everywhere you look.
In World War II, the U.S. government enlisted American citizens to report what their neighbors, coworkers and classmates were saying about the war in a controversial "rumor control" project.