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Archive: 2023 (90 Posts)

Black and white studio portait of Louise Glück. She is seated in a chair, leaning slightly to the photo's right, her left hand cupping her chin, gazing intently at the camera.

Louise Glück, Nobel Prize Winner, Former U.S. Poet Laureate, Dies at 80

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Louise Glück, the poet whose often personal, always searching work won the Nobel Prize in 2020 and who served as the U.S. poet laureate for the Library in 2003-2004, has died at the age of 80. Here, we remember a night at the LIbrary in the spring of 1975, when she was a nervous young poet reading her work in an event at the Coolidge Auditorium.

Colorful mural of a actress Delores Del Rio, with her face in shades of blue, at the center

Hispanic Heritage Month: Two Mexican Stories, Including Dolores del Rio

Posted by: Neely Tucker

It’s Hispanic Heritage Month, which makes it an excellent time to check in on the Library's collection of Free to Use and Reuse images, this time from a set devoted to Hispanic life and culture. We look at two photos of two young Mexican women who came to work in the U.S. One is of a mural devoted to the legendary actress Delores del Río, the first Latina to become a Hollywood icon. The second is Dorothea Lange's unforgettable Depression-era image of the daughter of a Mexican field laborer in rural Arizona.

Color photo of a man and woman ballroom dancing on an open patio.

Dancing the Danzón: Hispanic Heritage Month

Posted by: Maria Peña

Born in 19th-century Cuban dance halls, danzón eventually became the country’s official national dance. Influenced by African and European music and dance traditions, it continues to thrive outside the big island’s borders, in Mexico and beyond, in orchestra halls and dance salons, leaving an indelible mark on Latin American culture. It’s a genre all its own and a lovely bit of romance to remember during Hispanic Heritage Month here in the U.S. The Library has plenty of music, films and books to help you explore its rich history.

Embossed typsecript in gold and blue, with Hebraic writing alongside it.

Hundreds of Hebrew Manuscripts Now Online

Posted by: Maria Peña

The Library recently put online some 230 histortic manuscripts, some of them more than a thousand years old, in Hebrew and similar languages, such as Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian and Yiddish. The collection, available online for researchers and the public for the first time, includes a 14th-century collection of responsa, or rabbinic decisions and commentary, by Solomon ibn Adret of Barcelona, considered one of the most prominent authorities on Jewish law.

A colorful image of names written in on a winding family tree

An African American Family History Like No Other

Posted by: Neely Tucker

When the Library opens its new Treasures Gallery next year, displaying some of the most striking papers and artifacts that span some 4,000 years, one of them will certainly stand out: The Blackwell's Kinfolk Family Tree. It's a dizzying, almost overwhelming piece of folk art that depicts the genealogical history of an African American family from Virginia. It's 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide, contains more than 1,500 names spread out on curving trunks, branches and leaves and details family connections from 1789 to the 1970s. Its most famous member? Arthur Ashe Jr., the tennis great.

Missed You Much: The Library’s ASCAP Concert Bursts Back into Life

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Pop hits, R&B grooves and Broadway anthems thumped through the Coolidge Auditorium Wednesday night as the We Write the Songs concert burst back into life for the first time in four years, featuring songwriters such as Jermaine Dupri, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Madison Love and Matthew West. The 90-minute showcase is an annual event (save for the recent COVID-caused gap) by the Library and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Foundation. It demonstrates to an audience heavy with members of Congress and Capitol Hill staffers, often in danceable fashion, why the rights of creative artists have to be protected.

Douglas Brinkely and Carla Hayden, both seated, speak on stage, with an American flag in the background

“Books That Shaped America” Series Starts

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Some of the most important works by Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Frederick Douglass, Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston and Cesar Chavez will be the focus of a new television series being produced by C-SPAN and the Library. The 10-part series — “Books That Shaped America” — starts on Sept. 18 and will examine 10 books …

Full portrait of a clean-cut young man, standing very erect and with a serious expression, in a photo studio.

John Phelan and the Sinking of the USS Oneida

Posted by: Neely Tucker

One of the LIbrary's genealogy specialists was struck by reading the elaborate inscription on a 19th-century cemetery marker in her hometown. It spurred deep research and an extensive Library research guide into the 1870 sinking of the USS Oneida, costing the lives of 115 sailors, including the young man whose memorial caused her to pause: John Phelan. This is his story.

A sepia-toned sheet of paper, with the title and opening lines of the Declaration of Independence

Proclaiming a New Nation: The Library’s Copies of the Declaration of Independence

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

After the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the delegates spread the word as quickly as possible by publishing it on a broadside sheet and delivering it throughout the Colonies. Copies of the Dunlap Broadside (named after the printer) are now extremely rare, with only about two dozen copies known to surive. The Library has two, one of which belonged to George Washington.