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Posted by: Neely Tucker
Susan B. Anthony annotated her copy of a Harriet Tubman biography with a brief note about the day the two larger-than-life women met at a social gathering at the dawn of a new century. Anthony was clearly delighted, underlining Tubman's name each time she wrote it.
Posted in: African American History, LCM, Rare Book and Special Collections, Women's History
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The Library's Crime Classics series has just published "The Thinking Machine," Jacques Futrelle's 1907 short story collection. It follows eccentric professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, the Thinking Machine, as he solves a mind-boggling series of crimes. Van Dusen, in the mold of Sherlock Holmes, is “one of the most admired creations in the history of crime fiction," series editor Leslie S. Klinger writes in the introduction.
Posted in: Crime Classics Series, Library of Congress Crime Classics, Library Work and Employees, Writers
Posted by: Mark Hartsell
The Library recently added 45,000 baseball cards to its archives thanks to the donated collection of Peter G. Strawbridge, who preserved complete sets of every major league team from 1973 through 2019 along with some Boston Red Sox cards from earlier years. This builds on the 2,100-card collection of Benjamin K. Edwards, which includes legendary figures from the sport's first half-century: Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Cy Young. The new cards include greats such as Ted Williams, Roberto Clemente and Derek Jeter.
Posted in: Baseball, Collections, LCM
Posted by: John Sayers
The Library of Congress has joined with other federal agencies to begin the celebration of the United States Semiquincentennial and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.
Posted in: American Revolution, History, Rare Book and Special Collections
Posted by: Neely Tucker
Mari Nakahara, director of the Library's Center for Architecture, Design and Engineering, chooses favorite collection items related to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. These include the original 1981 drawings submitted by the winning designer, Maya Lin, then a 21-year-old student at the Yale School of Architecture.
Posted in: Library Work and Employees, My Job, Researcher Stories
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The Library's collection of historical newspapers uniquely illuminate the spectrum of LGBTQ+ history, including stories about little-known lives and incidents of resistance to persecution. This article includes coverage of Ralph Kerwineo in 1914 Milwaukee and the Pepper Hill Raid in 1955 Baltimore.
Posted by: Neely Tucker
It's Bloomsday, the annual celebration of James Joyce's landmark modernist masterpiece, "Ulysses." Published 101 years ago, Joyce's book famously examines one day — June 16, 1904 — in the life of Leopold Bloom of Dublin, Ireland. The Library has some of the most extraordinary copies of the book ever printed, inducing a custom-made copy with a cover made of calfskin; an explanation of the book's convoluted symbolism by Joyce himself; and a full-color anatomical chart of the human body, annotated to show how body parts correspond to specific chapters in the book.
Posted in: LCM, Rare Book and Special Collections, Writers
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The papers of Ralph Ellison, one of the nation's greatest novelists of the 20th Century, are preserved at the LIbrary, including the sprawling mass of a manuscript that was edited into his posthumous novel, "Juneteenth."
Posted in: African American History, Books, Civil War, LCM, Manuscripts, Writers
Posted by: Neely Tucker
No Jewish marriage is complete without a ketubah, a traditional legal document introduced during the wedding ceremony. The ketubah not only legitimizes the marriage but, following Jewish law, also spells out the groom’s financial and conjugal obligations to his bride during their life journey. The Library holds 11 of these ornate, beautiful traditional documents, spanning centuries and many nations.
Posted in: Jewish American History, LCM, Library Work and Employees, Manuscripts