New details about early European explorations along the North American east coast have been gleaned from a 16th-century portolan chart by the Library's Preservation and Research Testing Division. Using multispectral imaging and other techniques, Library staff has discovered multiple place names on the chart that could not be seen by the naked eye.
Kwame Anthony Appiah, the internationally recognized philosopher, author and professor, will be awarded the 2024 John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today. The $500,000 prize, awarded every two years, recognizes individuals whose outstanding scholarship in the humanities and social sciences has shaped public affairs and civil society. Since the 1990s, Appiah’s work has been widely regarded as having deepened the understanding of ideas around identity and belonging, concepts that remain deeply consequential. The Library is developing programming on the theme of “Thinking Together” that will showcase Appiah’s work for a public audience.
Printed in Cambridge between 1660 and 1663, the Eliot Indian Bible today represents a landmark in printing history: It was translated into the Wampanoag language of the region’s Algonquin tribes and was the first Bible printed in North America in any language. In recent decades, the Wampanoag nation has used the Eliot Bible as a tool to help resurrect its ancestral language. The Library preserves a 1685 copy.
Karen Werth is the Library's deputy chief of exhibitions. She talks about her work on popular exhibits featuring Rosa Parks, the Magna Carta and baseball in this short Q&A.
At the end of the 19th century, educator William Henry Crogman had a revolutionary idea: a textbook on African American history, achievements and survival for Black students both in and outside of the classroom. His "Progress of a Race," a textbook that told the history of African Americans as overcoming violence and bigotry, was not the first of its kind but probably the most influential. It caught on quickly, was heavily circulated and sold door-to-door through subscription for decades. The Library preserves several editions of this book, including the 1898 first edition.
The Library has six letters that Albert Einstein wrote to Margarita Konenkova, a Russian national with whom he had a passionate, late-in-life affair while he was at Princeton. Einstein was a widower, Konekova was married to a famous Russian sculptor. The affair was not revealed until 1994. The letters, our staff experts write, mix Einstein’s humanity with his genius.
"The Exhibit of American Negroes" was a display of hundreds of photographs, charts and graphs detailing the lives of Black Americans at the 1900 Paris Exposition, or world's fair. It was put together by W.E.B. Du Bois, Thomas Calloway and Daniel A.P. Murray, three major activists and educators of the era (Murray worked for the Library). Here, we look at three photographs of women that Du Bois selected for the exhibition.
In 1812, Massachusetts Gov. Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed a bill he didn't like, one the reordered some political districts into particularly odd shapes to favor one party. One contorted district looked like a huge salamander -- and the term "Gerrymander" was born. A political cartoon enshrined it into U.S. history.
Mila Hill, a a junior fellow in the Office of Communications this summer, made a startling discovery when she was looking at the Blackwell Family Tree in the new Treasures Gallery -- she was part of the family.