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Posted by: Neely Tucker
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.
Posted in: Jewish American History, LCM, Manuscripts, Science
Posted by: Neely Tucker
"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.
Posted in: African American History, Exhibitions, Free to Use and Reuse, Library Work and Employees, Photos
Posted by: Neely Tucker
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.
Posted in: Congress, Geography and Maps Division, Newspapers, Rare Book and Special Collections
Posted by: Neely Tucker
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.
Posted in: African American History, Exhibitions, Genealogy, Junior Fellows Program, Library Work and Employees
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The Library will award the 2024 Prize for American Fiction to novelist and author James McBride, Librarian Carla Hayden announced today. McBride, 66, is the author of the hugely popular memoir "The Color of Water," novels such as “The Good Lord Bird” (winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction) and, most recently "The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store," which received the 2023 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and was named Barnes and Noble’s 2023 Book of the Year. In 2016, he was awarded the the National Humanities Medal. He will be awarded the Prize for Fiction at the 2024 National Book Festival.
Posted in: Gazette, Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, National Book Festival, Writers
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The folklorist Sidney Robertson was one of the trailblazing American women of the 1930s and 1940s, the kind of life you’d associate with Martha Gellhorn, Dorothea Lange or Zora Neale Hurston. Her work directing the California Folk Music Project from 1938-40 is the subject "California Gold," a new book from the Library and the University of California Press.
Posted in: American Folklife Center, Collections, Library Work and Employees, Lomax Collection, Music, Performing Arts, Preservation and Conservation, Women's History, Writers
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
My Job is a recurring feature, presenting a Q&A with Library employees. This week, we chat with Mineeya Miles, a special assistant to the Health Services Division’s Wellness Program.
Posted in: Gazette, Library Work and Employees, My Job
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
The Library's custom-designed multitracking studio at National Audio-Visual Conservation Center was built to house and preserve the collections of guitarist and audio-engineering innovator Les Paul. But it's also used to convert, preserve and save recordings made on formats that may not last. It's one of several labs that use cutting-edge technology to save the nation's recorded sound history.
Posted in: Gazette, LCM, Library Work and Employees, Music, National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Performing Arts, Preservation, Preservation and Conservation, Technology
Posted by: Neely Tucker
—This is a guest post by Meg McAleer, a former historian in the Manuscript Division. Sigmund Freud returned again and again to the problem of memory as he formulated his theories of psychoanalysis during the 1890s, as the Library’s significant collection of his papers show. “What is essentially new about my theory,” Freud wrote in …
Posted in: Exhibitions, Manuscripts, Writers