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Category: Abraham Lincoln

Several small items arrayed on a gray desk, including a wallet and two pair of glasses.

Treasures Gallery: What Did Lincoln Have in His Pockets the Night of His Assassination?

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets the night he was assassinated -- a gathering of the ordinary and everyday -- have long been one of the Library's most fascinating holdings. They, along with Lincoln's work on the Gettysburg Address, are featured in "Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress,” the inaugural exhibit of the Library's new Treasures Gallery, opening June 13. 

Painted illustration depicts the emperor, his crown prince and the royal family celebrating a joyous, nighttime Indian festival on the banks of a river with fireworks, music and feasting.

Library Treasures: New Gallery Shows Off Premier Holdings

Posted by: Neely Tucker

This June, the Library will open “Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress,” an exhibition that explores the ways cultures preserve memory and shows off some of the Library's most valuable holdings. The exhibition is the first in the Library’s new David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery.

John and Jacqueline Kennedy pose on a grassy lawn on their wedding day, her white gown flowing behind her

Black Dressmakers for First Ladies

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Two Black seamstresses have left their mark on White House fashion history, as Elizabeth Keckley and Ann Lowe designed dresses for two of the nation’s most famous first ladies, Mary Todd Lincoln and Jacqueline Kennedy, respectively. Both designers developed their craft despite the brutal influences of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. This piece tells their stories.

Color photo of a man wearing a colorful shirt, seated at a desk with two computer monitors in front of him showing different images of Abraham Lincoln.

160 Years Later … Where Did Lincoln Stand While Delivering the Gettysburg Address?

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Christopher Oakley, a prominent film animator turned university historian, used his knowledge of computer modeling -- and his research at the LIbrary of Congress -- to help solve a small but important mystery: Where exactly did Lincoln stand while delivering his famed Gettysburg Address?

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

The Library Reimagined, with You in Mind

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

"A Library for You" is the Library's multi-year initiative to connect readers and patrons to our collections in new ways. These new galleries, exhibits and showcases will present some of the Library's most stunning items, whether they are recent or thousands of years old. These include Lincoln's handwritten first draft of the Gettysburg Address, fragments of the ancient Greek epic the "Iliad," cuneiform tablets that are among the oldest examples of writing, pre-Columbian artifacts, Rosa Parks' papers and watercolors by Diego Rivera. They'll begin to open in 2024.

Carla Hayden, at left, hands a crystal trophy to George Saunders, at right.

George Saunders Accepts the Library’s Prize for American Fiction

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Novelist, short-story writer and essayist George Saunders was awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction Saturday evening in one of the final sessions of the 2023 National Book Festival, conferring a lifetime honor on a versatile writer whose most famous book cast one of Washington's most famous residents in a surreal light. Saunders' 2017 novel "Lincoln in the Bardo" took a fantastical look at the visit President Abraham Lincoln paid to his young son's tomb in a Georgetown cemetery one night in 1862.

Head and shoulders sepia-toned photo of Rebecca Pomroy, facing front. She is middle aged, smiling, with white hair coiled into a bun on either side of her head

A Civil War Story: Rebecca Pomroy, Lincoln’s Nurse

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Rebecca Pomeroy, a Civil War nurse, was assigned to the White House in 1862 to help the grieving Lincoln family deal with the loss of their 11-year-old son, Willie, to typhoid fever. The story of her relationship with the Lincoln family is revealed in a collection of her papers, photographs are artifacts that are now preserved at the Library as part of the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs.