This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. Imagine you can hear Abraham Lincoln speaking the words from his famous Second Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none; with charity for all.” What voice did you supply for Lincoln? Was it a resonant baritone, or a high-pitched tenor? While many …
This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. Regular visitors to the Library of Congress website may be scratching their heads right now, thinking, “Aren’t the Abraham Lincoln Papers already online?” It is true that the bulk of the Abraham Lincoln Papers have long been available through the Library’s …
Last week, the Library announced a new online presentation of Abraham Lincoln’s papers from his time as a lawyer, congressman and the 16th president. The refreshed digital collection follows a multiyear project to update the Library’s previous presentation with additional features, full-color images and new material. To celebrate, we’re highlighting items from the Library’s vast …
This is a guest post by Kristi Finefield, a reference librarian in the Prints and Photographs Division. An earlier version was published on “Picture This,” the division’s blog. Can you take a photograph of a ghost? Will a spirit pose for your camera? Looking at “spirit photographs” from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, you …
This week, interns participating in the Library’s Junior Fellows Program presented more than 150 rare and unique items they researched and processed over the summer. For the first time since the program’s launch in 1991, “display day” was open to the public. Items on view included blueprints for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, a letter …
When Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865, he was carrying the following: Two pairs of spectacles and a lens polisher Pocketknife Watch fob Linen handkerchief Brown leather wallet containing a five-dollar Confederate note Nine newspaper clippings, including several favorable to the president and his policies. These items …
(The following was written by Barbara Bair, historian in the Library’s Manuscript Division.) As a special collections repository, the Library of Congress holds the largest collection of Walt Whitman materials anywhere in the world. The Manuscript Division has already made available online the Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of Walt Whitman Papers and the Walt Whitman …
(The following was written by Julie Miller, Barbara Bair and Michelle Krowl, historians in the Library’s Manuscript Division, for the January/February 2017 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM. You can read the issue in its entirety here.) Presidential candidates have used popular culture to promote their campaigns for nearly 200 years. Today’s political …
(The following is a guest blog post written by Elizabeth Gettins, Library of Congress digital library specialist.) This month, in honor of Mary Todd Lincoln’s birthday on December 13, we will depart from our literary theme and look at some of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division’s “special collections.” While these items are not …