This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division, to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice ending World War I. “Everything for which America has fought has been accomplished,” wrote President Woodrow Wilson on Nov. 11, 1918, in a statement addressed to his “fellow countrymen.” The […]
This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division. The post celebrates both National Hispanic Heritage Month and the Library’s ongoing exhibition Baseball Americana. “I remember traveling to Lake Elsinore, which was a long way in those days. … [T]he only ride we could get was from a friend who […]
Ndaba Mandela, the grandson of South African leader and humanitarian Nelson Mandela, spoke in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress on June 27 with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden about his recently published memoir, “Going to the Mountain: Life Lessons from My Grandfather.” Drawing on the memoir, Mandela talked about growing up under […]
Meg Metcalf dreamed of a career at the Library of Congress from the time she was 17, inspired by a job at a Borders bookstore in northeastern Illinois, where she worked the reference desk. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in women’s and gender studies and information science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee […]
Welcome to week four of our blog series for “Baseball Americana,” a major new Library of Congress exhibition opening June 29. This is the fourth of nine posts—we’re publishing one each Thursday leading up to the opening. As a bonus, we’re counting down the innings to the exhibit’s launch by asking baseball fans a question […]
This post draws on the article “Building Black History: A New View of Tubman,” published in the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The issue is available in its entirety online. A remarkable photo album brought two major institutions together to restore and preserve an important piece of American history. Today, the […]
This is a guest post by Beverly W. Brannan, curator of photography in the Prints and Photographs Division. When the Prints and Photographs Division acquired the collection of Howard University law professor William Henry Richards in 2013, a 1912 campaign flyer included in the collection aroused my curiosity. It promoted the candidacy of George Henry […]
This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division. “Interpreters were brought from everywhere to instruct our men in the French methods of warfare because be it known that everything American was taken from us except our uniform.” —Noble Sissle, 369th “Harlem Hell Fighters” Regiment The Library of Congress exhibition Echoes […]
In this post, historians from the Library and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture highlight how collection items shed light on the black experience. The post is reprinted from the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The entire issue is available online. Adrienne Cannon is the Afro-American history […]
This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division. In the afterglow of the armistice in 1918 that ended World War I, Europe, and particularly the city of Paris, exhibited a wild exuberance. In mid-January 1919, future civil rights pioneer and American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) officer Charles Hamilton Houston encapsulated […]