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Category: Civil War

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

Building the Library’s Collections: From (and for) The People

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

Lincoln’s original drafts of the Gettysburg Address, the diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, Walt Whitman’s notes for “Leaves of Grass,” the journals of Alexander Graham Bell documenting his invention of the telephone, Irving Berlin’s handwritten score for “God Bless America,” the papers of Rosa Parks, the diaries of Orville Wright chronicling the first powered flight — all were obtained by the Library via donation, gifts from citizens to the American public, making it truly an institution by and for the people.