The Library marks Abraham Lincoln's birthday (Feb. 12) with a short video covering his first inauguration as president, including his handwritten copy of his inaugural address and the pearl necklace and bracelets that Mary Todd Lincoln wore to their inaugural ball.
Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, delivered as the Civil War was in its final weeks, was one of most important in American history, featuring the immortal line, "With malice toward none, with charity for all." Michelle Krowl, the Library's Civil War and Reconstruction historian, explains how the day unfolded in this short video.
Charles W. Calhoun, a history professor and author, has used the Library's collections for more than half a century in his work on studying late 19th century America.
After the Union victory at Gettysburg in the Civil War in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln asked the nation set aside the fourth Thursday of November as a national holiday of thanksgiving. Congress made it official in 1870.
Some of the origins of Juneteenth can be traced to the front porch of a plantation house in Limestone County, Texas, where a slaveowner told his 150 enslaved workers that they were free on June 19, 1865.
How would freed slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass have sounded while delivering one of his classic speeches? A speech on John Brown offers a few clues.
The Library and the History Channel teamed up several years ago to produce a collection of more than two dozen short, entertaining videos that showcased some of the Library's greatest, most unusual and startling treasures.
Jesse Holland wears a lot of different hats: he’s an award-winning political journalist, he’s a television host, he’s a professor and he’s a comics aficionado — he wrote the first novel about the Black Panther for Marvel in 2018. African American history is yet another of his passions — in particular documenting long-overlooked contributions of …
One summer night in the White House in 1862, John Nicolay, Lincoln's secretary, wrote his future wife a whimsical letter about how "all bugdom" was swarming his office, attracted by the light of gas lamp.