In a March 25 ceremony, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and National Museum of African American History and Culture Director Lonnie Bunch unveiled the photo album of abolionist Emily Howland, featuring a previously unknown portrait of Harriet Tubman. The portrait, taken around 1868, captures Tubman in her mid 40s, years younger than most surviving photographs that show her late in life
This is a guest post by Julie Miller, a historian in the Manuscript Division, and Victoria Van Hyning, a senior innovation specialist in the division. This post coincides with National Handwriting Day. “That’s so beautiful, but what does it say?” This is what we often hear from visitors to the Library of Congress when they …
On Nov. 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Invited to give a “few appropriate remarks” to dedicate a cemetery for Union soldiers killed at the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln delivered — over the course of about two minutes — what has become one of the most widely recognized speeches in …
This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. Students of the Civil War are fortunate that so many Americans of the era were literate, and during the war made good use of their ability to read and write. Soldiers wrote to loved ones with stirring sentiments of patriotism, observations …
This is a guest post by Lauren Algee, senior innovation specialist with the Library’s Digital Innovation Lab. What yet-unwritten stories lie within the pages of Clara Barton’s diaries, the writings of civil rights pioneer Mary Church Terrell or letters written by constituents, friends and colleagues to Abraham Lincoln? With the launch of crowd.loc.gov, the Library …
This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. “A diary, faithfully kept in such eventful times as these, must be interesting to our own children,” wrote Betty Herndon Maury on June 3, 1861, explaining her purpose in keeping a journal after Maury’s family chose to leave Washington, D.C., to …
On Wednesday, Sept. 12, Drew Gilpin Faust – historian, former Harvard University president and author of the Bancroft Prize-winning book “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War” – will accept the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. The $1 million Kluge Prize, bestowed through the generosity of …
Today, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced that Drew Gilpin Faust—historian, Harvard University president and author of the Bancroft Prize-winning book “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War”—will receive the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. The $1 million Kluge Prize, bestowed through the generosity of the …
