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Category: Curators

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

African-American History Month: Curating Black History

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

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 …

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

“Drawn to Purpose” Exhibition: What Viewers Are Saying

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

The following is a guest post by Martha H. Kennedy, curator of popular and applied graphic arts in the Prints and Photographs Division. The post was first published on the division’s blog, “Picture This.” It is about “Drawn to Purpose: American Women Illustrators and Cartoonists,” an exhibition on display at the Library of Congress for …

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

Inquiring Minds: Raising a Curtain on Amy Beach, Musical Pioneer

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Amy Beach (1867–1944), whose musical accomplishments changed the way Americans understood the possibilities for women in music. Born in New Hampshire to a prominent New England family, Beach was a child prodigy: by age four, she was composing simple waltzes; at seven, she began giving …

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

The Art of Etching: Masterpieces by James McNeill Whistler

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

This is a guest post by Katherine Blood, curator of fine prints in the Prints and Photographs Division, and Linda Stiber Morenus, a longtime paper conservator and special assistant to the director of scholarly and educational programs. The post was first published on “Picture This,” the blog of the Prints and Photographs Division. Known for his …

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

World War I: The Library of Congress Memorial Tree

Posted by: Erin Allen

This is a guest post by Cheryl Fox, Library of Congress archives specialist in the Manuscript Division. The Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building is bordered by a number of impressive trees. One of them, a Japanese elm at the southwest corner of the building, was planted on Dec. 7, 1920, in memory of four Library of …

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

World War I: A New World Order – Woodrow Wilson’s First Draft of the League of Nations Covenant

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following was written by Sahr Conway-Lanz, historian in the Library’s Manuscript Division.) Like many individuals around the globe, Woodrow Wilson was shocked by the outbreak of a devastating world war among European empires in 1914. As President of the United States, however, he had a unique opportunity to shape the outcome of this catastrophic …

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

World War I: Norvel Preston Clotfelter

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a guest post by Rachel Telford, archivist with the Veterans History Project.) In 1917, Norvel Preston Clotfelter’s life was upended when he was drafted into the United States Army. He postponed his wedding, left his job as a school teacher in Mazie, Okla., and began his service at Camp Travis, Texas; he …

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

“Roots” – Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of an African-American Saga

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following post is written by Ahmed Johnson, African American genealogy specialist in the Library’s Humanities and Social Sciences Division.) I’d like to begin with a story – a personal story. I remember being in a sociology class at Hampton University and discussing the government’s unfulfilled promise, in the aftermath of the Civil War, to …

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

World War I: Wartime Sheet Music

Posted by: Erin Allen

The following post was written by Cait Miller of the Music Division and originally appeared on the In the Muse: Performing Arts Blog. Piano transcriptions of large-scale works, marches, sentimental ballads, and other examples of parlor music are well documented in the Music Division’s sheet music holdings; and from the late 19th century through the early …