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Posted by: Erin Allen
Jumping gigawatts! Today, the future has arrived! If you were around in 1989, Oct. 21, 2015, may have seemed light-years away, and you might have thought we would all be riding around in flying cars or something. Well, your imagination isn’t as far-fetched as you think. On this day, Marty McFly jumped through time to …
Posted in: Collections, Film, Photos, Today in History
Posted by: Erin Allen
The Library’s announcement of Willie Nelson as the next recipient of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Music dominated the headlines in July, with more than 1,000 news stories running nationally and internationally. “His voice, seemingly worn by time and burdened by experience even in his earliest recordings, attracted new audiences to country,” reported David Morgan for …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Education, Exhibitions, Film, Manuscripts, Music, News, Newspapers
Posted by: Erin Allen
April Rodriguez, one of 36 Library of Congress Junior Fellow Summer Interns, wrote the following post while working in the Library’s American Folklife Center. Rodriguez recently received a master’s degree in library information studies from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She also has a background in sound engineering and film archiving, and she was …
Posted in: American Folklife Center, Audiovisual, Blogging, Collections, Education, Film, Folksonomies
Posted by: Erin Allen
The travel and tourism industry owes itself to many historical “firsts.” In 1782, Scottish engineer James Watt invented the first steam engine able to turn wheels. On May 10, 1869, the completion of the first transcontinental railroad was commemorated with the driving of a “golden spike.” In 1794, the City Hotel opened in New York …
Posted in: Collections, Film, History, Photos, Pinterest, Video
Posted by: Erin Allen
When “The Seinfeld Chronicles” first aired on NBC on July 5, 1989, no one could have predicted that the “show about nothing” would become a cultural phenomenon. Inspired by real-life people and events, the show followed the life of a stand-up comedian and his friends. The pilot episode (pictured left), written by show creators Jerry …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Copyright, Film, Manuscripts
Posted by: Erin Allen
Superheroes continue to captivate audiences nearly a century after their film debut. America loves its superheroes (and villains). These beloved and delightfully despised characters continue to take center stage at the movies and on television. “The Mark of Zorro” (United Artists, 1920), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks, was among the 10 motion pictures featuring …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Film, Video
Posted by: Erin Allen
(The following is an article from the May/June 2015 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM. Daniel Blazek, a recorded sound technician at the Library’s Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Preservation, wrote the story. You can read the issue in its entirety here.) Laughter, with its links to the development of the human brain, no doubt …
Posted in: Audiovisual, Collections, Film, Jewish American History, Manuscripts, Music, Photos, Video