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Category: Jay I. Kislak Collection

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

The Library Reimagined, with You in Mind

Posted by: Mark Hartsell

"A Library for You" is the Library's multi-year initiative to connect readers and patrons to our collections in new ways. These new galleries, exhibits and showcases will present some of the Library's most stunning items, whether they are recent or thousands of years old. These include Lincoln's handwritten first draft of the Gettysburg Address, fragments of the ancient Greek epic the "Iliad," cuneiform tablets that are among the oldest examples of writing, pre-Columbian artifacts, Rosa Parks' papers and watercolors by Diego Rivera. They'll begin to open in 2024.

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

Indigenous Cultures at the Library: Kislak Family Foundation Gives $10 Million for New Gallery

Posted by: Brett Zongker

The Kislak Family Foundation is donating $10 million to create a new exhibition at the Library that will share a fuller history of the early Americas, featuring the Jay I. Kislak Collection of artifacts, paintings, maps, rare books and documents, the Library announced today. The new Kislak Gallery will be part of a reimagined visitor …

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

A Fond Farewell to John Hessler, LOC Polymath

Posted by: Wendi Maloney

Every institution has its institutions, and one of the Library’s is John Hessler, who will retire from the Geography and Map Division at the end of this month. He holds many titles, official and unofficial. One of the official ones is curator of the Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Archaeology & History of the …

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

Library of the Unexpected: Cocaine, Hair and…Wedding Cake?

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The Library of Congress has unexpected items in its vast collections -- the contents of Lincoln's pockets when he was assassinated; cocaine used in a groundbreaking 19th-century surgery; a lock of Beethoven's hair; 3,000 year old cuneiform tablets from modern-day Iraq; Mesoamerican incense burners that are more than 2,000 years old; and a piece of Tom Thumb's wedding cake, now nearly 160 years old.

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

Pocket Globes: The Whole World in Your Hand

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The Library of Congress is now home to a huge collection of nearly 100 pocket globes -- miniature globes that were fashionable art objects from the 17th to 19th centuries, during the age of exploration. The globes, perhaps three inches in diameter, were made of everything from ivory to papier mache, some housed in expensive sharkskin boxes. The family and foundation of the late Jay I. Kislak donated 74 pocket globes to the Library recently, adding to the collector's prodigious donations to the Library's Geography and Map Division.

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

Maya Blue and the Vessels of the Diving Gods

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The ceramics created by ancient Maya potters make for some of the most vibrantly colored objects that survive in the archaeological record of the Americas. John Hessler, curator of the Library's Kislak collection, explains how their distinctive blue color has survived for centuries.