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Category: Jewish American History

A midcentury hardcover cookbook, showing caricatures of a dancing man and woman in colorful holiday attire

Historical Holiday Cookbooks … Did We Really Eat This Stuff? (Yes)

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Holidays are often defined by the foods cooked up in the kitchen, although those foods and how they're prepared change over time. Among the Library's collection of more than 40,000 cookbooks are plenty devoted to the craft of preparing those special occasion meals. But what might have been a great Thanksgiving dinner in 1920 certainly looked different than one in 1965, and Christmas foods are always changing. Different cultures have unique traditions for each holiday, making for an ever-evolving American smorgasbord.

Posted in: Christmas, Drink, Hispanic and Latino, Jewish American History, LCM, Thanksgiving

Photo of an array of handwritten letters with a snapshot of Einstein and Margarita Konenkova. Photo: Getty Images.

Einstein’s Love Affair at Princeton

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The Library has six letters that Albert Einstein wrote to Margarita Konenkova, a Russian national with whom he had a passionate, late-in-life affair while he was at Princeton. Einstein was a widower, Konekova was married to a famous Russian sculptor. The affair was not revealed until 1994. The letters, our staff experts write, mix Einstein’s humanity with his genius.

Posted in: Jewish American History, LCM, Manuscripts, Science