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Posted by: Neely Tucker
One of the largest maps in the Library is the Tokaido bunken-ezu, a 117-foot, 17th-century Japanese map painted on two scrolls. It shows, in pen-and-ink detail, the rivers, mountains, forests and towns on the 319-mile route from Edo (now known as Tokyo) to Kyoto.
Posted in: Asian Division, Geography and Maps Division, LCM, Maps
Posted by: Neely Tucker
Cheryl Regan is a veteran of the Library's exhibits office, bringing the treasures of the world's largest library to the public. Here, she answers a few questions about her work with exhibitions such as "With Malice Towards None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition" and "American Treasures." The latter ran for 10 years.
Posted in: Civil War, Exhibitions, LCM, Libraries, Library Work and Employees, My Job
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.
Posted in: Abraham Lincoln, African American History, Civil War, Collections, Exhibitions, Hispanic and Latino, Jay I. Kislak Collection, LCM, Library Work and Employees, New Visitors Experience, Thomas Jefferson Building
Posted by: Wendi Maloney
When the Library acquired choreographer Garth Fagan’s papers earlier this year, it wasn't just about his work on "The Lion King." Fagan's papers built on Music Division collections of an array of dance luminaries: Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, Bronislava Nijinska, Katherine Dunham and the American Ballet Theatre. The Library’s dance-related materials cover the American art form from Colonial times to the present. Together, they present a dazzling history of American dance.
Posted in: LCM, Performing Arts, Theater
Posted by: Neely Tucker
Susan B. Anthony annotated her copy of a Harriet Tubman biography with a brief note about the day the two larger-than-life women met at a social gathering at the dawn of a new century. Anthony was clearly delighted, underlining Tubman's name each time she wrote it.
Posted in: African American History, LCM, Rare Book and Special Collections, Women's History
Posted by: Mark Hartsell
The Library recently added 45,000 baseball cards to its archives thanks to the donated collection of Peter G. Strawbridge, who preserved complete sets of every major league team from 1973 through 2019 along with some Boston Red Sox cards from earlier years. This builds on the 2,100-card collection of Benjamin K. Edwards, which includes legendary figures from the sport's first half-century: Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Cy Young. The new cards include greats such as Ted Williams, Roberto Clemente and Derek Jeter.
Posted in: Baseball, Collections, LCM
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The Library's collection of historical newspapers uniquely illuminate the spectrum of LGBTQ+ history, including stories about little-known lives and incidents of resistance to persecution. This article includes coverage of Ralph Kerwineo in 1914 Milwaukee and the Pepper Hill Raid in 1955 Baltimore.
Posted by: Neely Tucker
It's Bloomsday, the annual celebration of James Joyce's landmark modernist masterpiece, "Ulysses." Published 101 years ago, Joyce's book famously examines one day — June 16, 1904 — in the life of Leopold Bloom of Dublin, Ireland. The Library has some of the most extraordinary copies of the book ever printed, inducing a custom-made copy with a cover made of calfskin; an explanation of the book's convoluted symbolism by Joyce himself; and a full-color anatomical chart of the human body, annotated to show how body parts correspond to specific chapters in the book.
Posted in: LCM, Rare Book and Special Collections, Writers
Posted by: Neely Tucker
The papers of Ralph Ellison, one of the nation's greatest novelists of the 20th Century, are preserved at the LIbrary, including the sprawling mass of a manuscript that was edited into his posthumous novel, "Juneteenth."
Posted in: African American History, Books, Civil War, LCM, Manuscripts, Writers