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Category: LCM

Three Marines, all Navajo Code Talkers, pose with weapons in a World War II photo

World War II’s Navajo Code Talkers, In Their Own Words

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Some of the U.S. military's best intelligence assets during both World Wars were Native American troops who used their own, unwritten languages as the basis for coded radio messages. These Code Talkers, particularly Navajo Marines, were invaluable in the Pacific theater of World War II. Twenty-nine Navajo Code Talkers were later awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Many of these soldiers' personal stories are preserved in the LIbrary's Veterans History Project.

Color photo of Hemingway on his boat, reading a magazine. He is wearing a baseball cap and is reclining on a seat back, the ocean and sunshine visible behind him

Eavesdropping on Ernest Hemingway at Finca Vigía

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Ernest Hemingway recorded more than four hours of personal stories, dictation and friends playing music at his home in Cuba during 1949-50 for his friend and future biographer A.E. Hotchner. Those recordings, part of the Library's Hotchner collection, show Hemingway at home with friends, but also how uncomfortable he was with the technology. The tapes have been used by multiple Hemingway biographers.

Black and white image of the first airplane leaving the sand at Kitty Hawk.

The Wright Brothers History Takes Wing at the Library

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The Wright Brothers collection in the Library is a marvel, a rare combination of significance and candor that details how Orville and Wilbur became the first to achieve powered flight and usher the world into a new age. The collection includes more than 31,000 items -- personal letters from family members, diaries, scrapbooks, engineering sketches -- and more than 300 historic glass-print negatives. You can chart the family’s entire odyssey here, from small-town Midwestern simplicity to worldwide fame, from youthful newspaper publishers to bicycle shop owners to builders of the world’s first airplanes.

Japanese-American evacuation from West Coast areas under U.S. Army war emergency order. Japanese-American child who will go with his parents to Owens Valley

Primary Documents: The Library’s Amazing Resource for Teachers

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Since 2006, the Library’s Teaching with Primary Sources program has been empowering educators to make use of the Library’s digitized collections in a vast array of subjects. Lee Ann Potter, the Library's director of educational outreach, writes about several schools that use historical documents, photographs, maps and other resources to help students gain an understanding of the past.

A colorful image of names written in on a winding family tree

An African American Family History Like No Other

Posted by: Neely Tucker

When the Library opens its new Treasures Gallery next year, displaying some of the most striking papers and artifacts that span some 4,000 years, one of them will certainly stand out: The Blackwell's Kinfolk Family Tree. It's a dizzying, almost overwhelming piece of folk art that depicts the genealogical history of an African American family from Virginia. It's 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide, contains more than 1,500 names spread out on curving trunks, branches and leaves and details family connections from 1789 to the 1970s. Its most famous member? Arthur Ashe Jr., the tennis great.

Sepia-toned newspaper clipping showing side-by-side photos of Ralph Kerwineo, dressed as a man on the left and as a woman on the right.

Historical Newspapers Reveal Hidden LGBTQ+ History

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.