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Category: LCM

Half length portrait of woman with straight, long black hair, looking seriously at the camera. Her elbows are on an art studio table and her chin rests on folded hands. On the table in front of her is colorful artwork in geometric patterns.

Wendy Red Star, Searching for Chief Plenty Coups

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Wendy Red Star is a Native American visual artist whose work has received widespread acclaim and been awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, commonly called the "genius grant." Her work is also collected at the Library. In this short essay, she writes about a research trip to the Library and how the collections inform her work.

A closeup image shows the title page shows the "Whole Books of Psalmes" title page.

A Pearl-Studded Book of Psalms, from the 17th Century

Posted by: Neely Tucker

If you were a well-born English lady in a 17th-century family, you might be just as likely to accessorize your satin gown with earrings or a fan as you would an elaborately embroidered prayer book. The Library preserves a customized 1641 Book of Psalms, a marvel not only for its diminutive size, but also for its remarkable condition and lavish decoration. At more than 380 years old, its golden threads remain unfrayed and its intricate swirls of tiny seed pearls — hundreds of them — are perfectly intact.

Near dusk, a woman in a heavy parka stands in her snow-covered front yard, surrounded by dozens of chunks of whale meat. Two lights are on in the house behind her.

Native American (Artistic) Visions

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The Library has worked for more than two decades to boost its holdings of modern Native American art and now has more than 200 prints and photographs by more than 50 contemporary Indigenous printmakers and photographers from the United States, Canada and Latin America. These include dazzling works by artists and photographers such as Wendy Red Star, Kay Walkingstick, Brian Adams, Zig Jackson and Rick Bartow.

Color photo of artist Maya Freelon standing in a room with tissue-paper figures.

Reimagining the Lives of Enslaved Children

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Maya Freelon’s immersive exhibition “Whippersnappers: Recapturing, Reviewing, and Reimagining the Lives of Enslaved Children in the United States” at Historic Stagville in Durham, North Carolina, drew on Library materials to a new lens on the lives of enslaved children at a former plantation.

Two head and shoulders photos of Arthur Singleton, one in his military uniform and the other in a suit and tie.

World War I: Two Soldiers’ Stories

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The Arthur Singleton and Jessie Lockett collections are the Veterans History Project’s first from African American veterans of World War I, and their letters, journals and photographs offer glimpses into the adversity and resilience that characterize the African American experience of that war. They are small time capsules into another era of American life.

Black and white photo, taken from back of stage looking back at audience, shows Elton John seated at a piano in the foreground, with a packed audience filling church pews.

Ryan White and Elton John: One Stunning Photo

Posted by: Neely Tucker

—This is a guest post by Adam M. Silvia, a curator in the Prints and Photographs Division. As a photojournalist, Taro Yamasaki photographed at-risk children in the United States and around the world — Nicaragua, Bosnia, Rwanda, the Middle East. The Prints and Photographs Division recently acquired three collections that document such work by the …

Print shows cherry blossoms with the Jefferson Memorial and Washington Monument in the distance.

Stylish Posters for the National Cherry Blossom Festival

Posted by: Neely Tucker

From saplings to centenarians, the fabled cherry blossom trees of Washington, D.C., entice more than 1.5 million visitors to the capital each spring. The initial 1912 gift of 3,020 cherry trees from the city of Tokyo to Washington launched such treasured and enduring traditions as the National Cherry Blossom Festival, which officially began in 1927. We look at some of the marvelous festival posters that have advertised and celebrated the festival.

Closeup photograph of the spine of three leather-bound volumes, one of them reading "Political Pamphlets"

Thomas Jefferson’s Library…

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Recreating Thomas Jefferson's personal library, which became the DNA of the Library of Congress, has been a fascination for antiquarians since an 1851 fire burned about two thirds of his original books. But for 27 years, one of the Library’s most ardent projects has been to examine its own stacks, other libraries, rare book dealers and antiquarians from multiple countries to replace the burned and missing volumes with exact copies — the same edition, publisher and so on — to replicate the world view that led the author of the Declaration of Independence to pen such a world-changing set of ideas. That effort is now getting as close to complete as it is ever likely to get.

Promotional poster for the "Two Georges" exhibit, featuring the faces of King George III and George Washington.

Parallel Lives: King George and George Washington, Featured in an Upcoming Exhibit

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Because George Washington and King George III were on opposite sides of America’s war of independence from Britain, we have learned to think of them as opposites. Our research for an upcoming Library of Congress exhibition, “The Two Georges: Parallel Lives in an Age of Revolution,” however, has turned up something much more interesting: They were surprisingly alike in temperament, interests and, despite the obvious differences in their lives and experiences.