U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón kicked off her "You Are Here: Poetry in the Parks" project at several National Parks around the country this summer, from Cape Cod to California. With installations in the parks, she's hoping to showcase "the ways reading and writing poetry can situate us in the natural world." Her tour continues in October at Florida's Everglades National Park and at Arizona's Saguaro National Park in December.
Richard Morris Hunt was perhaps the most influential American architect of the late 19th century. He went to Paris to study, then returned to spread the Beaux-Arts gospel and give America architecture that matched its ambitions. He designed castles that defined the Gilded Age, such as Breakers and Marble House in Rhode Island, and the Biltmore in North Carolina. The Library preserves his papers and has just published "The Gilded Life of Richard Morris Hunt" in association with Giles Ltd.
The U.S. Capitol building, the worldwide symbol of American democracy, got its beginnings on a piece of paper on the Caribbean island of Tortola, sketched out by a temperamental doctor in his early 30s. William Thornton's "Tortola Scheme" sketch laid the groundwork for a building that has expanded with the nation, growing from the original bid for a modest 15-room brick building into a complex covering 1.5 million square feet with more than 600 rooms and miles of hallways over a ground area of about 4 acres.
The Library’s 2024 Literacy Awards recognized four top honorees from around the world for their work in promoting a love of reading, language preservation and literacy lessons in refugee camps, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said yesterday on International Literacy Day. The year’s awards recognize work in six countries and in more than a dozen spots across the United States. The top four winners were rewarded with a total of $350,000, and 20 other efforts received smaller awards.
This is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, chief of the Prints and Photographs Division. It also appears in the July-August issue of Library of Congress Magazine. Greetings from Washington, D.C.! And from Gordon, Nebraska; Black River Falls, Wisconsin; San Francisco, California; and countless other big cities and tiny hamlets spread across the vastness of …
Viet Thanh Nguyen fled Vietnam as a child, escaping Saigon with his family the day before the capital city fell. They went to military bases in the Philippines and Guam, then lived in Pennsylvania for a few years before finally settling in San Jose, California, where he discovered the American dream was complicated. His literary work, most notably his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Sympathizer," (now an HBO series) explores the duality that he feels as a refugee and as an American writer. He spoke about his work at the National Book Festival, sharing stories of how his local library was his "salvation" as a child.
Kelsey Beeghly, a science curriculum and assessment coordinator from Orlando, Florida, was the Library’s 2023–24 Albert Einstein distinguished educator fellow. Here, she talks about some of her discoveries at the Library and suggestions for STEM teachers.
James McBride, winner of the Library's 2024 Prize for American Fiction, took the main stage at the National Book Festival last weekend, delighting a rapturous crowd with anecdotes and observations about his best-selling books and his remarkable writing career. "Love is the greatest novel ever written," he said. "That's it."
Gregory Lukow, chief of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, led the Library's efforts to construct the Center, teaming with the Packard Humanities Institute to make it one of the world's best film preservation facilities. He recently brought his 24-year career to a close. Here, he reflects on some major highlights.
