Top of page

Category: Manuscripts

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

The Sensei from Sioux City

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

Today marks 19 years since the passing of one of the world’s great management thinkers—W. Edwards Deming. After World War II, the U.S. did something remarkable in the history of war – it helped its friends and even its former foes get back on their feet economically.  In Europe, that was accomplished through the Marshall …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Trending: The End of the World

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The Maya calendar has generated a lot of buzz about the impending end of the world as we know it, on Dec. 21, 2012. The following is an article written by colleague Audrey Fischer from the November-December 2012 issue of the Library’s new magazine, LCM, highlighting what’s “trending” in the news, on the web and …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Let’s Give Thanks

Posted by: Erin Allen

Thanksgiving is just a day away, and I’ve been noticing on Facebook, friends posting what they are thankful for this holiday season. Those statuses certainly have given me pause to count my own blessings. First and foremost, I am thankful for my family, who, no matter how far away I am from them, help me …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Protocol for One and All

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

    Etiquette.  We love to make fun of it – from the character Rose Maybud in Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Ruddigore” who is constantly consulting her tiny etiquette book (“It’s manners out-of-joint, to point!”) to Vincent Price lecturing his creation “Edward Scissorhands” in the movie of the same name: “Etiquette tells us just what is …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

“Words Like Sapphires”

Posted by: Erin Allen

A simple label inside thousands of rare books bears witness to the origins of one of the great collections of Hebrew material in the world: “Deinard Collection Presented by Jacob H. Schiff.” Beginning next week, the Library of Congress will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its Hebraic Collection – started with a gift from Schiff …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Dear Diary

Posted by: Erin Allen

LeRoy Gresham (1847-1865) was a teenaged invalid who kept a diary for nearly every day of the Civil War, recording the news, his Confederate sympathies and perceptive details about life on the homefront as he experienced the conflict through newspapers, letters and personal visitors. The son of an attorney, judge, and plantation owner in Macon, …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

First Drafts: “The Star-Spangled Banner”

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is an article from the September-October 2012 issue of the Library’s new magazine, LCM, highlighting “first drafts” of important documents in American history.) O! say, can you see by the dawn’s early light …”   These words are as American as, well, the American flag that inspired them. Francis Scott Key, a young …

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

A Letter Home

Posted by: Erin Allen

For some Union soldiers, their exposure to southern slavery profoundly altered their views on the institution, even before President Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862. One such soldier, John P. Jones, wrote to his wife of his increasing sympathy for abolitionism after seeing the inhumanity with which slaves could be treated. He …