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Category: Maps

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

Gateway to Knowledge Guest Post #7

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

This is the seventh in a series of guest posts by Abigail Van Gelder, who with her husband, Josh, is journeying across the country on the Library’s “Gateway to Knowledge” traveling exhibition: We knew that Oberlin, OH was going to be a special event.  Oberlin College is the alma mater of Emily Rapoport—who, with her …

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

Gateway to Knowledge Guest Post #5.1

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

This is one of a series of guest posts by Abigail Van Gelder, who with her husband, Josh, is journeying across the country on the Library’s “Gateway to Knowledge” traveling exhibition: Congressman Charlie Wilson from Ohio stopped by to welcome guests to the Gateway To Knowledge exhibit on its first day in Marietta; he was joined …

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

New Optical Lab Brings LOC into 21st Century

Posted by: Matt Raymond

(The following is a guest article about new preservation capabilities at the LOC by my colleague Donna Urschel, which was recently published in the the Library’s staff newsletter, the Gazette.) For many decades, details of the 1791 Pierre L’Enfant Plan of Washington, D.C.—one of the many treasures at the Library of Congress—had been obscured. A …

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

O Shenandoah, I Long to Map You

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

In a world where we can keep tabs on our own backyards from our desks at work, via satellite, it’s difficult to imagine the impact one man armed with notebooks and pencils could have in 1861 as the Civil War began to rend our young nation.  Generals on both sides of that conflict desperately needed good topographical information …

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

New Meaning for the Term ‘Sacrifice Bunt’

Posted by: Jennifer Gavin

Sports, as any fan knows, can be heartbreaking — yet today, as we play ball in America, it’s always possible to walk away from a loss and say, “It’s only a game, after all.” But the Mesoamericans — Mayans, Aztecs, Olmecs and such — played, shall we say, as if they really meant it. Their …

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

Cartography Buffs, Take Note

Posted by: Matt Raymond

Our very own John Hessler was featured in today’s Washington Post talking about some of the mysteries behind one of the grand-daddies of all maps, the 1507 Martin Waldseemüller World Map, the document that named “America” and one of the Library’s toppest of the top treasures. (OK, we don’t categorize the treasures quite that way, …