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Category: Researcher Stories

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Inquiring Minds: World War II, Through Patton’s Lens

Posted by: Erin Allen

Imagine, military historian Kevin Hymel writes, if George Washington or Ulysses S. Grant had carried a camera and photographed war as he experienced it. How important would those images be as documents of history? Gen. George S. Patton, the brilliant but often-troublesome U.S. Army commander of World War II, did just that during his campaigns …

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

Inquiring Minds: Commemorating the Federal Writers’ Project

Posted by: Erin Allen

David A. Taylor is the author of “Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America” and writer and co-producer of the Smithsonian documentary, “Soul of a People: Writing America’s Story.” On Thursday, he joins others at the Library for an event marking the 75th anniversary of “These Are Our Lives,” a collection …

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

Inquiring Minds: The Intrepid Explorer

Posted by: Erin Allen

(From time to time, we’ll feature the story of one of our many researchers here at the Library and the discoveries they made using our collections. The following is the story of Meg Kennedy Shaw, who conducted research on her father, a British desert explorer, botanist and archaeologist.) Meg Kennedy Shaw has made many trips to …

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

Inquiring Minds: A Study of Mental Health

Posted by: Erin Allen

(The following is a guest post by Jason Steinhauer, program specialist in the Library’s John W. Kluge Center.) Manuella Meyer is the David B. Larson Fellow in Health & Spirituality at the Library’s John W. Kluge Center and assistant professor of history at the University of Richmond. Her research examines the socio-political and medical terrain …

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

Inquiring Minds: Animating the Library’s Collections

Posted by: Erin Allen

More than 25 years ago, retired music executive Joe Smith accomplished a Herculean feat – he got more than 200 celebrated singers, musicians and industry icons to talk about their lives, music, experiences and contemporaries. In 2012, Smith donated this treasure trove of unedited sound recordings to the Library of Congress. In an effort to …