For years, artist Robert Schultz has made creative reuse of historical Civil War-era images, developing photographs from the Library's Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Portraits in the flesh of tree and plant leaves found on former battlefields. It turned out so well that the Library has acquired some of his art.
American Indians walked the land where the nation's capital city now stands long before Europeans arrived. Local historian Armand Lione shares that history when he talks about his research, much of which is conducted at the Library of Congress.
George Yu is an award-winning luthier based in Louisville, Kentucky, who models his handcrafted violins on rare Italian instruments, including a 1654 Amati violin at the Library.
Sybille Jagusch, chief of the Library's Literature Center, has just published "Japan and American Children's Books," a gorgeously illustrated volume that details how Japan and Japanese culture has been portrayed in American children's books over the past two centuries.
Author Nelson Johnson, a former lawyer and judge in New Jersey, used the Library's collections to inform his bestselling "Boardwalk Empire," turned into a hit HBO series; and his new historical novel about Clarence Darrow, "Darrow's Nightmare."
Ninety years ago, a Texas grocer named Lorenzo D. Buchanan stepped forward with one of the great hoaxes of 20th-century American pop-culture life, a genealogical fabrication that continues to resonate today. The Great Buchanan Inheritance Hoax rocked American life from 1931-1936 with his false tale of an $85 million inheritance that was available to anyone who could prove a family connection.
Researching African American genealogical history is complicated by several factors, most notably slavery and subsequent Jim Crow policies. Use this handy resource guide to get started.
Kimberly Hamlin is a history professor at Miami University in Ohio and a distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. She researched her latest book, “Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener,” in the Library’s Manuscript Division
