Last month, relatives of Luigi Del Bianco gathered in Keystone, South Dakota, for a very special ceremony: the National Park Service unveiled a plaque on September 16 at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial recognizing the late Del Bianco as the chief carver of Mount Rushmore—76 years after its completion. For more than 30 years previously, …
Ross Davies has been a regular in the Library’s Manuscript Division for about two decades now. He has worked with papers of Supreme Court justices, consulted collections on the federal courts and introduced his students to the Library—a “treasure hunt” he assigns requires them to find resources in the Manuscript Division and the Law Library. …
When Stephen Winick of the American Folklife Center learned about Billy Bragg’s 2016 album, “Shine a Light,” he quickly contacted the album’s publicist to invite the English singer-songwriter to speak at the Library. The reason: the album, recorded with American folksinger Joe Henry, includes several songs known to the world thanks to recordings in the …
Robert Hanshew, a photo curator for the U.S. Navy, visits the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division almost every Friday to research images related to naval history. Some of his discoveries from the Library’s collections are featured in a major outdoor public history exhibit that opened this summer. Titled “Behind These Walls,” the exhibit consists of …
Robert Hanshew visits the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division almost every Friday. Over the past two or so years, he has sorted through literally hundreds of archival boxes containing photographs related to U.S. naval history. On other days of the week, he can often be found at the National Archives. His goal: to find rare …
In her new book, “Chinatown Opera Theater in North America,” music scholar Nancy Yunhwa Rao tells the story of how Chinatown opera, performed initially to entertain Chinese immigrants, developed into an important part of America’s musical culture. Drawing on new Chinese- and English-language research—including sources at the Library of Congress—she unmasks the backstage world of …
John Szwed has many accomplishments to his name. To name a few, he directed the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University, taught anthropology and African American studies for 26 years at Yale University, played jazz professionally for more than a decade, and wrote or edited 18 books, including “So What: The Life of Miles …
The library card catalog was one of the most versatile and durable technologies in history—a veritable road map for navigating a “wilderness of books”—says Peter Devereaux of the Library’s Publishing Office. His new book on the subject, “The Card Catalog: Books, Cards and Literary Treasures,” explores the history of this once-revolutionary system and celebrates literary …
Ryan Wolfson-Ford spent two weeks at the Library of Congress in May thanks to the Library’s Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship Program. It supports scholars pursuing research in Asian studies using the collections in the Library’s Asian Division. Wolfson-Ford is completing his doctoral degree in history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research focuses on Laos …
