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Due to Congressional action, Federal Government operations resumed on Thursday, November 13. Library of Congress buildings are open to the public, researchers and staff.

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Category: Technology

Illustration shows two Martians, one holding a telescope and yawning, expressing relief now that the election for governor of New York has been decided (in favor of Charles Evans Hughes); in the background, on planet Earth, fireworks mark the celebration in New York.

Crazy About Those Martians!

Posted by: Neely Tucker

We're talking today with David Baron, author of “The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America,” who will be at this year’s National Book Festival on Sept. 6. It’s about the public fascination between 1890-1910 with what looked to be the very real possibility of life of Mars. The main cultural artifact of this belief might be H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel, “The War of the Worlds,” which imagined hostile Martians invading Earth in spectacular fashion. But as Baron writes, most of the views were utopian, picturing Martians as a far advanced, heroic people.

Posted in: Gilded Age, Kluge Center, Library Work and Employees, National Book Festival, Researcher Stories, Science, Technology

An 18th century engraving, showing French leaders heroically gathered around their King.

The (Sun) King’s View of the World

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The personal world atlas of Louis XIV of France, the absolutist Sun King, was a doozy: a large two-volume set of more than 120 maps now held in the Library’s Geography and Map Division. It was the first world map to show the mythical Sea of the West, a supposed inland sea in the Pacific Northwest, and was the first world map in more than a century to show California as a peninsula, not an island. The creator of the map, Jean-Baptiste Nolin, was later successfully sued for plagiarizing its greatest cartographic innovations, but Louis never let go of his copy.

Posted in: LCM, Maps, Technology