Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered as the Civil War was in its final weeks, was one of most important in American history, featuring the immortal line, “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Michelle Krowl, the Library’s Civil War and Reconstruction historian, explains how the day unfolded in this short video.
Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, uses George Washington’s 1789 copy of “Acts Passed at the First Congress of the United States of America,” which includes the U.S. Constitution, to tell a short story on how the presidential oath of office has been unchanged since the founding of the nation. It’s the same oath that […]
The Presidential Inaugural Committee for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris announced that National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman perform her poetry at the 59th Presidential Inaugural Swearing-In Ceremony, set to take place on Wednesday, January 20, on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol.
Charles W. Calhoun, a history professor and author, has used the Library’s collections for more than half a century in his work on studying late 19th century America.
After the Union victory at Gettysburg in the Civil War in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln asked the nation set aside the fourth Thursday of November as a national holiday of thanksgiving. Congress made it official in 1870.
The William Howard Taft papers are the largest of the Manuscript Division’s 23 presidential collections, comprising approximately 676,000 documents covering his personal life and public career. Among them lies the heartbreaking tale of the death of Maj. Archie Butt, his beloved friend and aide, in the sinking of the Titanic.
The yellow fever epidemics that struck American cities soon after the birth of the nation left a powerful mark in the historical record, especially in the papers of members of George Washington’s administration.
The letters of Julia Sand to President Chester A. Arthur have been digitized and are now online.
The papers of U.S. Presidents Andrew Johnson, Chester Alan Arthur and William McKinley are now available online through the Library of Congress.
This is a guest post by Julie Miller, a historian in the Library’s Manuscript Division. For both George Washington and King George III of England, the summer of 1788 began a year shaped by illness and worry. Even though the sources of their troubles differed, each George had reason to look anxiously across the Atlantic. […]