On September 25, 1910, in Aotearoa New Zealand, a stunning Maori kite caught Alexander Graham Bell's eye. His journals show Bell's brief encounter with an indigenous scientific tradition and reveal his own obsession with transporting human beings through the air in enormous tetrahedral kites.
In 1792 Spanish-Peruvian naval officer Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra sailed up the coast of North America to meet with George Vancouver and the leaders of the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island. His journal is in the Manuscript Division.
Attendance sheets signed by actors trained at the Actor Studio in 1955 were originally a routine record of who was there each day, but are now a useful resource for research into the history and influence of the Actors Studio as well as entertaining artifacts for fans of movies, television, and theater.
The Polish Declarations of Admiration and Friendship for the United States present a snapshot of Poland in 1926 through stunning illustrations and a virtual census of one-sixth of its population, just before the unimaginable devastation caused by war. This blog is a tribute to Samuel Ponczak (1937-2022), an untiring advocate for the collection.