A group of ships’ papers dispersed in the Manuscript Division’s Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection collectively tell a story about the port of Baltimore around the turn of the nineteenth century.
On Thursday, July 17, at noon, the Library will host historian John Bidwell for a "Made at the Library" event to celebrate the recent publication of his book, The Declaration in Script and Print: A Visual History of America's Founding Document. Dr. Bidwell will discuss his book and the process of conducting research using the Library's collections.
In celebration of July 4, several items from the Library’s collections document how the nation’s 1876 centennial celebration inspired women suffragists to continue the fight for the vote and for equality.
In letters to her sister, Margaret Hunter Hall (1799-1876), wife of the popular British travel author Basil Hall (1788-1844), recorded her impressions of the United States during a trip the couple took in 1827-1828. These are available for research in the Margaret Hunter Hall Papers in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
In 1982, former United States Marine Corps historian H. C. L. Merillat published a history of the Guadalcanal Campaign based largely on his wartime diaries, but he left out entries that showed him struggling with his role in the military and in the war. Unpublished excerpts reveal Merillat’s thoughts and insecurities during the campaign and reveal some of the burdens of recording history as it happened.
In summer 1861, William J. Rhees, chief clerk of the Smithsonian Institution, wrote to his wife about Professor Thaddeus Lowe’s balloon experiments on the National Mall . . . including the reason one ascent never got off the ground. Because (almost) nothing in Washington happens without first securing a purchase order or an appropriation.
Supplementary items from the Manuscript Division’s Walt Whitman Papers in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection are newly available for transcription through the Library of Congress By the People program.
The Milagros Gonzalez Jamias Family Photograph Album portrays aspects of Philippine society during the American colonial period, including social and economic reforms implemented by President William S. Taft, and the private life of a wealthy family.