The Library of Congress has just received a group of thirteen letters, mostly from Henry Clay to William Harris Crawford, six of which are unpublished. These document the work of the American commissioners who negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, and the subsequent commercial treaty signed with Britain.
Join Dawn Day Biehler as she discusses her recent book, Animating Central Park: A Multispecies History, with Manuscript Division historians Josh Levy and Barbara Bair.
While on board a passenger ship anchored in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, Confederate surgeon Dr. Edward S. Aldrich witnessed the Battle of Fort Sumter and encountered the USRC Harriet Lane. His personal account is detailed in a family letter in the Manuscript Division’s Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection.
In 1972, at the end of her life, British mystery novelist Agatha Christie wrote two letters to an American teenager. In them, she shares insight into her philosophy on both writing and crime (fiction).
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.
