A close look at an early nineteenth-century ledger kept by John Thomson Mason (1765-1824) to record the business of his Maryland plantation, “Montpelier,” reveals information about the lives of the enslaved and formerly enslaved people who lived and worked there.
Join us on November 30 for a “Live! at the Library” commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of home rule in Washington, D.C., with a panel discussion on the legacy of home rule moderated by Kojo Nnamdi and featuring journalist Tom Sherwood; The Drum and Spear Bookstore co-founder, Eyes on the Prize documentarian and civil rights activist Judy Richardson; and historians G. Derek Musgrove and Kyla Sommers. A performance by the D.C. Go-Go band Mambo Sauce will follow the panel discussion.
The Manuscript Division recently acquired more than twenty Barack Obama letters, postcards, notes, photographs, and campaign ephemera, most dating from the 1980s. The letters confirm historian Meg McAleer’s fascination with materials emanating from a person’s early professional life.
While much of the history of the Equal Rights Amendment is often focused on the 1970s, the discourse during the first few decades after the amendment’s introduction showcased the differing viewpoints held by labor feminists, African American women, and various women’s organizations at that time.
A new By the People crowdsourced transcription campaign, “American Federation of Labor Records: Letters in the Progressive Era,” launched in late April. By taking part in the campaign, volunteers will discover how the labor union engaged with issues of race, class, and gender during the early twentieth century.
Archivists describe the initial steps taken to adding another million items to the largest collection held by the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, the records of the NAACP.
The recently acquired personal papers of award-winning poet and teacher Ai Ogawa (1947-2010) are newly processed and open to researchers in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
Learn about twelve recently processed new collections and additions to twelve other existing collections. This post is the first of what will be a regular blog feature announcing recently available collections.