To gauge American sentiments at the start of the Revolutionary War, the British government ordered American letters opened, read, and copied at London’s post office. Today copies of those copies are at the Library of Congress.
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has just received a group of thirteen letters, mostly from Henry Clay to William Harris Crawford, six of which are unpublished.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.
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 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.
Newly acquired letters in the Manuscript Division shed light on social reformer Frances Wright and her relationship with the Marquis de Lafayette, while other Library resources provide researchers with more details into their life and times.
During National Native American Heritage Month in November, the Manuscript Division released two new digital humanities sites containing content with Native voices. The Henry Rowe Schoolcraft Papers contain items related to Ojibwe culture and poet Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, and the C. Hart Merriam Papers document California Indian linguistics from various tribal nations.