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Posted by: Josh Levy
A marble case in the Great Hall in the Thomas Jefferson Building once held the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. This blog describes that “shrine,” from its opening in 1924 to its closing ceremony in 1952.
Posted in: Early America, Library of Congress History
Posted by: Julie Miller
Philip Schuyler's letters about yellow fever in the Alexander Hamilton Papers reveal a complicated and many-sided character responding to a dangerous and frightening moment in American history.
Posted in: Early America, Letters, Politics
Posted by: Julie Miller
The business records of two early American Quaker merchants, recently acquired by the Library’s Manuscript Division, show trade with the Lenape Indians, recovery after the devastation of the Revolutionary War, and two American cities coming into their own.
Posted in: Early America
Posted by: Josh Levy
Before the modern textbook, Western school-age children learned mathematical concepts through what was called the "cyphering tradition" and created textbooks of their very own. The volumes in the recently processed Ellerton-Clements Cyphering Book Collection will certainly be of interest to those who study math and early modern education, but many also possess a unique kind of artistry.
Posted in: Early America, Science and Technology
Posted by: Ryan Reft
George Washington’s farm reports provide us precise details about the lives of the hundreds of workers, free and enslaved, on the president’s Mount Vernon estate, including the amount of time that the enslaved were sick or in “child bed”.
Posted in: African American History, Early America, Politics
Posted by: Josh Levy
The first man hanged in Washington, D.C., was an Irishman. His trial provides a unique lens on the early republic and its nascent national capital. The case drew national attention, particularly among Federalist newspaper editors, who used it to expose the threat of Irish immigrants and their hold over the sitting U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson.
Posted in: Early America, Holidays, Politics
Posted by: Josh Levy
Join us for a conversation between Kluge Staff Fellow and historian Julie Miller and historian Bruce Ragsdale, whose recent book on George Washington explores the first president's relationship with farming and slavery and draws on the George Washington Papers held by the Manuscript Division.
Posted in: Early America, Events, Politics
Posted by: Julie Miller
On the last day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 Benjamin Franklin made a remark that we still quote today. But did he really say it? And who was the woman he said it to? A diary in the Manuscript Division holds the evidence.
Posted in: Early America, Politics
Posted by: Ryan Reft
Now available online, the East Florida Papers include extensive documentation about the history of the territory and the lives of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Floridians.
Posted in: Digital Collections, Early America, Researcher Resources