The Hospital de Jesús series in the Manuscript Division’s Spanish Foreign Copying Program Records hides a wealth of sources in plain sight due to its misleading title. Instead of medical documentation, the series consists of twenty-nine volumes on the Marquisate of the Valley of Oaxaca, the title and estates granted to the conquistador Hernando Cortés in 1529, after the fall of Tenochtitlán.
Benajah Jay Antrim’s journals and sketchbooks document an American artist’s journey across Mexico in 1849. As of January 29, 2025, you can volunteer to transcribe them as part of the “By the People” crowdsourcing project from the Library of Congress.
This is a guest blog by Barbara Bair, historian of Literature, Culture, and the Arts in the Manuscript Division. In 1990, author Oscar Hijuelos (1951-2013) became the first Hispanic American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989). He later received the Hispanic Heritage Award …
Join historian Georgetown University history professor and author, Mike Amezcua at noon (EDT) on Monday, June 26, as he discusses his new book, Making Mexican Chicago. The book explores the role Mexican Chicagoans, notably moderates and conservatives within the community, played in housing, politics, community development and urban culture while also highlighting their contributions to the larger conservative movement.
This past February, U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat (NY-13) held his fifth Annual Dominicans on the Hill event featuring items from the Manuscript Division attesting to the Dominican Republic’s complex history with the United States.
In this interview with Manuscript Division staff, historian Mike Amezcua discusses the history of Chicago’s Latinx communities, the manuscript collections he consulted, and his approach to research.
In 1792 Spanish-Peruvian naval officer Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra sailed up the coast of North America to meet with George Vancouver and the leaders of the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island. His journal is in the Manuscript Division.
