William Wilgus was one of the most accomplished civil engineers of his time. Today two manuscript collections document his sweeping career, one at the New York Public Library and another at the Library of Congress, which opened for research in 2023. Documenting incidents such as a fatal 1907 train accident in the Bronx and the 1915 flooding of New York’s massive Ashokan Reservoir, the two collections tell a story of progress and loss, and of memory and honor.
Join staff of the Manuscript and Serial & Government Publications divisions for a roundtable discussion with three comic studies scholars who will discuss psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s anti-comics legacy and its afterlives in more recent clashes over representations of race and sexuality in comics and graphic novels.
In summer 1947, a pilot named Kenneth Arnold spotted nine bright objects in the sky over Washington State flying, he said, “like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water.” Reporters shorthanded the description of these objects to “flying saucers.” Sightings proliferated, and Americans fell into breathless speculation. Three years later, an unlikely investigator was on the case: Eleanor Roosevelt.
In December 1889, an elaborate scientific expedition arrived on the coast of Angola to view a total solar eclipse. Its story vividly reveals intersections of science and militarism, scientific fieldwork and leisure travel, and holds important lessons about scientific failure as well.
An 1837 map of Marietta, Ohio, contained in the papers of archaeologist E. G. Squier, tells a rich story of Indigenous architecture, nationalist aspirations, and Midwestern pride.
Anna Freud knew the importance of her father's book and article drafts to history, but she couldn't bring herself to part with them. The manuscripts remained in her home for decades, until a visit by a Library of Congress staff member in 1975 helped persuade her to begin to let go.
Join the Manuscript Division and an interdisciplinary panel of scientists and scholars on August 1, at 12:00pm (EDT) to reflect on the global legacies of the atomic bomb.
In summer 1921 William J. Wilgus, the brilliant engineer who had once transformed New York’s Grand Central Terminal, embarked on a desperate crusade for the salvation of his profession.
