Over the course of his life, Bayard Rustin championed the rights of many, including African Americans, unions and members of the LGBTQ community. He was a close confidant of A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King, Jr. at the height of the Civil Rights movement, but for many his name is not as immediately recognizable […]
Although I’m risk averse in most things, I’m a gambler when it comes to choosing my pleasure reading. One of my ongoing sources of literary surprises is the Free Little Library boxes that have sprouted all over my community, stocked alluringly with books my neighbors are ready to pass along. The joys of discovering an […]
Brett Carnell, Head of the Prints & Photographs Division Technical Services section, explains what caught his attention about a photo he added to our local picture “sharing” wall. This photograph of the Ramirez family first caught my eye because it reminded me of my youth. I was raised in the rural West where semi-arid farming […]
In this latest installment of Double Take, the series where we take a much closer look at images in our collections, we will talk about how to date a photograph. Do you have any older photographs, tucked away in boxes or albums? How many have a specific date noted on them? If your answer was […]
This photo provides an unfamiliar view of a very familiar structure: Yes, that is the unfinished stump of the Washington Monument, as it looked for about 25 years. In 1856, when funding shortages interrupted construction, the monument stood only 156 feet tall out of a projected 500 feet. During the U.S. Civil War, the site […]
The grounds of the U.S. Capitol have played host to millions of visitors, not to mention every flavor of celebrations and demonstrations. But it’s not often that you see a car parts strewn across the Capitol’s well-groomed grounds. Reference librarian Jon Eaker spotted this photo among photographs recently digitized from the U.S. News & World […]
Below is an interview with Aliza Leventhal, Assistant Section Head for Technical Services in the Prints & Photographs Division at the Library of Congress. Melissa: You have now been at the Library of Congress for about 6 months – a relatively short period of time but hopefully enough to reflect on your experiences so far! […]
A version of the following post by Katherine Blood and Melissa Lindberg originally appeared in the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center’s “From the Catbird Seat” blog as part of a series discussing Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s visits to several Library of Congress reading rooms. We were excited by the news that Joy Harjo […]
The Library of Congress’s exhibition, “Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote,” is a visually rich celebration of the women who laid the groundwork for women’s suffrage in the United States. Discussing the origins of the movement, the activities immediately leading up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, and the […]
The following is a guest post by Ryan Brubacher, Reference Librarian, and Emma Esperon, Archivist, Prints & Photographs Division. We’re proud to welcome the Slides from the Eames Collection inventory to an online and searchable platform to help researchers discover descriptions of materials they didn’t even know they were looking for! The slides by noted […]