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Archive: November 2013 (4 Posts)

Poster advertising a slave sale

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn: Controversy at the Heart of a Classic

Posted by: Cheryl Lederle

Despite the controversies, Huckleberry Finn has remained a staple in high school literature study because teachers seek to engage students with texts that provoke discussion and questions. Primary sources from the Library of Congress can help deepen students' thinking around the issues central to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and other literary works.

One woman watches as another examines with a magnifying glass an ornate, decorative image on a printed page

12 Years a Slave: Primary Sources on the Kidnapping of Free African Americans

Posted by: Cheryl Lederle

Currently 12 Years a Slave, the film version of the true story of Solomon Northup, is showing in theaters. His account is a powerful one: A free African American, Northup was kidnapped in 1841 and taken from New York to Washington, D.C., then to New Orleans, where he was sold into twelve years of slavery. A study of primary sources from the Library of Congress indicates that Northrup's experience was far from unique.

One woman watches as another examines with a magnifying glass an ornate, decorative image on a printed page

Dedicated to the Great Task: Remembering and Studying Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

Posted by: Cheryl Lederle

On November 19, 1863, renowned orator Edward Everett spoke at the dedication of a memorial cemetery. The world has little noted nor long remembered what he said in those two hours. Everett’s oration was upstaged by the next speaker’s concise 272 words, now familiar as Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The following day, Everett himself sent Lincoln a note, complimenting him, “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”