I am a Reference Librarian in the Main Reading Room and the Women’s, Gender, and LGBTQ+ Studies Collection Specialist and Recommending Officer for the Library. In all aspects of my work, I facilitate access to Library collections and services
As mentioned in my previous blog post, I am one of 40 Junior Fellows at the Library of Congress this summer, and I have been working on researching women in baseball and updating the Library's primary source set for educators on baseball.
Amelia Earhart would have turned 121 years old on July 24, 2018--that is, if you go by the date that she was formally declared dead, after her disappearance while attempting to fly around the world.
Sending and cracking secret messages dates back to the foundation and exploration of the country. But did you know that much of the cryptographic work that helped the United States win World War II was accomplished by female codebreakers?
Most primary sources that reflect the women's suffrage movement are from speeches, protest marches, or publications. It was an unexpected pleasure to find correspondence on the topic between a couple in a romantic relationship.
A photograph of the abolitionist and suffrage activist Sojourner Truth that appears in the Library's newest Primary Source Set for educators, "Civil War Images: Depictions of African Americans in the War Effort," provides an opportunity to discover the questions that the objects in a portrait can raise about the message that image might have been meant to convey.
Primary sources such as the letters and diaries of Civil War Nurse Mary Ann Bickerdyke offer rich insights into the lives of real people. The fragmented, personal nature of these sources requires careful reading in context and comparison across multiple accounts to glean information and construct understanding.