Following the Allied victory in World War I, the United States entered a period of rapid change, experiencing changes both in its stature as a global leader and changes from social experiments, including universal women’s suffrage and the prohibition of alcohol. One widely discussed topic of this time was “Americanism,” the idea that certain unique qualities, traditions, and ideals set apart the United States.
The West African country of Liberia shares special historical ties to the United States, dating back to its founding in 1822 by former slaves and free-born blacks from the United States under the sponsorship of the American Colonization Society (ACS).
I am in charge of recommending collections from Colombia, Venezuela, as well as material on Latin American art for the Library; and I work on the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape, a collection of audio recordings of prominent poets and prose writers, which the Hispanic Division began curating in the early 1940s. I have been working on an effort to digitize and bring online access to some of these literary audio archives.
