This is a guest post by Sahr Conway-Lanz, a historian in the Manuscript Division. Former Librarian of Congress James Billington once called the Polish Declarations of Admiration and Friendship for the United States “possibly the largest expression of affection one nation ever made to another.” In 1926, for the 150th anniversary of the birth of […]

This is a guest post by Owen Rogers, liaison specialist for the Veterans History Project. Library of Congress specialists often give presentations about ongoing Library exhibitions. This post relates to a presentation Rogers prepared for the exhibition “Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I.” My great-grandfather, Stephen Basford Young, served in […]

Between August 1914 and November 1918, World War I eradicated empires, ignited the Russian Revolution, reconfigured the world map and marked a turning point for the United States. A new book by Margaret E. Wagner, “America and the Great War: A Library of Congress Illustrated History,” published by Bloomsbury Press in association with the Library […]

(The following is an article by Erin Allen from the May/June 2017 issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. Read the entire issue here.) April showers bring May flowers, but it’s the summer months that give green thumbs a chance to cultivate, nurture and experiment. National Garden Clubs Inc. has proclaimed June 4–11, 2017, […]

This is a guest post by Naomi Coquillon, an education specialist in the Interpretive Programs Office. When I began to develop educational programs for the Library’s new exhibition, Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I, I knew I wanted to give visitors the opportunity to touch objects from the period, to […]

This is a guest post by Cheryl Fox, Library of Congress archives specialist in the Manuscript Division. The Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building is bordered by a number of impressive trees. One of them, a Japanese elm at the southwest corner of the building, was planted on Dec. 17, 1921, in memory of four Library of […]

The following is an article from the March/April 2017 issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine, in which Adriane Lentz-Smith discusses her research at the Library of Congress into the experiences of African-American soldiers in World War I. Lentz-Smith is an associate professor at Duke University, author of “Freedom Struggles: African-Americans and World War […]

The Library of Congress opened a major new exhibition, “Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I,” on April 4. The exhibition examines the upheaval of world war as Americans confronted it both at home and abroad. It considers the debates and struggles that surrounded U.S. engagement; explores U.S. military and home-front […]

As a surgeon with the U.S. 6th Marines in France, Joel T. Boone saw the cost of World War I up close—comrades mutilated, amputations performed by candlelight, the frightful loss of life. “My heart has bled by the things I have seen,” wrote Boone, who earned the Medal of Honor for heroism under fire in 1918. […]

(The following was written by Sahr Conway-Lanz, historian in the Library’s Manuscript Division.) Like many individuals around the globe, Woodrow Wilson was shocked by the outbreak of a devastating world war among European empires in 1914. As President of the United States, however, he had a unique opportunity to shape the outcome of this catastrophic […]