The following is a blog post in honor of National Poetry Month. While walking the halls of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, it is not difficult to be inspired by the Lyric Poetry Hall.  I have often wondered what artists and poets have ventured through these halls for the past 122 years. Were […]

The following is a guest post by Hanna Soltys, Reference Librarian, Prints & Photographs Division. A good research quest often leads you to unexpected finds and drops you right at the edge of a rabbit hole. While working through the topic of listening (the subject of a previous blog post), two World War I posters […]

(The following is a post by Jonathan Loar, South Asian Reference Librarian, Asian Division) On June 28, 1914, the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie soon led to an unprecedented global conflict involving numerous nations and empires. Most people are probably familiar with World War I […]

This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division. It coincides with the centenary this month of the first Pan-African Congress. The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line, author and civil rights pioneer W.E.B. DuBois famously wrote in “To the Nations of the World,” […]

It’s Valentine’s Day. It seems everyone has love on their minds today—at least half of us, anyway. Last year, the National Retail Federation predicted that 54.7% of the United States adult population was planning to celebrate the holiday with their significant others, friends or pets to the tune of nearly $20 billion. Yes, billion with […]

One hundred years ago, on February 17, 1919, the African-American 369th Infantry Regiment, popularly known as the Harlem Hell Fighters, marched up Fifth Avenue into Harlem in a massive victory parade in their honor. “Hell Fighters” was the nickname the German enemy gave the 369th and the name stuck for good reason. They were among the […]

Coined as the Hello Girls as early as the late 19th century, female telephone switchboard operators were widely known as having gentle and polite voices regardless of demanding and impatient callers. During World War I, French-speaking Hello Girls were enlisted to improve wartime communication, transmitting crucial information over a battlefield phone system to troops on […]

One hundred years ago, on January 25, 1919, the delegates to the Paris Peace Conference approved a proposal to create the League of Nations. Nearly a year later, on January 16, 1920, the League held its first meeting with its stated principal mission of maintaining world peace. American newspapers presented conflicting views of the League […]

This is a guest post by Sam Meier, a former LC Junior Fellow who is currently working on a variety of reference-related projects for the Veterans History Project (VHP).  December 25, 1917 found William James Bean in quarantine at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York. Bean had been inducted into the Army a little more […]

The massive collection, World War History: Newspaper Clippings, 1914 to 1926, is now fully digitized and freely available on the Library of Congress website. The 79,621 pages are packed with war-related front pages, illustrated feature articles, editorial cartoons, and more. You can search by keywords, browse the content chronologically, and download pages. Coverage begins on June […]