Vaughn de Leath, 1939. Jim Walsh Collection, Recorded Sound Reference Center. Taylor McClaskie is one of the Music Division’s summer 2019 interns. She is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at Case Western Reserve University. Here, she writes about the early days of radio and one of its near-forgotten stars. Among the hundreds of songs that have crossed my desk this summer as I help process … Continue reading Radio Girl and Her De Luxe Revue
By the People, the Library’s crowdsourcing transcription project, is calling on volunteers to complete 1,000 pages from the “Suffrage: Women Fight for the Vote” campaign before Monday, August 19th. The speeches, diaries, and letters of suffragists reveal complex personalities and a multifaceted movement. Here, Elizabeth A. Novara, a historian in the Library’s Manuscript Division, writes about some of the family and personal relationships that sustained … Continue reading Crowdsourcing Challenge!
Former Little League World Series star Mo’Ne Davis meets with the DC Force, part of the DC Girls Baseball program, in the Baseball Americana exhibit. Photo: Shawn Miller. Mo’Ne Davis, the pitcher who rocketed to fame behind a historic shutout victory in the 2013 Little League World Series, stopped by the Library’s Baseball Americana exhibit this week. She’s 18 now, five years older and a … Continue reading Pic of the Week: Mo’Ne Davis Edition
This is a guest post by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. It is (lightly) adapted from the “Last Word” column in the current issue of the Library of Congress Magazine. That issue marks the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. One hundred and seventy-one years ago, 300 women and men gathered in … Continue reading Guest Column: Nancy Pelosi on Women’s Suffrage Anniversary
“Drawn to Purpose,” the Library’s Eisner Award-winning book. Published by the University Press of Mississippi in association with the Library of Congress. “Drawn to Purpose: American Women Illustrators and Cartoonists,” a lavishly illustrated study of the field written by Library curator Martha H. Kennedy, won the 2019 Eisner Award for the Best Comics-Related Book at San Diego’s Comic-Con International this weekend, a win for the … Continue reading Eisner Winner! Library’s “Drawn to Purpose”
Cinderella waltzes down the Great Hall staircase during a celebration of the film’s addition to the National Film Registry, June 20, 2019. Photo: Shawn Miller The Library has featured some of its best historical photographs on a Flickr page for years, with more than 34,000 images in more than 45 albums. If you haven’t checked it out before, we hope you’ll take a minute now. Delights … Continue reading Pic of the Week: Flickr Edition
Girls Who Code students and leaders with members of Congress in the Library’s Great Hall, July 10, 2019. First row, standing on floor, from left: Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA); Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH); Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA); Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL); Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY); Reshma Saujani, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code; Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV); Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV); Rep. … Continue reading Pic of the Week: Girls Who Code Edition
This is a guest post by Julie Miller, a historian in the Manuscript Division. It offers a window into the social realities of South Carolina in the days leading up to the Civil War, when very different ideas of “freedom” existed side by side. As any reader will notice, such issues persist in different form today. Henry and Claudia Izard lived at a house called … Continue reading The Will of Claudia Izard: An Uneasy Antebellum Testament
This story is cross-posted on the blogs of the Library of Congress, National Archives, and Smithsonian’s American Women’s History Initiative. When it came to advocating for women’s right to vote, creative communications tactics changed minds. Women demanded the vote by staging costumed tableaux at protest marches, organizing church committees, holding up handmade signs in front of the White House, getting arrested, publishing their own newspapers, … Continue reading Her Vote at 100: Three Exhibits
Cast members of “19: The Musical” perform during the “Shall Not Be Denied” exhibition opening. Photo: Shawn Miller. This week marked the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote and changed American life and politics. The Library, repository of the papers of many key players in the suffrage movement, opened a yearlong exhibit about that struggle, “Shall Not Be … Continue reading Pic of the Week: 19th Amendment Edition
