Born in Harlem on August 2nd, 1924, novelist and essayist James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) is regarded as one of America’s greatest writers. At the time of his death on December 1st, 1987, Baldwin was working with sculptor and printmaker Leonard Baskin (1922–2000) of the Gehenna Press to publish a fine press edition of an unpublished work. Gypsy and Other Poems features six of Baldwin’s poems that reveal an intimate, introspective side of the writer.
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This post walks you through the 285-day trip of Hawaii King Kalākaua as the first monarch to circumnavigate the globe in 1881, showing many of the routes and places he traveled or visited through maps and images at or near the time period.
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Learn about Sebastian Gryphius, one of the most celebrated printers of sixteenth century Lyon, and about the books printed by him which are held by the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Gryphius printed Latin textbooks and works by humanist authors and was instrumental in divulging the ideas of the renaissance to Lyon and France.
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Explore the Library of Congress Geospatial Applications Hub, a new gateway to our online StoryMaps, web maps, and more!
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This post explores the history of a large spherical globe with only latitude and longitude lines in the collections of the Geography & Map Division.
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This post describes a manuscript globe of Mars that was created during the early 20th century by the self-taught Danish astronomer Emmy Ingeborg Brun.
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Crockett Johnson (1906-1975), born David Johnson Leisk, had a career as a cartoonist and newspaper comic strip artist before he wrote children’s books, most notably “Harold and the Purple Crayon.” See where you can find his work in the journals and newspapers at the Library of Congress.
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Excitement about the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics is sweeping our own nation’s capital, as it is in so many places around the world. Here at the Library of Congress, we’re certainly marking the occasion. The Informal Learning Office (ILO) recently hosted an Olympics-themed Family Day, and afterward they published a blog post about it where …
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While the British military burned the federal properties of Washington during the War of 1812, some soldiers sought souvenirs to commemorate their conquest of the nascent U.S. capital. Seized by a British officer, one particular American bible in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division bears the marks of its dramatic removal, its captivity, and later its homecoming to the United States.
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This year the Washington Nationals will celebrate their 5-year anniversary since winning the World Series in 2019. But did you know that the Nationals won the World Series 100 years ago as well? Better known as the Washington Senators at the time, the team had officially changed its name to the Washington Nationals in 1905, …
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Miller Jaquet, Junior Fellow in the Geography and Map Division, explores the cartography of West Africa and what maps reveal about power, politics, and how we got HERE.
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For a good many years, when I was in the library, they would not buy science fiction and fantasy books, because those were considered trash… So I fought and fought to get them on library lists.” -Andre Norton (Dream Makers Volume II: The Uncommon Men & Women Who Write Science Fiction, 1983) The first woman …
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Applications are now open for Philip Lee Phillips Society Fellowship at the Library of Congress. Scholars of the history of cartography, Geographic Information Science (GIS), digital humanities or related fields are encouraged to apply for this fellowship utilizing the collections of the Geography and Map Division.
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This blog post rounds up some favorite newspaper titles we’ve come across in working with the collections.
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This post features selected maps that were created under the auspices of the Federal Writers’ Project.
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Learn how to find 21st century newspapers (current newspapers) in the Serial and Government Publications Division collections. These are mostly accessible on-site only, but you can look up titles from the comfort of your own computer using our interactive lists. “How to find” is a new blog series on tips, tricks, and tools to help you navigate the collections of the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room.
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This post spotlights born-digital, georeferenced map series from the MapServer Ethiopia project, which provides modern mapping of Ethiopia at five different scales, across multiple themes.
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Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood lived in Berlin from 1929 to 1932 and observed first-hand the rise of the Nazis and the damage and terror inflicted on the famously tolerant city and its inhabitants. He drew from his journals that he kept from those years to write “Mr. Norris Changes Trains” (1935) and “Goodbye to Berlin” (1939), which would later be combined into an omnibus volume entitled “The Berlin Stories” (1945). Playful and powerful, Isherwood’s depiction of Berlin captured the imagination of later artists, whose work is also represented in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
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Learn more about the maps on display at the new experiential exhibition at the Library of Congress.
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One of the Library’s many outstanding comic book holdings is the 24 original drawings by Steve Ditko for Amazing Fantasy No. 15 in August 1962, including the Spider-Man origin story. The iconic images were donated to the Library by an anonymous donor in 2008. They are included in the opening exhibit of the David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery.
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An insight into early 18th century trade in the East-Indies focusing on the English East Indies Company and the 1721-1723 trade voyage of the ship Townsend revealed through the maps of British cartographer Herman Moll.
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Maps showing cod and beavers in an 18th-century atlas project imperial power and economic might.
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Published in 1978, Paul Avrich’s “An American Anarchist: The Life of Voltairine de Cleyre” was the first substantial biography of Voltairine de Cleyre (1866-1912), an influential member of the American labor movement at the turn of the 20th century. Donated to the Library of Congress in 1986, the biography refers to de Cleyre as “one of the most interesting if neglected figures in the history of American radicalism.”
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Staff of the Manuscript and Serial & Government Publications divisions will hold a roundtable discussion with three comic studies scholars who will make brief presentations on current research, and discuss psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s anti-comics legacy.
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Curious about our collections? Please join Geography and Map Division staff next week for a virtual orientation to our collections and resources!
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An exploration of the thousands of maps held in the Geography and Map Division that are photocopies, including those from many 20th century wars.
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In honor of AAPI Heritage Month, we are highlighting some of the many Asian American and Pacific Islander comic book creators, writers, and characters that can be found in the Library of Congress’ vast comic book collections.
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This second post in the Fabricating the World series explores mapmaking with woodblock printing.
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Printed in Basel in 1543, Andreas Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica is considered to be the first “modern” medical book that emphasizes clinical observation over a dependence on ancient texts. The Library of Congress has recently digitized its copy of De Fabrica, which was part of the generous gift of Lessing J. Rosenwald to the nation.
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In honor of Asian / Pacific American Heritage Month, Library of Congress 2023-2024 Innovator in Residence Jeffrey Yoo Warren invites the public to experience hidden portals to five historic Asian American communities created with Library of Congress collections for the month of May.
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Fascinating maps at various scales tell the story of the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, a pivotal moment in the Civil War and the contested fight for control of New Orleans and the Mississippi River.
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In 1546, Charlotte Guillard (ca. 1485–1557) owned one of the most prestigious printing houses in Paris, the Soleil d’Or, and that year she printed an impressive, updated edition of the letters of Saint Jerome under her own name. The editor and commentator of this particular book, however, was the famous Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus (1468?-1536), whose published annotations on Jerome had been censured by the Venetian Inquisition and the Index of the University of Paris two years prior.
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This is a guest post by Lena Denis, reference librarian in the Geography and Map Division. Growing up in a Brazilian-American household, I’ve long appreciated the delicious versatility of the Atlantic cod, scientific name Gadus morhua, known to the Portuguese-speaking world as bacalhau in its preferred salted and dried form. It was only when I …
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This blog post describes William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s attempt to irrigate Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin through maps which detail the area.
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Acclaimed author Truman Capote was born in 1924 in New Orleans. An openly gay man from the deep south, Capote defied social expectations and lived his life authentically despite the risk. Known for his small stature and large personality, he surrounded himself with the most famous, fashionable, and wealthy women in New York, whom he …
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“First, no woman should say, ‘I am but a woman!’ But a woman! What more can you ask to be?” – Maria Mitchell (1818-1889), American Astronomer Meteor showers, comets, eclipses, and other celestial events have captured human interest and imagination for thousands of years. Astronomical phenomena have long been speculated over in the press, and …
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This post features a qibla compass that was recently acquired for the collections of the Geography and Map Division. The qibla compass was made in Turkey during the Ottoman Empire.
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Join us online May 2, 2024, for a Spring Presentation with two conversations on indigenous cartography. At 3:00pm Lauren Beck, Canada Research Chair in Intercultural Encounter and Professor of Visual and Material Culture Studies at Mount Allison University, Canada, will discuss Extractive Place Naming Practices in Early Modern North America. At 5:00pm S. Max Edelson, …
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Copperplate printing was a major method of map production for several hundred years. This post explores the history of printing maps with engraved copper plates, featuring several example maps and photographs of copper plates from the Geography and Map Division collections. This is the first post in a new series about map printing and creation, Fabricating the World.
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Mauka to Makai: The Ahupua’a of Hawai’i explores the ancient Hawaiian land division system which utilized a cross section of island resources in strips of land running from the ocean to the mountains. Many examples of these biogeographic and geologic resources are covered with Hawaiian nomenclature.
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