This site includes 12,000 letters, notes, legislation, and other documents from the …
This site includes 12,000 letters, notes, legislation, and other documents from the man considered the Father of the Constitution. These documents (1723-1836), including an autobiography, help illuminate Madison's pivotal role in the Constitutional Convention as well as his nine years in the House of Representatives, his tenure as Secretary of State, and his two terms as our fourth President. Essays discuss Madison's life and his role at the Constitutional Convention.
This site provides 28 films that include footage of the Pan-American Exposition …
This site provides 28 films that include footage of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, President McKinley at his second inauguration, and McKinley's funeral. Two brief essays recall the politics and status of the U.S. at the turn of the century.
This site presents thousands of images of items selected from the Federal …
This site presents thousands of images of items selected from the Federal Theatre Project, established during the first term of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Featured here are stage and costume designs, still photographs, posters, scripts and administrative documents.
This site offers a sampling of traditional Omaha Indian music. The sound …
This site offers a sampling of traditional Omaha Indian music. The sound recordings include wax cylinder recordings made in the 1890s, as well as songs and spoken-word segments from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, segments from an interview with an Omaha elder in 1983, songs and speeches from a performance by members of the Hethu'shka Society in 1985, and portions of an interview with an Omaha musician in 1999. Photos, fieldnotes, and more from the 1983 pow-wow are included.
This is a digitalized collection of this once popular cartographic form used …
This is a digitalized collection of this once popular cartographic form used to depict U.S. and Canadian cities and towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Known also as bird's-eye views, perspective maps, and aero views, panoramic maps are non-photographic representations of cities portrayed as if viewed from above at an oblique angle. Although not generally drawn to scale, they show street patterns, individual buildings, and major landscape features in perspective.
The Panoramic Photograph Collection contains approximately four thousand images featuring American cityscapes, …
The Panoramic Photograph Collection contains approximately four thousand images featuring American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. They offer an overview of the nation, its enterprises and its interests, with a focus on the start of the twentieth century when the panoramic photo format was at the height of its popularity. Subject strengths include: agricultural life; beauty contests; disasters; engineering work such as bridges, canals and dams; fairs and expositions; military and naval activities, especially during World War I; the oil industry; schools and college campuses, sports, and transportation. The images date from 1851 to 1991 and depict scenes in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. More than twenty foreign countries and a few U.S. territories are also represented. These panoramas average between twenty-eight inches and six feet in length, with an average width of ten inches.
This site portrays the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin from the …
This site portrays the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin from the 17th to the early 20th century through first-person accounts, biographies, promotional literature, local histories, ethnographic and antiquarian texts, and colonial archival documents. This collection depicts the land and its resources, the experience of Natives, pioneers and missionaries, soldiers and reformers, as well as the growth of local communities and cultures.
This collection offers access to the four Walt Whitman Notebooks and a …
This collection offers access to the four Walt Whitman Notebooks and a cardboard butterfly that disappeared from the Library of Congress in 1942. They were returned on February 24, 1995.
The Thomas B. Harned collection of the Walt Whitman papers spans the period 1842 to 1937, with most of the items dated from 1855 to 1892. It was donated in 1918. The collection consists of correspondence, poetry and prose manuscripts, notes and notebooks, proofs and offprints, printed matter, and miscellaneous items, laminated and boxed in seven containers, and supplemented by one manuscript box of ancillary material. A detailed description of the Harned collection has been published in the Library of Congress publication Walt Whitman: A Catalog (1955), which contains an introductory essay on significant Whitman collectors and their collections and an annotated bibliographic listing of Whitman items located among the collections of various divisions within the Library of Congress.
This site illustrates the story of settlement on the Great Plains. Family …
This site illustrates the story of settlement on the Great Plains. Family letters of one homesteader express personal insight into the joy, despair, and determination in his struggle to establish a home on the prairie.
This collection assembles a wide array of Library of Congress source materials …
This collection assembles a wide array of Library of Congress source materials from the 1920s that document the widespread prosperity of the Coolidge years, the nation's transition to a mass consumer economy, and the role of government in this transition. It includes nearly 200 selections from twelve collections of personal papers and two collections of institutional papers from the Manuscript Division; 74 books, pamphlets, and legislative documents from the General Collections, along with selections from 34 consumer and trade journals; 181 photographs from the pictorial materials of the National Photo Company Collection held by the Prints and Photographs Division; and 5 short films and 7 audio selections of Coolidge speeches from the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. The collection is particularly strong in advertising and mass-marketing materials and will be of special interest to those seeking to understand economic and political forces at work in the 1920s.
This site showcases materials from two American Folklife Centercollections, the Blue Ridge …
This site showcases materials from two American Folklife Centercollections, the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project Collection (1978) and the All-American Quilt Contest sponsored by Coming Home, a division of Lands' End, and Good Housekeeping. Together, these collections provide a glimpse into America's diverse quilting traditions. Photographs and recorded interviews with quiltmakers are also available.
This site presents 6,500 items that document Morse's invention of the electromagnetic …
This site presents 6,500 items that document Morse's invention of the electromagnetic telegraph, his participation in the development of telegraph systems in the U.S. and abroad, his career as a painter, his family life, his travels, and more. Included in this collection are correspondence, letterbooks, diaries, scrapbooks, printed matter, maps, and drawings.
This site captures eyewitness accounts, reactions, and opinions of people in the …
This site captures eyewitness accounts, reactions, and opinions of people in the months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93. This online presentation includes nearly 200 audio and video interviews, 45 photos and drawings, and 21 written narratives.
This site presents two dozen publications written in the 19th century about …
This site presents two dozen publications written in the 19th century about slavery in America. It includes first-person accounts from former slaves, judicial opinions, abolitionist pieces, and more.
This site features films and actualities taped in the U.S., Cuba, and …
This site features films and actualities taped in the U.S., Cuba, and Philippines showing troops, ships, notable figures, and parades, as well as reenactments of battles and other wartime events. These films mark the first U.S. war in which the motion picture camera played a role.
Students gain a sense of the living history that surrounds the novel …
Students gain a sense of the living history that surrounds the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Through studying primary source materials from American Memory and other online resources, students of all backgrounds may better grasp how historical events and human forces have shaped relationships between black and white, and rich and poor cultures of our country. This unit guides students on a journey through the Depression Era in the 1930s. Activities familiarize the students with Southern experiences through the study of the novel and African American experiences through the examination of primary sources.
This sit efeatures a different person or event in history each day. …
This sit efeatures a different person or event in history each day. Past features include Frederick Douglass, Woodrow Wilson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Banneker, Rosa Parks, Samuel Slater, Louisa May Alcott, Radio City Arts Hall, the Wright brothers' first flight, the Bill of Rights, the Gadsden Purchase, the Federal Reserve System, the Wounded Knee massacre, Pearl Harbor, the first controlled nuclear fission chain reaction, and more.
The Library of Congress digital collections include a wide variety of primary …
The Library of Congress digital collections include a wide variety of primary source materials documenting presidential inaugurations. This guide includes diaries and letters written by presidents and those who witnessed the inaugurations, handwritten drafts of inaugural addresses, broadsides, inaugural tickets and programs, prints, photographs, and sheet music.
A key objective is providing access to many treasures and other important primary source materials held by the Library of Congress. The collection has been organized chronologically by presidential inauguration.
This guide is adapted from the retired American Memory collection 'I Do Solemnly Swear...': Presidential Inaugurations, which debuted on the Library of Congress's website in November 2000. Selections are drawn from the Manuscript Division, the Prints and Photographs Division, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, the Music Division, and the general collections of the Library of Congress. Additional photographs were provided by the Architect of the Capitol, the White House, and the United States Senate Office of the Sergeant at Arms.
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