All Exhibitions

1492: An Ongoing Voyage
August 13, 1992–February 14, 1993

Examines the first sustained contacts between Native American peoples and European explorers, conquerors, and settlers between1492 and 1600.

The African-American Mosaic: African-American Culture and History
February 9–August 29, 1994

Marks the publication of The African–American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture. The exhibit explores four topics from the book: Colonization, Abolition, Migrations, and the Works Progress Administration.

The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
February 5–May 5, 1998

Showcases the Library’s incomparable African American collections. The largest black history exhibit held at the Library includes books, documents, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings.

Al Hirschfeld - Beyond Broadway
November 9, 2000–March 31, 2001

Celebrates a “Gift to the Nation” of original drawings given by the artist in honor of the Library’s Bicentennial. The exhibition features twenty–five drawings that span Hirschfeld’s remarkable career.

The American Colony in Jerusalem
January 12–April 2, 2005

Offers a glimpse into the remarkable history and work of the American Colony, a Christian utopian society that formed in Jerusalem in 1881.

American Treasures of the Library of Congress
May 5, 1997–August 18, 2007

Provides unique insight into various aspects of American history and culture. Objects displayed are organized according to the three categories that Thomas Jefferson used for his library: memory, reason, and imagination.

Ancient Manuscripts: From the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu
June 24–September 3, 2003

Presents ancient manuscripts, dating from the 16th to the 18th centuries, which cover every aspect of human endeavor and are indicative of the high level of civilization attained by West Africans during the Middle Ages.

Arthur Szyk: Artist for Freedom
December 9, 1999–May 6, 2000

Presents the work of one America’s leading political artists, in particular his work during World War II, when he produced hundreds of anti–Axis illustrations and cartoons in aid of the Allied war effort.

Benjamin Franklin: In His Own Words
Dec. 12, 2005–June 17, 2006

Indicates the depth and breadth of Benjamin Franklin’s public, professional, and scientific accomplishments through important documents, letters, books, broadsides, and cartoons.

Blondie Gets Married! Comic Strip Drawings by Chic Young
June 22–September 16, 2000

Presents twenty–seven drawings, classic examples of Chic Young’s much–loved creative wit, selected from the gift of 150 works donated by Jeanne Young O’Neil, the artist’s daughter.

Bob Hope and American Variety
May 10, 2000–Present

Explores variety entertainment through the lens of Bob Hope’s long and rich career, in which he continued to practice the variety traditions he learned on the vaudeville stage.

Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939–1943
September 8–January 21, 2006

Presents color images taken by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information. The photographs document not only the subjects in the picturesbut also the dawn of the era of color photography.

Canadian Counterpoint: Illustrations by Anita Kunz
September 4, 2003–January 3, 2004

Features sixteen paintings selected from a gift by the artist. The paintings reflect the rich variety to be found in the hundreds of paintings that Kunz has created during her twenty–two–year career.

Cartoon America
November 2, 2006–January 27, 2007

Presents selections from the Art Wood Collection of Cartoon and Caricature, which contains more than 36,000 original cartoon drawings.

A Century of Creativity: The MacDowell Colony 1907–2007
February 22–August 18, 2007

Provides a unique opportunity to appreciate the MacDowell Colony experience and success, from its earliest fellows to the most recent. 

Churchill and the Great Republic
February 5–July 10, 2004

Presents the life of Winston Churchill, his career, and his connection with the United States, a country he called “The Great Republic.”  A unique interactive presentation is a featured part of the exhibit.

Creating the United States
April 12, 2008–Present

Offers insights into how the nation’s founding documents were forged and the role that imagination and vision played in the unprecedented creative act of forming a self–governing country.

Creative Space: Fifty Years of Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop
February 20–July 26, 2003

Features artwork from the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Archives and Collection, including a selection of Blackburn’s work and prints by collaborators, students, personal friends, and colleagues.

Creating French Culture: Treasures from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
September 8–December 31, 1995

Explores how the relationship between culture and power in France shaped the growth of the the country’s national library. 

The Cultures and History of the Americas: The Jay I. Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress
April 20–October 1, 2005

Celebrates the donation of the Jay I. Kislak Collection by featuring fifty highlights from the more than 3,000 rare books, maps, documents, paintings, prints, and artifacts.

Declaring Independence: Drafting the Documents
June 29–July 4, 1995

Presents previews of unique documents from the collections of the Library of Congress.

Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library
April 11–July 13, 1996

Displays treasures from Dresden in order to provide an insight into the cultural riches of Central Europe—from the Middle Ages through the nineteenth century.

The Dream of Flight
October 4, 2003–April 24, 2004

Honors the Wright Brothers’ achievement, using the Library’s rare and significant materials to explore the notion that flight, whether fanciful or actual, has inspired and occupied a central place in most cultures.

Earth as Art: A Landsat Perspective
July 23, 2002–July 3, 2005

Showcases images from the collection of Landsat photographs held in the Geography and Map Division that have been selected for aesthetic rather than scientific value.

The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated
April 17–August 11, 2001

Features the work of a pioneering Russian photographer who photographically surveyed the Russian Empire.  The exhibit uses digital technology to reproduce Prokudin–Gorskii’s images, which were originally created in color on glass plates.

Enduring Outrage: Editorial Cartoons by HERBLOCK
July 17, 2006–January 20, 2007

Features original work by the Pulitzer Prize–winning political cartoonist to explore themes important to Herblock that continue to resonate in American society.

Exploring the Americas: The Jay I. Kislak Collection
December 13, 2007–Present

Features selections from the Jay I. Kislak Collection to examine indigenous cultures, the drama of the encounters between Native Americans and Europeans, and the changes caused by the meeting of the two worlds.

The Floating World of Ukiyo-e: Shadows, Dreams, and Substance
September 27, 2001–January 19, 2002

Showcases the Library’s spectacular holding of Japanese “Ukiyo–e” prints, books, and drawings dating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.

For European Recovery: The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Marshall Plan
June 2–August 30, 1997

Marks the fiftieth anniversary of Secretary of State George Marshall’s speech proposing a solution to the hunger, unemployment, and housing shortages that faced Europeans in the aftermath of World War II and examines the ways his plan benefited Europe and the U.S.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Designs for an American Landscape, 1922–32
November 14, 1996–February 16, 1997

Presents five remarkable projects that Frank Lloyd Wright worked on during the 1920s, in which he developed architectural prototypes of far–reaching consequence.

From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America
September 9–December 30, 2004

Features more than two hundred treasures of American Judaica from the collections of the Library of Congress, augmented by a selection of important loans from other cooperating cultural institutions.

From the Home Front and the Front Lines
May 24, 2004–November 13, 2004

Consists of original materials and oral histories drawn from the Veterans History Project collections at the Library of Congress.

The Gettysburg Address
January 12–19, 1995

Shows the Library’s two copies of the famous address. President Lincoln gave a copy to each of his two private secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay. The Nicolay copy is believed to be the earliest copy that exists.

A Heavenly Craft: The Woodcut in Early Printed Books
February 4–July 9, 2005

Presents woodcut–illustrated books from the Library’s Rosenwald Collection. These books were printed within the first century after Gutenberg mastered printing with moveable type in Europe.

Herblock’s Gift: Selections from the Herb Block Foundation Collection
March 12–June 28, 2003

Celebrates the gift of the Herb Block Foundation and features a selection of original cartoons spanning the artist’s remarkable career.

Herblock’s History: Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium
October 17, 2000–February 17, 2001

Presents works by cartoonist Herb Block, who chronicled the nation’s political history and caricatured twelve American presidents from Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton.

Humor’s Edge: Cartoons by Ann Telnaes
June 3–September 11, 2004

Celebrates Ann Telnaes’s generous gift of eighty–one original drawings that represent the range of themes that engage this gifted artist who has recently emerged as a leader in American editorial cartooning.

“I Do Solemnly Swear...” Inaugural Materials from the Collections
of the Library of Congress
January 8, 2005-April 8, 2005

Offers a glimpse into the history of American presidential inaugurations. Eighteen presidents are featured in the display, from George Washington to John F. Kennedy.

Illuminating the Word: The St. John’s Bible
October 6–December 30, 2006

Presents a single work of art, an illuminated, handwritten Bible commissioned by Saint John’s University and Abbey in Minnesota. The exhibit also includes several priceless volumes from the Library’s Bible collection.

In the Beginning Was the Word: The Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures
October 7, 1994–March 4, 1995

Presents objects from a relatively unknown archive of significant documents. The exhibit explores the moving human exchanges that took place between the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska and Native Alaskans between 1794 and about 1915.

John Bull & Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of British-American Relations
November 18, 1999–March 4, 2000

Brings together for the first time treasures from the two greatest libraries in the English-speaking world—The British Library and the Library of Congress—in order to illuminate the relationship between the two countries.

Language of the Land: Journeys Into Literary America
August 5, 1993–January 18, 1994

Offers a tour of four sections of the United States through literary maps that focus on geographical areas, individual authors, and particular works. Features passages from authors whose works are rooted in a particular place as well as images of the places.

Library of Congress Bible Collection
April 12, 2008–Present

Explores the significance of the Giant Bible of Mainz and the Gutenberg Bible, as well as sixteen selected Bibles from the Library’s collections.

Life of the People: Realist Prints & Drawings from the Ben & Beatrice Goldstein Collection
October 20, 1999–January 29, 2000

Presents a collection of American prints and drawings informed by a sympathy for the condition of working people, as well as a concern for social and political issues.

Los Angeles Mapped
January 28, 2006–January 2007

Shows historical maps of Los Angeles from the Library’s Geography and Map Division. These diverse works provide a guide to some remarkable stories of the city’s history.

Madison’s Treasures
One day only, March 16, 2001

Examines documents related to two seminal events in which Madison played a major role: the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution and the introduction of the amendments that became the Bill of Rights.

Maps in Our Lives
September 14, 2005–Present

Explores surveying, cartography, geodesy, and geographic information systems. It draws on the Library’s American Congress on Surveying and Mapping Collection as well as on historic maps.

Margaret Mead: Human Nature and the Power of Culture
November 30, 2001–May 31, 2002

Documents Mead’s life, her career as an anthropologist, and the critical reception of her work by drawing upon the 500,000–item Mead Collection, one of the Library’s largest collections for a single individual. 

Monstrous Craws & Character Flaws: Masterpieces of Cartoon and Caricature at the Library of Congress
February 25–July 6, 1998

Reveals how for centuries great graphic artists have created enduring images that demonstrate the power of art as a vehicle for social and political commentary.

Oliphant’s Anthem: Pat Oliphant at the Library of Congress
April 29–August 15, 1998

Commemorates the Library’s acquisition of sixty cartoon drawings, sketchbooks, and illustrations by one of America’s foremost editorial cartoonists.

On the Cutting Edge: Contemporary Japanese Prints
March 29–June 30, 2007

Marks an exceptional cross–cultural exchange and celebrates the generous donation of prints exhibited in the show to the collections of the Library by the College Women’s Association of Japan.

Petal From the Rose: Illustrations by Elizabeth Shippen Green
June 28–September 29, 2001

Focuses on Green’s art and distinctive features of her illustrations and working methods. Although her work shares similarities with that of other women in the profession, it stands apart in its scope, quality, and originality.

Reflections: Russian Photographs, 1992–2002
September 14–December 27, 2003

Presents photographs from a larger group of pictures that were generously donated to the Library by the Moscow Times, the first English–language daily newspaper ever to be printed in Russia.

Religion and the Founding of the American Republic
June 4–August 29, 1998

Documents the role religion played in the shaping of early American life and in forming the American republic. 

Revelations from the Russian Archives
June 15–July 16, 1992

Presented documents, photographs, and films from the highly secret internal record of Soviet Communist rule for the first time in a public venue.

Revising Himself: Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass
May 16–December 3, 2005

Traces the different occupations and preparations that led Whitman to become the author of Leaves of Grass, as well as his subsequent evolution as a poet.

Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America
July 24, 2003–November 29, 2003

Features the Library’s rich collections of exploration material documenting the mid–eighteenth to mid–nineteenth century quest to connect the East and the West by means of a waterway passage. 

Roger L. Stevens Presents
May 16–September 7, 2002

Examines Stevens’s career through the great number of stage productions that he presented or fostered indirectly, his involvment with the National Endowent for the Arts, and his role as in creating the John F. Kennedy Center

Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture
January 8–April 30, 1993

Documents how the Vatican Library became a center for the revival of classical culture known as the Renaissance. 

Scrolls from the Dead Sea: The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship
April 29–August 1, 1993

Presented twelve scrolls and archeological materials from Israel.  It told the fascinating story of the scrolls’ discovery and explored their archeological and historical context.

Share the Perspective of Genius: Leonardo’s Study for the Adoration of the Magi
December 7–8, 2006

Presents a single drawing, in which Leonardo da Vinci meticulously created a refined perspective grid in order to place architectural structures, human figures, and animals in a realistically proportioned way.

Sigmund Freud: Conflict & Culture
October 15, 1998–January 16, 1999

Examines Freud’s life, his key ideas, and their impact on the twentieth century.  The exhibit includes photographs, prints, manuscripts, first editions, home movies, and materials from newspapers, magazines and comic books. 

Stagestruck!: Performing Arts Caricatures at the Library of Congress
November 5, 1998–April 3, 1999

Explores how performing arts caricature came of age as an art form in the United States as celebrities of song, stage, and screen were transformed into popular icons of American culture.

Temple of Liberty: Building the Capitol for a New Nation
February 24–July 4, 1994

Presents the story of building the nation’s Capitol and the symbolic, aesthetic, and pragmatic issues that surrounded the creation of America’s most important public building.

Thomas Jefferson
April 24–October 31, 2000

Draws on the Library’s Thomas Jefferson materials to examine the influence Jefferson’s thoughts and interests had on his own life, the American republic, and the world. 

Thomas Jefferson’s Library
April 12, 2008–Present

Reveals how books were vital to Thomas Jefferson’s education and well–being and how his personal library provided Jefferson with a broad knowledge of the contemporary and ancient worlds.

Voices of Civil Rights
February 24–March 26, 2005

Documents events during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States through personal stories, oral histories, and photographs collected by the “Voices of Civil Rights” project, as well as marking the arrival of these materials to the Library.

The Water-Babies: Illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith
June 10–September 18, 1999

Presents the artist’s drawings created for book The Water–Babies in 1916. She bequeathed all twelve drawings to the Cabinet of American Illustration, which is preserved within the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division.

West Side Story
September 26, 2007–March 29, 2008

Draws on the Library’s rich music materials, especially those from the Leonard Bernstein Collection. When the show opened on Broadway in 1957, it changed the nature of the American musical and challenged the country’s view of itself.

When They Were Young: A Photographic Retrospective of Childhood
September 26, 2002–March 22, 2003

Captures through photographs the experience of childhood as it is connected across time, different cultures, and diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.

“With an Even Hand”: Brown v. Board at Fifty
May 13–November 13, 2004

Commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark judicial case, which declared that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” This decision was pivotal to the struggle for racial desegregation in the United States.

Witness and Response: September 11 Acquisitions at the Library of Congress
September 7–October 26, 2002

Features the collections that the Library amassed during the year following the attacks of September 11, 2001. The exhibit is the story of how the materials arrived and how they reflect what America experienced in the aftermath of the attacks.

The Wizard of Oz: An American Fairy Tale
April 21–September 23, 2000

Looks at the creation of this timeless American classic and traced its rapid and enduring success to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the book’s publication.

Women Come to the Front: Journalists, Photographers, and Broadcasters During WWII
September 28–November 18, 1995

Features women journalists who were chosen because of the strength and variety of their collections in the Library. Like their male counterparts, the women followed various paths to their wartime assignments.

The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention
May 20–September 4, 1999

Explores how this famous couple shaped America’s culture in the twentieth century.  Charles and Ray Eames’s work represented defining moments in American history, such as the economy’s shift from making goods to producing information. 

World Treasures of the Library of Congress: Beginnings
June 7, 2001–March 15, 2003

Looks at how various cultures explained the beginning of the world, depicted the first human beings, and defined the heavens and the earth by drawing upon unique items from the Library’s international collections in more than 450 languages.