List All Collections

  • Adams, Ansel ~ Japanese-American Internment ~ Photographs ~ 1943
    In 1943, Ansel Adams (1902-1984), America's best-known photographer, documented the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California and the Japanese Americans interned there during World War II. The collection presents for the first time side-by-side digital scans of both Adams's 242 original negatives and his 209 photographic prints, allowing viewers to see his darkroom technique and in particular how he cropped his prints. Adams's Manzanar work is a departure from his signature style of landscape photography. Although a majority of the photographs are portraits, the images also include views of daily life, agricultural scenes, and sports and leisure activities.
  • Advertising ~ Multiformat ~ 1850-1920
    This collection presents over 9,000 images relating to the early history of advertising in the United States. The materials, drawn from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, include cookbooks, photographs of billboards, print advertisements, trade cards, calendars, almanacs, and leaflets for a multitude of products. Together, they illuminate the early evolution of this ubiquitous feature of modern American business and culture.
  • African Americans ~ Daniel A. P. Murray ~ Pamphlets ~ 1818-1907
    The Daniel A. P. Murray Pamphlet Collection presents a panoramic and eclectic review of African-American history and culture, spanning almost one hundred years from the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries, with the bulk of the material published between 1875 and 1900. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Benjamin W. Arnett, Alexander Crummell, and Emanuel Love. The collection resides in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.
  • African Americans ~ Ohio ~ Multiformat ~ 1850-1920
    This selection of manuscript and printed text and images illuminates the history of black Ohio from 1850 to 1920, a story of slavery and freedom, segregation and integration, religion and politics, migrations and restrictions, harmony and discord, and struggles and successes.
  • African Americans ~ Pamphlets ~ 1824-1909
    The collection consists of 397 pamphlets, published from 1824 through 1909, by African-American authors and others who wrote about slavery, African colonization, Emancipation, Reconstruction, and related topics. The materials range from personal accounts and public orations to organizational reports and legislative speeches. Among the authors represented are Frederick Douglass, Kelly Miller, Charles Sumner, Mary Church Terrell, and Booker T. Washington.
  • African Americans ~ Sheet Music ~ 1850-1920
    This collection consists of 1,307 pieces of African-American sheet music dating from 1850-1920. It includes many songs from the heyday of antebellum black face minstrelsy in the 1850s and from the abolitionist movement of the same period. Numerous titles are associated with the novel and the play Uncle Tom's Cabin. Civil War period music includes songs about African-American soldiers and the plight of the newly emancipated slave. Post-Civil War music reflects the problems of Reconstruction and the beginnings of urbanization and the northern migration of African Americans. Particularly significant in this collection are the visual depictions of African Americans which provide much information about racial attitudes over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
  • African-American Music, Southern U.S. ~ Recordings ~ 1938-1943
    The collection consists of approximately one hundred sound recordings, primarily blues and gospel songs, and related documentation from the folk festival at Fort Valley State College (now Fort Valley State University), Fort Valley, Georgia. Also included are recordings made in Tennessee and Alabama (including six Sacred Harp songs) recorded between September 1938 and 1941.
  • African-American Odyssey ~ Exhibit ~ Multiformat
    This Special Presentation of the Library of Congress exhibition, The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship, showcases the Library's incomparable African American collections. The presentation is not only a highlight of what is on view in this major black history exhibition, but also a glimpse into the Library's vast African American collection. Both include a wide array of important and rare books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings. This presentation is not yet searchable. Additional collections are forthcoming.
  • Architecture and Interior Design ~ Gottscho and Schleisner ~ Photographs ~ 1935-1955
    The Gottscho-Schleisner Collection is comprised of over 29,000 photographs primarily of architectural subjects, including interiors and exteriors of homes, stores, offices, factories, historic buildings, and other structures concentrated chiefly in the northeastern United States. The collection is held by the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
  • Architecture, Engineering and Landscapes ~ HABS/HAER/HALS ~ Multiformat ~ 1933-present
    The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) and the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the United States through a comprehensive range of building types and engineering technologies. As of March 1998, America's built environment has been recorded through surveys containing more than 363,000 measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written histories for more than 35,000 historic structures and sites dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.
  • Arendt, Hannah ~ Papers ~ 1898-1977
    The papers of political philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) are one of the principal sources for the study of modern intellectual life. They constitute a large and diverse collection reflecting a complex career. The papers contain correspondence, articles, lectures, speeches, book manuscripts, transcripts of Adolf Eichmann's trial proceedings, notes, and printed matter pertaining to Arendt's writings and academic career. This presentation of Arendt's writings also includes an essay on Arendt's intellectual history, a chronology of her life, and an index of all folders in the Arendt Papers.
  • Baseball and Jackie Robinson ~ Multiformat ~ 1860-1969
    Materials (manuscripts, books, photographs, and ephemera) that tell the story of Jackie Robinson and the history of baseball in general. Also included is a sampler of 34 images related to early baseball (1860s-1920s) from various files and collections in the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
  • Baseball Cards ~ 1887-1914
    This collection presents 2,100 early baseball cards dating from 1887 to 1914. The cards show such legendary figures as Ty Cobb stealing third base for Detroit, Tris Speaker batting for Boston, and pitcher Cy Young posing formally in his Cleveland uniform. Other notable players include Connie Mack, Walter Johnson, King Kelly, and Christy Mathewson.
  • Baseball Guides and Spalding ~ 1889-1939
    This collections comprises a historic selection of Spalding's Official Base Ball Guide and the Official Indoor Base Ball Guide. The collection reproduces 35 of the guides, which were published by the Spalding Athletic Company in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This collection also includes featured editorials from baseball writers on the state of the game, statistics, photographs, and analysis of the previous season for all the Major League teams and for many of the so-called minor leagues across the nation.
  • Bell, Alexander Graham ~ Papers ~ 1862-1939
    This second release contains about 4650 items consisting of correspondence, scientific notebooks, journals, blueprints, articles, and photographs documenting Bell's invention of the telephone and his involvement in the first telephone company, his family life, his interest in the educations of the deaf, and his aeronautical and other scientific research.
  • Berliner, Emile ~ Early Recording Industry ~ Multiformat ~ 1870-1956
    Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry is a selection of more than 400 items from the Emile Berliner Papers and 108 Berliner sound recordings from the Library of Congress's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Berliner (1851-1929) was responsible for the development of the microphone and the flat recording disc and gramophone player. Spanning the years 1870 to 1956, the collection comprises correspondence, articles, lectures, speeches, scrapbooks, photographs, catalogs, clippings, experiment notes, and rare sound recordings.
  • Bernstein, Leonard ~ Multiformat ~ ca. 1920-1989
    The Leonard Bernstein Collection is one of the largest and most varied of the many special collections held by the Library of Congress Music Division. This online Leonard Bernstein Collection makes available a selection of 85 photographs, 177 scripts from the Young People's Concerts, 74 scripts from the Thursday Evening Previews, and over 1,100 pieces of correspondence, in addition to the collection's complete Finding Aid.
  • Broadsides and Printed Ephemera ~ ca. 1600-2000
    The Printed Ephemera Collection at the Library of Congress is a rich repository of Americana. In total, the Collection comprises 28,000 primary source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompassing key events and eras in American history. Among them are a variety of posters, notices, invitations, proclamations, leaflets, propaganda, manifestos, menus and business cards. They capture the experience of the Revolutionary War, slavery, the western land rush, the Civil War, Women's Suffrage, and the Industrial Revolution from the viewpoint of those who lived through them.
  • California, First-Person Narratives ~ Books ~ 1849-1900
    The collection consists of the full texts and illustrations of 190 books documenting the formative era of California's history through eyewitness accounts. It covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century.
  • Chautauqua Performers ~ Advertising Flyers ~ 1904-1940
    This digital collection presents 7,949 publicity brochures, promotional advertisements and talent circulars for some 4,546 performers who were part of the Chautauqua circuit. These talent brochures are drawn from the Records of the Redpath Lyceum Bureau, held by the University of Iowa Libraries. One of the largest booking agencies for the Chautauqua performers, the Redpath bureau managed a vast talent pool. Performers and lecturers were familiar names as popular entertainers or well known in the political, religious, and cultural worlds.
  • Chesapeake Bay and Washington, D.C. ~ Books ~ 1600-1925
    The collection comprises 139 books on Washington, D.C. and the Chesapeake Bay region including first-person narratives, early histories, historical biographies, promotional brochures, and books of photographs that capture in words and pictures a distinctive region as it developed between the onset of European settlement and the first quarter of the twentieth century.
  • Chicago Daily News ~ Photographs ~ 1902-1933
    This collection comprises approximately 54,000 images of urban life captured on glass plate negatives between 1902 and 1933 by photographers employed by the Chicago Daily News, one of Chicago's leading newspapers.
  • The Chinese in California ~ Multiformat ~ 1850-1925
    Documents the nineteenth and early twentieth century Chinese immigration to California and the West. Included in the collection is much that reflects the social life, culture, and commerce of these immigrants. The primary source materials include photographs, original art, cartoons and other illustrations; letters, diaries, business records, and legal documents; as well as pamphlets, broadsides, speeches, sheet music, and other printed matter.
  • Civil War Era ~ Band Music ~ Multiformat
    This collection makes available examples of a brilliant style of brass band music that flourished in the 1850s in the United States and remained popular through the nineteenth century. Bands of this kind served in the armies of both the North and the South during the Civil War. The collection includes both printed and manuscript music (mostly in the form of "part books" for individual instruments) and features over 700 musical compositions, as well as 8 full-score modern editions and 19 recorded examples of brass band music in performance.
  • Civil War Images ~ Multiformat ~ 1861-1865
    The images in this collection are drawn from the New-York Historical Society's rich archival collections that document the Civil War. They include recruiting posters for New York City regiments of volunteers, stereographic views documenting the mustering of soldiers and of popular support for the Union in New York City, photography showing the war's impact, both in the North and South, and drawings and writings by ordinary soldiers on both sides.
  • Civil War Maps ~ 1861-1865
    The Civil War Map collection of the Geography and Map Division consists of reconnaissance, sketch, coastal, and theater-of-war maps which depict troop activities and fortifications during the Civil War. Part of this selection contains maps by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss, a topographical engineer in the Confederate Army. Hotchkiss made detailed battle maps that were used by Generals Lee and Jackson. This selection also includes maps that depict General Sherman's military campaigns in Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
  • Civil War Maps ~ Hotchkiss Maps ~ 1861-1865
    The Hotchkiss Map Collection contains cartographic items made by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss (1828-1899), a topographic engineer in the Confederate Army. Hotchkiss made detailed battle maps primarily of the Shenandoah Valley, some of which were used by the Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson for their combat planning and strategy. Several of the maps have annotations of various military officers, demonstrating their importance in the military campaigns. The collection also includes maps made or used by Hotchkiss during his post-war years, including maps with information about railroads, minerals and mining, geology and history, most of which focus on Virginia and West Virginia, but also cover other states and even the world. The collection consists of 341 sketchbooks, manuscripts, and annotated printed maps, the originals of which reside in the Library of Congress' Geography and Map Division.
  • Civil War Soldiers, Pennsylvania ~ Multiformat ~ 1861-1865
    This collection documents the Civil War experience of Captain Tilton C. Reynolds, a member of the 105th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers. Comprising 164 library items, or 359 digital images, this online presentation includes correspondence, photographs, and other materials dating between 1861 and 1865. The letters feature details of the regiment's movements, accounts of military engagements, and descriptions of the daily life of soldiers and their views of the war. Forty-six of the letters are also made available in transcription.
  • Civil War Washington, D.C. ~ Horatio Nelson Taft ~ Diary ~ 1861-1865
    The collection presents three manuscript volumes, totaling 1,240 digital images, that document daily life in Washington, D. C., through the eyes of Horatio Nelson Taft (1806-1888), an examiner for the U. S. Patent Office. The diary details events in Washington during the Civil War years including Taft's connection with Abraham Lincoln and his family. Of special interest is Taft's description of Lincoln's assassination, based on the accounts of his friends and his son, who was one of the attending physicians at Ford's Theatre the night Lincoln was shot, on April 14, 1865.
  • Civil War ~ Brady Studio and Others ~ Photographs ~ 1861-1865
    The Selected Civil War Photographs Collection contains 1,118 photographs. Most of the images were made under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady, and include scenes of military personnel, preparations for battle, and battle after-effects. The collection also includes portraits of both Confederate and Union officers, and a selection of enlisted men. The collection is held by the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
  • Coca-Cola Advertising ~ Films ~ 1951-1999
    This collection presents a variety of television advertisements, never-broadcast outtakes, and experimental footage reflecting the historical development of television advertising for a major commercial product.
  • Conservation Movement ~ Multiformat ~ 1850-1920
    The collection documents the historical formation and cultural foundations of the movement to conserve and protect America's natural heritage. It consists of 60 books and pamphlets, 140 Federal statutes and Congressional resolutions, 34 additional legislative documents, excerpts from the Congressional Globe and the Congressional Record, 360 Presidential proclamations, 170 prints and photographs, 2 historic manuscripts, and a two-part motion picture.
  • Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention ~ Documents ~ 1774-1789
    The Continental Congress Broadside Collection (253 titles) and the Constitutional Convention Broadside Collection (21 titles) contain 274 documents relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Items include extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and early printed versions of the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Most broadsides are one page in length, others range up to 28 pages. Most of the broadsides are held by the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
  • Coolidge Era ~ Multiformat ~ 1924-1929
    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.
  • Copland, Aaron ~ Multiformat ~ 1900-1990
    The multiformat Aaron Copland Collection, from which the online collection derives, includes approximately 400,000 items documenting the multifaceted life of an extraordinary person who was composer, performer, teacher, writer, conductor, commentator, and administrator. It comprises both manuscript and printed music, personal and business correspondence, diaries, writings, scrapbooks, programs, newspaper and magazine clippings, photographs, awards, books, sound recordings, and motion pictures. The first release of the online collection contains approximately 1,000 items that yield a total of about 5,000 images. These items date from 1899 to 1981, with most from the 1920s through the 1950s, and were selected from Copland's music sketches, correspondence, writings, and photographs.
  • Curtis, Edward ~ North American Indian Photographs ~ Ca. 1900
    The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis is one of the most significant and controversial representations of traditional American Indian culture ever produced. Issued in a limited edition from 1907-30, the publication continues to exert a major influence on the image of Indians in popular culture. Curtis said he wanted to document "the old time Indian, his dress, his ceremonies, his life and manners." In over 2000 photogravure plates and narrative, Curtis portrayed the traditional customs and lifeways of eighty Indian tribes. Featured here are all the published photogravure images including over 1500 illustrations bound in the twenty text volumes, along with over 700 portfolio plates.
  • Daguerreotype Photographs ~ 1839-1864
    The Library's daguerreotype collection consists of approximately 600 photographs dating from 1839 to 1864. Portrait daguerreotypes produced by the Mathew Brady studio make up the major portion of the collection. The collection also includes early architectural views by John Plumbe, a few outdoor scenes, and copies of painted portraits. The Prints and Photographs Division holds the collection.
  • Dance Manuals ~ Books ~ 1490-1920
    A collection of over two hundred social dance manuals at the Library of Congress published from ca. 1490 to 1929. Along with dance instruction manuals, this online presentation also includes a significant number of antidance manuals, histories, treatises on etiquette, and items from other conceptual categories. Many of the manuals also provide historical information on theatrical dance.
  • Depression Era to World War II ~ FSA/OWI ~ Photographs ~ 1935-1945
    The images in the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection are among the most famous documentary photographs ever produced. Created by a group of U.S. government photographers, the images show Americans in every part of the nation. In the early years, the project emphasized rural life and the negative impact of the Great Depression, farm mechanization, and the Dust Bowl. In later years, the photographers turned their attention to the mobilization effort for World War II. This release provides access to over 55,000 black-and-white images from the collection, as well as 1600 color photographs taken during the latter days of the project.
  • Diplomacy and Foreign Service ~ Oral History Interview Transcripts ~ 1940-1990
    Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training presents a window into the lives of American diplomats. Transcripts of interviews with U.S. diplomatic personnel capture their experiences, motivations, critiques, personal analyses, and private thoughts.
  • Douglass, Frederick ~ Papers ~ 1841-1964
    The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his own freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The papers span the years 1841 to 1964, with the bulk of the material from 1862 to 1895. The printed Speech, Article, and Book Series contains the writings of Douglass and contemporaries in the abolitionist and early women's rights movements.The Subject File Series reveals Douglass's interest in diverse subjects such as politics, emancipation, racial prejudice, women's suffrage, and prison reform. Scrapbooks document Douglass's role as minister to Haiti and the controversy surrounding his interracial second marriage.
  • Edison Companies ~ Film and Sound Recordings
    This site features 341 motion pictures, 81 disc sound recordings, and other related materials, such as photographs and original magazine articles. Cylinder sound recordings will be added to this site in the near future. In addition, histories are given of Edison's involvement with motion pictures and sound recordings, as well as a special page focusing on the life of the great inventor.
  • Environment, Natural ~ Photographs ~ 1891-1936
    The collection consists of 4,500 photographs documenting natural environments, ecologies, and plant communities in the United States at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Produced between 1891 and 1936, these photographs provide an overview of important representative natural landscapes across the nation. They demonstrate the character of a wide range of American topography, its forestation, aridity, shifting coastal dune complexes, and watercourses. Among the natural features these images document are ecological settings such as dunes, bogs, forests, and deserts; individual plants from the Ponderosa pine and birch to grasses and mosses; landscape features like the Grand Canyon, Lake Superior, and the Sierra Nevada; and the consequences of natural and human changes to the environment ranging from erosion and floods to irrigation and lumbering.
  • Factories, Westinghouse ~ Films ~ 1904
    The collection contains 21 actuality films showing various views of Westinghouse factories in 1904. Most prominently featured are the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, and the Westinghouse Machine Company. The films were intended to showcase the company's operations. Exterior and interior shots of the factories are shown along with scenes of male and female workers performing their duties at the plants.
  • Federal Theatre Project ~ Multiformat ~ 1935-1939
    Includes over 3,000 images of items selected from the Federal Theatre Project Collection at the Library of Congress. Featured are stage and costume designs, still photographs, posters, and scripts.
  • Film, Animated ~ 1900-1921
    The development of early American animation is represented by this collection of 21 animated films and 2 fragments, which spans the years 1900 to 1921. The films include clay, puppet, and cut-out animation, as well as pen drawings.
  • Fine, Irving ~ Multiformat ~ 1914-1962
    This first online release presents a selection of 57 photographs, a sketchbook that includes sketches for the woodwind Partita and a string quartet, a manuscript score for the String Quartet (1952), a recorded performance of the Quartet, and the finding aid for the collection.
  • Florida Everglades Environmental History ~ Multiformat ~ 1884-1934
    Reclaiming the Everglades represents all or part of sixteen 'physical' collections housed in the archives and special collections of University of Miami, Florida International University and the Historical Museum of Southern Florida. This online compilation includes a rich diversity of unique or rare materials: personal correspondence, essays, typescripts, reports and memos; photographs, maps and postcards; and publications from individuals and the government.
  • Flutes ~ Dayton C. Miller ~ Multiformat
    The Dayton C. Miller Collection is comprised of nearly 1,700 flutes and other instruments, statuary, iconography, books, music, tutors, patents, and other materials mostly related to the flute. The Miller Collection contains Western and non-Western examples from all over the world, and at least 460 European and American instrument makes are represented.
  • Folk Culture and Natural Environment, West Virginia ~ Multiformat ~ 1992-1999
    The collection incorporates 718 excerpts from original sound recordings, 1,256 photographs, and 10 manuscripts from the American Folklife Center's Coal River Folklife Project (1992-99) documenting traditional uses of the mountains in Southern West Virginia's Big Coal River Valley. Functioning as a de facto commons, the mountains have supported a way of life that for many generations has entailed hunting, gathering, and subsistence gardening, as well as coal mining and timbering. The online collection includes extensive interviews on native forest species and the seasonal round of traditional harvesting (including spring greens; summer berries and fish; and fall nuts, roots such as ginseng, fruits, and game) and documents community cultural events such as storytelling, baptisms in the river, cemetery customs, and the spring "ramp" feasts using the wild leek native to the region. Interpretive texts outline the social, historical, economic, environmental, and cultural contexts of community life, while a series of maps and a diagram depicting the seasonal round of community activities provide special access to collection materials.
  • Folk Culture, Florida ~ Multiformat ~ 1937-1942
    Florida Folklife is a multiformat ethnographic field collection documenting African-American, Arabic, Bahamian, British-American, Cuban, Greek, Italian, Minorcan, Seminole, and Slavic cultures throughout Florida. It features folksongs and folktales in many languages, including blues and work songs from menhaden fishing boats, railroad gangs, and turpentine camps; children's songs, dance music, and religious music of many cultures; and interviews, also known as "life histories."
  • Folk Fiddle Music, Southern Appalachian ~ Henry Reed ~ Multiformat ~ 1966-1967
    This is a multi-format ethnographic field collection of traditional fiddle tunes performed by Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia. Recorded by folklorist Alan Jabbour in 1966-67, when Reed was over eighty years old, the tunes represent the music and evoke the history and spirit of Virginia's Appalachian frontier. Many of the tunes have passed back into circulation during the fiddling revival of the later twentieth century. This online collection incorporates 184 original sound recordings, 19 pages of fieldnotes, and 69 musical transcriptions with descriptive notes on tune histories and musical features; an illustrated essay about Reed's life, art, and influence; a list of related publications; and a glossary of musical terms.
  • Folk Music, California ~ Sidney Robertson Cowell ~ Multiformat ~ 1930s
    The WPA California Folk Music Project is a multi-format ethnographic field collection that includes sound recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents from a variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities in Northern California. The collection comprises 35 hours of folk music recorded in twelve languages representing numerous ethnic groups and 185 musicians.
  • Folk Music, Dust Bowl ~ Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin ~ Multiformat ~ 1940-1941
    The collection is an online presentation of a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941. This collection consists of audio recordings, photographs, manuscript materials, publications, and ephemera generated during two separate documentation trips supported by the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center).
  • Folk Music, Ohio and Erie Canal ~ Captain Pearl R. Nye ~ Songs ~ 1937-1944
    Captain Pearl R. Nye: Life on the Ohio and Erie Canal captures the culture and music of the men, women, and children who worked and lived along the Ohio and Erie Canal. Nye, who was born and raised on a canal boat, never lost his love of the "Big Ditch." After the canal closed permanently in 1913, he devoted considerable time and energy to preserving its songs and stories. This presentation contains recordings of 75 songs, sung by Nye. The recordings were made by John, Alan, and Elizabeth Lomax, and Ivan Walton between June 1937 and September 1938. Lyrics for the recorded songs have been transcribed by Library staff and are available on the Web site as are song transcriptions, photographs, and personal letters Nye sent to the Library from July 1937 to October 1944.
  • Folk Music, Southern U.S. ~ John Lomax and Ruby Lomax ~ Multiformat ~ 1939
    A multi-format ethnographic field collection that includes approximately 700 sound recordings, as well as photographic prints, fieldnotes, dust jackets, and other manuscripts documenting a three-month, 6,502-mile trip through the southern United States collecting folksongs. John Avery Lomax and his wife, Ruby Terrill Lomax, recorded approximately 25 hours of music from more than 332 performers. These recordings represent a broad spectrum of musical styles, including ballads, blues, children's songs, cowboy songs, fiddle tunes, field hollers, lullabies, play-party songs, religious dramas, spirituals, and work songs.
  • Great Plains ~ Photographs ~ 1880-1920
    These two collections from the Institute for Regional Studies at North Dakota State University contain photographs of rural and small town life at the turn of the century. Highlights include images of sod homes and the people who built them; images of farms and the machinery that made them prosper; and images of one-room schools and the children that were educated in them. The Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection consists of some 550 images documenting the settlement of the northern Great Plains, particularly northeastern North Dakota. The F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collection includes some 119 images taken by him in the early twentieth century on the family farm near Fullerton, in southeastern North Dakota.
  • Guthrie, Woody ~ Correspondence ~ 1940-1950
    This collection highlights letters between Woody Guthrie and staff of the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center) at the Library of Congress. The letters were written primarily in the early 1940s, shortly after Guthrie had moved to New York City and met the Archive's assistant in charge, Alan Lomax. Guthrie's written and, occasionally, illustrated reflections on his past, his art, his life in New York City, and the looming Second World War provide unique insight into the artist best-known for his role as "Dust Bowl balladeer."
  • Haymarket Affair ~ Multiformat ~ 1886-1887
    This collection showcases more than 3,800 images of original manuscripts, broadsides, photographs, prints and artifacts relating to the Haymarket Affair. The violent confrontation between Chicago police and labor protesters in 1886 proved to be a pivotal setback in the struggle for American workers' rights. These materials pertain to: the May 4, 1886 meeting and bombing; to the trial, conviction and subsequent appeals of those accused of inciting the bombing; and to the execution of four of the convicted and the later pardon of the remaining defendants.
  • Hispanic Music, Rio Grande ~ Juan Bautista Rael ~ Multiformat ~ 1940s
    A presentation of a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents of rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. In 1940, Juan Bautista Rael of Stanford University, a native of Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico, used disc recording equipment supplied by the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklife Center) to document alabados (hymns), folk drama, wedding songs, and dance tunes. In addition to these recordings, the collection includes manuscript materials and publications by Rael which provide insight into the rich musical heritage and cultural traditions of this region.
  • Hurston, Zora Neale ~ Plays ~ 1925-1944
    This collection contains a selection of ten plays written by Hurston (1891-1960), author, anthropologist, and folklorist. Deposited in the United States Copyright Office between 1925 and 1944, most of the plays remained unpublished and unproduced until they were rediscovered in the Copyright Deposit Drama Collection in 1997. The plays reflect Hurston's life experience, travels, and research, especially her study of folklore in the African-American South.
  • Jazz ~ William P. Gottlieb ~ Photographs ~ 1938-1948
    The William P. Gottlieb Collection, comprising over sixteen hundred photographs of celebrated jazz artists, documents the jazz scene from 1938 to 1948 in New York City and Washington, D.C. During the course of his career, Gottlieb took portraits of prominent jazz musicians and personalities, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines, Thelonious Monk, Stan Kenton, Ray McKinley, Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald, and Benny Carter. This online collection presents Gottlieb's photographs, annotated contact prints, selected published prints, and related articles from Down Beat magazine.
  • Jefferson, Thomas ~ Papers ~ 1606-1827
    The complete Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 27,000 documents ranging in date from 1606 to 1827. Correspondence, memoranda, notes, and drafts of documents make up two-thirds of the Papers. Jefferson's two administrations as president from 1801 to 1809 are well-documented, as are his activities as a delegate to the second Continental Congress, his drafting of the Declaration of Independence in June-July 1776, his service as governor of Virginia, 1779-81, his return to Congress as a representative, 1783-84, and his appointment as minister plenipotentiary in Europe and then minister to the Court of Louis XVI, 1784-89. Correspondence, drawings, maps, and notes document the building of Washington, D.C. Some of Jefferson's legal and literary commonplace books, miscellaneous bound volumes of notes and extracts, and manuscript volumes relating to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Virginia history were part of the personal library he sold to Congress in 1815 and are included in this collection.
  • Landscape and Architectural Design ~ Multiformat ~ 1850-1920
    This collection of approximately 2,800 lantern slides represents an historical view of American buildings and landscapes built during the period 1850-1920. It represents the work of Harvard faculty, such as Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., Bremer W. Pond, and James Sturgis Pray, as well as that of prominent landscape architects throughout the country. The collection offers views of cities, specific buildings, parks, estates and gardens. In addition to photographs, views of locations around the country include plans, maps, and models. Hundreds of private estates from all over the United States are represented in the collection through contemporary views of their houses and gardens (including features such as formal gardens, terraces, and arbors).
  • Liberia ~ Maps ~ 1830-1870
    This collection of Liberia maps includes twenty examples from the American Colonization Society (ACS), organized in 1817 to resettle free black Americans in West Africa. These maps show early settlements in Liberia, indigenous political subdivisions, and some of the building lots that were assigned to settlers. This on-line presentation also includes other nineteenth-century maps of Liberia.
  • Library of Congress ~ 1939-1953
    Freedom's Fortress: The Library of Congress, 1939-1953 presents a window into the history of the Library of Congress during a particularly important period. From 1939 to 1953 the Library underwent a myriad of changes that established the institution as one of America's foremost citadels of intellectual freedom.
  • Life Histories, Federal Writers' Project ~ Manuscripts ~ 1936-1940
    These life histories were written by staff of the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers' Project for the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA) from 1936-1940. The Library of Congress Manuscript Division collection includes 2,900 documents representing the work of over 300 writers from 24 states.
  • Lincoln, Abraham ~ Multiformat ~ 1824-1931
    Alfred Whital Stern (1881-1960) of Chicago presented his outstanding collection of Lincolniana to the Library of Congress in 1953. Begun by Mr. Stern in the 1920s, the collection documents the life of Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) both through writings by and about Lincoln as well as a large body of publications concerning the issues of the times including slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and related topics. The collection contains more than 11,100 items. This online release presents more than 1,300 items with more than 4,000 images and a date range of 1824-1931. It includes the complete collection of Stern's contemporary newspapers, Lincoln's law papers, sheet music, broadsides, prints, cartoons, maps, drawings, letters, campaign tickets, and other ephemeral items. The books and pamphlets in this collection are scheduled for digitization at a later date.
  • Lincoln, Abraham ~ Multiformat ~ 1850-1909
    Mr. Lincoln's Virtual Library highlights two collections at the Library of Congress that illuminate the life of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States: the Abraham Lincoln Papers, containing approximately 20,000 items from the Manuscript Division; and the "We'll Sing to Abe Our Song!" online collection, containing more than two hundred sheet music compositions that represent Lincoln and the Civil War in popular music, from the Alfred Whital Stern Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
  • Lincoln, Abraham ~ Papers ~ ca. 1850-1865
    The complete Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress consist of approximately 20,000 documents which include incoming and outgoing correspondence and enclosures, drafts of speeches, and notes and printed material. Most of the items are from the 1850s through Lincoln's presidential years, 1860-65. Treasures include Lincoln's draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, his March 4, 1865, draft of his second Inaugural Address, and his August 23, 1864, memorandum expressing his expectation of being defeated for re-election in the upcoming presidential contest. The Lincoln Papers are characterized by a large number of correspondents, including friends and associates from Lincoln's Springfield days, well-known political figures and reformers, and local people and organizations writing to their president.The online version of the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress offers access to the complete collection from the Library's Manuscript Division. This consists of approximately 20,000 items (61,000 pages) organized into three General Correspondence Series in the Lincoln Papers itself, and an additional three hundred Lincoln letters in other collections in the Manuscript Division. Most of the items are from the 1850s through Lincoln's presidential years, 1860-65.
  • Louisiana Purchase ~ Maps ~ 1572-1902
    The Louisiana Purchase is a landmark event in American history, one that had a lasting impact not only on the size of the United States, but also on its economic, cultural, and political makeup. This presentation focuses on the various documents�from maps to newspapers to cultural artifact�that help to describe the region of North America that stretched from as far east as Alabama into what is now the state of Montana.
  • Madison, James ~ Papers ~ 1723-1836
    The James Madison Papers from the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consist of approximately 12,000 items captured in some 72,000 digital images. They document the life of the man who came to be known as the "Father of the Constitution" through correspondence, personal notes, drafts of letters and legislation, an autobiography, legal and financial documents, and miscellaneous manuscripts.
  • Manuscript Division ~ Selected Highlights
    In honor of the Manuscript Division's centennial, its staff has selected for online display approximately ninety representative documents spanning from the fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Included are the papers of presidents, cabinet ministers, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, military officers and diplomats, reformers and political activists, artists and writers, scientists and inventors, and other prominent Americans whose lives reflect our country's evolution.
  • Maps and Cartographic Items ~ 1500-Present
    The focus of Map Collections is Americana and Cartographic Treasures of the Library of Congress. These images were created from maps and atlases selected from the collections of the Geography and Map Division.
  • Maritime Westward Expansion ~ Multiformat ~ 1820-1890
    This selection of items from Mystic Seaport Museum's archival collections includes logbooks, diaries, letters, business papers, and published narratives of voyages and travels. The unique maritime perspective of these materials offers a rich look at the events, culture, beliefs, and personal experiences associated with the settlement of California, Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest. A number of photographs, paintings, maps, and nautical charts are also included to illustrate the story of Americans' western seaborne travel. Various themes are touched upon, including whaling, life at sea, shipping, women at sea, and native populations.
  • McKinley, William, and Pan-American Exposition ~ Films ~ 1901
    The twenty-eight films of this collection include footage of President William McKinley at his second inauguration; of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York; of President McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition; and of President McKinley's funeral. The films were produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company from March to November 1901.
  • Moldenhauer Archives ~ Musical Documents ~ 1000-1987
    The Moldenhauer Archives at the Library of Congress contain approximately 3,500 items documenting the history of Western music from the medieval period through the modern era and is the richest composite gift of musical documents ever received by the Library. This online presentation includes representative examples of more than 130 items from the Archives including many complete works and, as a special presentation, an electronic version of the book's text, which is intended to replace the printed edition. In addition, the book's inventory of the Archives appears as a finding aid.
  • Morse, Samuel F. B. ~ Papers ~ 1793-1919
    The collection comprises about 6,500 items, or approximately 50,000 images, that document Morse's invention of the electromagnetic telegraph, his participation in the development of telegraph systems in the United States and abroad, his career as a painter, his family life, his travels, and his interest in early photography, religion, and the nativist movement. Included in the collection are correspondence, letterbooks, diaries, scrapbooks, printed matter, maps, drawings, and other miscellaneous materials.
  • National Parks ~ Maps
    The National Parks Map collection consists of approximately 200 maps dating from the 17th century to present, reflecting early mapping of the areas that would become four National Parks as well as the parks themselves. It documents the historical, cultural and geological formation of the areas that eventually became the National Parks.
  • Native American Culture, Pacific Northwest ~ Multiformat
    This collection integrates over 2,300 photographs and 7,700 pages of text relating to the American Indians in two cultural areas of the Pacific Northwest, the Northwest Coast and Plateau. These resources illustrate many aspects of life and work, including housing, clothing, crafts, transportation, education, and employment.
  • New York City ~ Films ~ 1898-1906
    This collection contains forty-five films of New York City dating from 1898 to 1906 from the Paper Print Collection of the Library of Congress. Of these, twenty-five were made by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, while the remaining twenty are Edison Company productions.
  • Nineteenth-Century Books ~ 1850-1877
    The books in this collection are nineteenth century American imprints, dating mainly from between 1850 and 1880. They have been digitized by the University of Michigan as part of the Making of America project, a major collaborative endeavor to preserve and provide access to historical texts. Currently, approximately 1,500 books are included. The collection is particularly strong in poetry and in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.
  • Nineteenth-Century Periodicals ~ 1815-1900
    This collection comprises periodicals published in the United States during the nineteenth century, primarily during the second half of the century. The materials selected illuminate the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The first release of this collection presents Garden and Forest: A Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art, and Forestry (1888-1897).
  • Occupational Folklore, Paterson, N.J. ~ Multimedia ~ 1994
    This collection features interview excerpts and photographs from the Working in Paterson Folklife Project of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The four-month study of occupational culture in Paterson, New Jersey, was conducted in 1994. Founded in the 1790s by Alexander Hamilton and the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (S.U.M.), Paterson harnessed the power of the Great Falls on the Passaic River to become the largest silk manufacturing center in North America, as well as a leader in other types of manufacturing, from railroads to rifles. The documentary materials presented in this online collection explore how this industrial heritage expresses itself in Paterson today: in its work sites, work processes, and memories of workers. The online presentation also includes interpretive essays exploring such topics as work in the African-American community, a distinctive food tradition (the Hot Texas Wiener), the ethnography of a single work place (Watson Machine International), business life along a single street in Paterson (21st Avenue), and narratives told by retired workers.
  • Ohio River Valley ~ Multiformat ~ 1750-1820
    This collection assembles rare books, pamphlets, newspapers, maps, prints, and manuscripts collected by Reuben T. Durrett and by the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky, which he founded in 1884 and named after John Filson, author of The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke (1784), a promotional tract recognized as the first history of the state. Collectively these items allow a textual and visual journey through the Ohio River Valley from 1750 to 1820, providing insights into a society in transition on the frontier.
  • Omaha Indian Music ~ Multiformat
    Omaha Indian Music features traditional Omaha music from the 1890s and 1980s. The multi format ethnographic field collection contains 44 wax cylinder recordings collected between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1985 Hethu'shka Society concert at the Library of Congress. Segments from interviews with members of the Omaha tribe conducted in 1983 and 1999 provide contextual information for the songs and speeches. Supplementing the collection are black-and-white and color photographs taken during the 1983 pow-wow and the 1985 concert.
  • Panoramic Maps ~ 1847-1929
    Panoramic maps are idealized schematic views of American towns and cities produced during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although not generally drawn to scale, they show street patterns, individual buildings, and major landscape features in perspective. The maps in this collection are held by the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division.
  • Panoramic Photographs ~ 1851-1991
    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.
  • Pearl Harbor and Public Reactions ~ Audio Interviews ~ 1941-1942
    This collection contains twelve hours of opinions recorded following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from over two hundred individuals across the United States.
  • Portraits of Creative Americans ~ Carl Van Vechten ~ Photographs ~ 1932-1964
    Almost 1400 photographs, primarily studio portraits of people involved in the arts, including musicians; dancers; artists; literati; theatrical, film, and television actors and actresses. Includes black entertainers, particularly those associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Most are individual portraits, but also includes some group portraits. Sitters represented in ten or more photos are: Judith Anderson, Tallulah Bankhead, Anton Dolin, Ram Gopal, Hugh Laing, Alicia Markova, and Ethel Waters. A much smaller portion of the collection is an assortment of American landscapes.
  • Posters, WPA ~ 1936-1943
    The collection consists of 908 boldly colored and graphically diverse original posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of the New Deal. These striking silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters were designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. The posters were made possible by one of the first U.S. Government programs to support the arts.
  • Prairie Settlement, Nebraska ~ Photographs and Letters ~ 1862-1912
    This collection integrates two collections from the holdings of the Nebraska State Historical Society. Approximately 3,000 glass plate negatives crafted by Solomon D. Butcher record the process of settlement of Nebraska between 1886 and 1912. Approximately 3,000 pages of Oblinger family letters discuss land, work, neighbors, crops, religious meetings, problems with grasshoppers, financial problems, and the Easter Blizzard of 1873. In the eloquent letters exchanged between Uriah and his wife Mattie, and in letters to other family members, Oblinger expresses very personal insight into the joy, despair, and determination in their struggle to establish a home on the prairie.
  • Presidential Inaugurations ~ Multiformat ~ 1789-2001
    The collection brings together approximately 400 items or 2,000 digital files from each of the 63 inaugurations from George Washington's in 1789 to George W. Bush's in 2001. This presentation includes diaries and letters of presidents and of those who witnessed inaugurations, handwritten drafts of inaugural addresses, broadsides, inaugural tickets and programs, prints, photographs, and sheet music. The collection has been organized chronologically by presidential inauguration and an effort has been made to offer a balanced number of items for each inaugural event.
  • Presidents and First Ladies ~ Portraits
    A collection of 156 portraits of presidents and first ladies from those items in the Prints and Photographs Division's file of popular demand images. The selected images include at least one likeness of each of the forty-one presidents and most of the first ladies.
  • Puerto Rico Books and Pamphlets ~ 1831-1929
    This collection portrays the early history of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico through first-person accounts, political writings, and histories. Among the topics it highlights are the land and its resources, relations with Spain, the competition among political parties, reform efforts, and recollections by veterans of the Spanish-American War. The materials in the collection were published between 1831 and 1929 and consist of 39 political pamphlets, 18 monographs, and 1 journal.
  • Quilts and Quiltmaking ~ Multiformat ~ 1978-1996
    The collection showcases materials from the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project Collection (1978) and the Lands' End All-American Quilt Contest Collection (1992, 1994, 1996). Together these provide a glimpse into America's diverse quilting traditions. The Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project, an ethnographic field project conducted by the American Folklife Center in cooperation with the National Park Service, includes 229 photographs and 181 recorded interviews with six quiltmakers in Appalachian North Carolina and Virginia. These materials document quilts and quilting within the context of daily life and reflect a range of backgrounds, motivations, and aesthetic sensibilities. The Lands' End All-American Quilt Contest collection includes images of approximately 180 winning quilts from across the United States. The collection represents a wide range of quiltmaking, from highly traditional to innovative, and the quilts pictured exhibit excellent design and technical skill in a variety of styles and materials.
  • Railroads ~ Maps ~ 1828-1900
    Railroad maps represent an important historical record, illustrating the growth of travel and settlement as well as the development of industry and agriculture in the United States. They depict the development of cartographic style and technique as well as highlighting the achievement of early railroaders. Included in the collection are progress report surveys for individual lines, official government surveys, promotional maps, maps showing land grants and rights-of-way, and route guides published by commercial firms. All of the items presented here are documented in Railroad Maps of the United States, compiled by Andrew M. Modelski in 1975, an annotated bibliography of 623 maps held by the Geography and Map Division. Additional railroad maps from this bibliography will be added throughout 1998.
  • Ranching Culture, Nevada ~ Multiformat ~ 1945-1982
    This collection presents 41 motion pictures and 28 sound recordings that tell the story of life and work on the Ninety-Six Ranch and of its cowboys, known in the region as buckaroos. An archive of 2,400 still photographs portrays the people, sites, and traditions on other ranches and in the larger community of Paradise Valley, home to persons of Anglo-American, Italian, German, Basque, Swiss, Northern Paiute Indian, and Chinese heritage. Motion pictures produced from 1945 to 1965 by Leslie Stewart, owner of the Ninety-Six Ranch, are also included. Background texts provide historical and cultural context for this distinctive Northern Nevada ranching community.
  • Religious Petitions, Virginia ~ 1764-1802
    The collection presents images of 423 petitions submitted to the Virginia legislature between 1774 and 1802 from more than eighty counties and cities. The petitions concern such topics as the historic debate over the separation of church and state championed by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, the rights of dissenters such as Quakers and Baptists, the sale and division of property in the established church, and the dissolution of unpopular vestries. The collection provides searchable access to the petitions' places of origin and a brief summary of each petition's contents, as well as summaries of an additional seventy-four petitions that are no longer extant.
  • Revolutionary Era ~ Maps ~ 1750-1789
    The maps and charts in this collection number well over two thousand different items, with easily as many or more unnumbered duplicates, many with distinct colorations and annotations. Almost six hundred maps are original manuscript drawings.
  • Revolutionary Era ~ Rochambeau Maps ~ 1717-1795
    The Rochambeau Map Collection contains cartographic items used by Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807), when he was commander in chief of the French expeditionary army (1780-82) during the American Revolution. The collection consists of 40 manuscript and 26 printed maps, and a manuscript atlas, the originals of which are in the Library of Congress' Geography and Map Division.
  • Roosevelt, Theodore ~ Films ~ 1898-1919
    Theodore Roosevelt was the first U.S. president to have his career and life chronicled on a large scale by motion picture companies. This presentation features 104 films which record events in Roosevelt's life from the Spanish-American War in 1898 to his death in 1919. Besides containing scenes of Roosevelt, these films include views of world figures, politicians, monarchs, and friends and family members of Roosevelt who influenced his life and the era in which he lived. Four sound recordings made by Roosevelt for the Edison Company in 1912 in which he states his progressive political views are also included.
  • San Francisco and 1906 Earthquake ~ Films ~ 1897-1916
    This collection consists of twenty-six films of San Francisco from before and after the Great Earthquake and Fire. Seventeen of the films depict San Francisco and its environs before the 1906 disaster. Seven films describe the great earthquake and fire. The two later films include a 1915 travelogue that shows scenes of the rebuilt city and a tour of the Panama Pacific Exposition and a 1916 propaganda film.
  • September 11, 2001, and Public Reactions ~ Multiformat ~ 2001-2002
    The September 11, 2001, Documentary Project captures the heartfelt reactions, eyewitness accounts, and diverse opinions of Americans and others in the months that followed the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93. Patriotism and unity mixed with sadness, anger, and insecurity are common themes expressed in the sound and video recordings, written narratives, poetry, photographs, and drawings that comprise this online presentation.
  • Sheet Music ~ 1820-1860 & 1870-1885
    The collection consists of over 62,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the nineteenth century. Included are popular songs, operatic arias, piano music, sacred music and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra.
  • Sheet Music ~ 1850-1920
    The collection includes 3042 pieces of sheet music published in America between 1850 and 1920. It presents a wide variety of types of vocal music: bel canto, minstrel songs, protest songs, sentimental songs, patriotic and political songs, plantation songs, Civil War songs, spirituals, dance music, songs from vaudeville and musicals, "Tin pan alley" songs, and songs from World War I. Also included are piano music of marches, variations, opera excerpts, and dance music. Illustrations provide an important, and in some cases almost unique, source of information for popular contemporary ideas on politics, patriotism, race, religion, love, and sentiment.
  • Slave Narratives ~ Audio Interviews ~ 1932-1975
    These interviews, conducted between 1932 and 1975, capture the recollections of twenty-three identifiable people born between 1823 and the early 1860s and known to have been former slaves. The almost seven hours of recordings were made in nine Southern states and provide an important glimpse of what life was like for slaves and freedmen.
  • Slave Narratives, Federal Writers' Project ~ Multiformat ~ 1936-1938
    The collection contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves.
  • Slavery and Law ~ Documents ~ 1740-1860
    Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860, contains just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States. The documents, most from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance.
  • Small Town Life, Mid-Atlantic ~ Stereoscopic Photographs ~ 1850-1920
    12,000 photographs of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut from the 1850s to the 1910s, from the Robert N. Dennis Collection of Stereoscopic Views at the New York Public Library. The views show buildings and street scenes in cities, towns, and villages as well as natural landscapes. They also depict agriculture, industry, transportation, homes, businesses, local celebrations, natural disasters, people, and costumes.
  • Song Sheets ~ ca. 1800-1880
    For most of the nineteenth century Americans learned the latest songs from printed song sheets. Not to be confused with sheet music, song sheets are single printed sheets, usually six by eight inches, with lyrics but no music. These were new songs being sung in music halls or new lyrics to familiar songs, like "Yankee Doodle" or "The Last Rose of Summer." Song sheets are an early example of a mass medium and today they offer a unique perspective on the political, social, and economic life of the time, especially during the Civil War. The collection spans the period from the turn of the nineteenth century to the 1880s, although a majority of the song sheets were published during the height of the craze, from the 1850s to the 1870s.
  • Southern Black Churches ~ Texts ~ 1780-1925
    This compilation of printed texts traces how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life. Coverage begins with white churches conversion efforts, especially in the post-Revolutionary period, and depicts the tensions and contradictions between the egalitarian potential of evangelical Christianity and the realities of slavery. It focuses, through slave narratives and observations by other African American authors, on how the black community adapted evangelical Christianity, making it a metaphor for freedom, community, and personal survival.
  • Southern U.S. ~ Personal Narratives ~ 1860-1920
    This compilation of 141 printed texts from the libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill documents the culture of the nineteenth-century American South from the viewpoint of Southerners. It includes the diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives of not only prominent individuals, but also of relatively inaccessible populations: women, African Americans, enlisted men, laborers, and Native Americans.
  • Spanish-American War ~ Films ~ 1898-1901
    Motion pictures of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent Philippine Revolution produced between 1898 and 1901 are featured in this presentation. The complete collection will include 68 motion pictures and a selection of sound recordings related to the war. The Spanish-American War was the first U.S. war in which the motion picture camera played a role. These films were made by the Edison Manufacturing Company and the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company and consist of actualities filmed in the U.S., Cuba, and the Philippines, showing troops, ships, notable figures, and parades, as well as reenactments of battles and other war-time events.
  • Sunday Schools ~ Books ~ 1815-1865
    This collection is a representative selection of 121 American Sunday school books published between 1815 and 1865. The books cover a wide range of subjects deemed particularly useful and important for socializing early nineteenth century youth, including history, holidays, slavery, African Americans, Native Americans, travel and missionary accounts, death and dying, poverty, temperance, immigrants, and advice.
  • Texas Border ~ Photographs ~ 1900-1920
    The Robert Runyon Photograph Collection of the South Texas Border Area, a collection of over 8,000 items, is a unique visual resource documenting the Lower Rio Grande Valley during the early 1900s. It includes glass negatives, lantern slides, nitrate negatives, prints, and postcards, representing the life's work of commercial photographer Robert Runyon (1881-1968), a longtime resident of South Texas. His photographs document the history and development of South Texas and the border, including the Mexican Revolution, the U.S. military presence at Fort Brown and along the border prior to and during World War I, and the growth and development of the Rio Grande Valley.
  • Transportation, Global ~ Photographs ~ 1894-1896
    The World's Transportation Commission Photograph Collection contains nearly nine hundred images by American photographer William Henry Jackson. In addition to railroads, elephants, camels, horses, sleds and sleighs, sedan chairs, rickshaws, and other types of transportation, Jackson photographed city views, street and harbor scenes, landscapes, local inhabitants, and Commission members as they travelled through North Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania. The collection is held by the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
  • Traveling in America ~ Books ~ ca. 1750-1920
    This collection comprises 253 published narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920. Also included is the thirty-two-volume set of manuscript sources entitled Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, published between 1904 and 1907 after diligent compilation by the distinguished historian and secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society, Reuben Gold Thwaites. The collection includes works by major literary figures such as James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Robert Louis Stevenson, as well as undiscovered gems from authors not widely known. Together, they build a mosaic portrait of a young nation.
  • Turn-of-the-Century America ~ Detroit Publishing Company ~ Photographs ~ 1880-1920
    This collection of photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection includes over 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies as well as about 300 color photolithograph prints, mostly of the eastern United States. The collection includes the work of a number of photographers, one of whom was the well known photographer William Henry Jackson. A small group within the larger collection includes about 900 mammoth plate photographs taken by William Henry Jackson along several railroad lines in the United States and Mexico in the 1880s and 1890s. The group also includes views of California, Wyoming and the Canadian Rockies. The collection is housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.
  • U.S. Congress ~ Documents ~ 1774-1875
    Beginning with the Continental Congress in 1774, America's national legislative bodies have kept records of their proceedings. The records of the Continental Congress, the Constitutional Convention, and the United States Congress comprise a rich documentary history of the construction of the nation, the development of the federal government, and its role in national life. In its final form the collection will consist of a linked set of published congressional records of the United States of America from the Continental Congress through the Forty-third Congress.
  • Upper Midwest ~ Books ~ ca. 1820-1910
    The collection portrays the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries through first-person accounts, biographies, promotional literature, local histories, ethnographic, antiquarian, and colonial archival documents, and other texts drawn from the Library of Congress's General Collections and Rare Books and Special Collections Division. The collection's 138 volumes depict the land and its resources; the conflicts between settlers and Native peoples; the experience of pioneers and missionaries, soldiers and immigrants and reformers; the growth of local communities and local cultural traditions; and the development of regional and national leadership in agriculture, business, medicine, politics, religion, law, journalism, education, and the role of women.
  • Utah and Western Migration ~ Multiformat ~ 1846-1869
    The collection tells the stories of Mormon pioneer families and others who were part of the national westering movement, sharing trail experiences common to hundreds of thousands of westward migrants.
  • Variety Stage ~ Multiformat ~ 1870-1920
    A multimedia anthology selected from various Library of Congress holdings. This collection illustrates the vibrant and diverse forms of popular entertainment, especially vaudeville, that thrived from 1870-1920. Included are 334 English- and Yiddish-language playscripts, 146 theater playbills and programs, 61 motion pictures, 10 sound recordings and 143 photographs and 29 memorabilia items documenting the life and career of Harry Houdini.
  • Washington, D.C. ~ Theodor Horydczak ~ Photographs ~ 1923-1959
    Spanning from the mid 1920s through the 1950s, the Theodor Horydczak collection documents the architecture and social life of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, including exteriors and interiors of commercial, residential, and government buildings, as well as street scenes and views of neighborhoods. A number of Washington events and activities, such as the 1932 Bonus Army encampment, the 1933 World Series, and World War II preparedness campaigns, are also depicted.
  • Washington, George ~ Papers ~ 1741-1799
    The online version of the George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress offers access to the complete collection from the Library's Manuscript Division. This consists of approximately 65,000 items (176,000 pages). Correspondence, letterbooks, commonplace books, diaries and journals, reports, notes, financial account books, and military papers accumulated by George Washington from 1741 through 1799 are organized into 8 Series, which will be published successively.
  • Western U.S. ~ Photographs ~ 1860-1920
    Over 30,000 photographs illuminate many aspects of the history of the American West. They illustrate Colorado towns and landscape, document the place of mining in the history of Colorado and the West, and show the lives of Native Americans from more than forty tribes living west of the Mississippi River. Also included are World War II photographs of the 10th Mountain Division, ski troops based in Colorado who saw action in Italy.
  • Whitman, Walt ~ Notebooks ~ 1850s & 1860s
    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.
  • Woman Suffrage ~ Books and Pamphlets ~ 1848-1921
    The NAWSA Collection consists of 167 books, pamphlets and other artifacts documenting the suffrage campaign. They are a subset of the Library's larger collection donated by Carrie Chapman Catt, longtime president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, in November of 1938. The collection includes works from the libraries of other members and officers of the organization including: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Alice Stone Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Smith Miller, and Mary A. Livermore.
  • Woman Suffrage ~ Photographs and Prints ~ 1850-1920
    A selection of 38 pictures including portraits of many individuals, photographs of suffrage parades, picketing suffragists, and an anti-suffrage display, as well as cartoons commenting on the movement. Selected from the holdings of the Prints and Photographs Division and the Manuscript Division.
  • Woman Suffrage ~ Photographs ~ 1875-1938
    The photographs span from about 1875 to 1938 but largely date between 1913 and 1922. They document the National Woman's Party's push for ratification of the 19th Amendment as well as its later campaign for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. This online presentation is a selection of 448 photographs from the approximately 2,650 photographs in the Records of the National Woman's Party collection, housed in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
  • Woman Suffrage ~ Scrapbooks ~ 1897-1911
    Between 1897 and 1911 Elizabeth Smith Miller and her daughter, Anne Fitzhugh Miller, filled seven large scrapbooks with ephemera and memorabilia related to their work with women's suffrage. The Elizabeth Smith Miller and Anne Fitzhugh Miller scrapbooks are a part of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. These scrapbooks document the activities of the Geneva Political Equality Club, which the Millers founded in 1897, as well as efforts at the state, national, and international levels to win the vote for women. They offer a unique look at the political and social atmosphere of the time as well as chronicle the efforts of two women who were major participants in the suffrage movement.
  • Women's History ~ U.S. ~ Multiformat
    Designed as a first stop for Library of Congress researchers working in the field of American women's history, this site contains an expanded and fully searchable version of an award-winning research guide redesigned for online use, with added illustrations and links to existing and newly digitized material located throughout the Library of Congress Web site. The Research Guide provides practical search tips, detailed collection summaries of the Library's voluminous multiformat holdings, and links to fuller catalog record descriptions and digitized material. The home page also contains links to information on preparing for a Library of Congress research trip; tips on searching for women's history resources in the Library's catalogs and finding aids; an overview on how to find materials relating to women within the Library's American Memory collections; and helpful orientations to women's history sources in the Library's online exhibitions and audiovisual Web broadcasts of lectures, readings, and symposia.
  • Work and Leisure ~ Films ~ 1894-1915
    Work, school, and leisure activities in the United States from 1894 to 1915 are featured in this presentation of motion pictures. Highlights include films of the United States Postal Service from 1903, cattle breeding, fire fighters, ice manufacturing, logging, calisthenic and gymnastic exercises in schools, amusement parks, boxing, expositions, football, parades, swimming, and other sporting events.
  • World War I and 1920 Election ~ Recordings
    The Nation's Forum Collection from the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division consists of fifty-nine sound recordings of speeches by American leaders at the turn of the century. The speeches focus on issues and events surrounding the First World War and the subsequent presidential election of 1920.
  • World War I ~ Military Newspapers ~ 1918-1919
    This collection presents the complete seventy-one-week run of the World War I edition of the newspaper The Stars and Stripes. Published in France by the United States Army from February 8, 1918, to June 13, 1919, the eight-page weekly featured news, poetry, cartoons and sports coverage, with a staff that included journalists Alexander Woollcott, Harold Wallace Ross and Grantland Rice. Written by and for the American soldiers at the war front, the paper offers a unique perspective from which to examine the wartime experience.
  • World War I ~ Rotogravures ~ 1914-1919
    This collection displays the variety and diversity of Sunday pictorial sections published in two prominent U.S. newspapers: the New York Times and New York Tribune. It also includes a book, The War of the Nations: Portfolio in Rotogravure Etchings, with illustrations selected from The New York Times Mid-Week Pictorials. The images in the collection document events of World War I and popular American culture of that era.
  • World War II Maps ~ Military Situation Maps ~ 1944-1945
    The World War II Military Situation Maps contains maps showing troop positions beginning on June 6, 1944 to July 26, 1945. Starting with the D-Day Invasion, the maps give daily details on the military campaigns in Western Europe, showing the progress of the Allied Forces as they push towards Germany. Some of the sheets are accompanied by a declassified "G-3 Report" giving detailed information on troop positions for the period 3 Mar. 1945-26 July 1945. These maps and reports were used by the commanders of the United States forces in their evaluation of the campaigns and for planning future strategies.
  • Wright Brothers ~ Multiformat ~ 1881-1952
    The online presentation, comprising about 10,121 library items or approximately 49,084 digital images, documents the lives of Wilbur and Orville Wright and highlights their pioneering work which led to the world's first powered, controlled and sustained flight. Included in the collection are correspondence, diaries and notebooks, scrapbooks, drawings, printed matter, and other documents, as well as the Wrights' collection of glass-plate photographic negatives. The Wright Brothers' letters to aviation pioneer and mentor Octave Chanute, from the Octave Chanute Papers, were also selected for this online collection. The Wright Papers span the years 1881 to 1952 but largely cover 1900 to 1940. This online presentation includes the famous glass-plate negative of the "First Flight" at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903, as well as diaries and letters in which Wilbur and Orville Wright recount their work that led to that day.