Library of Congress's Blog, page 105

National Tell-a-Joke Day: Listen to the Earliest Recording of One!

This is a guest post by American Folklife Center archivist Kelly Revak. An expanded version appeared in “Folklife Today,” the center’s blog.

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Anthropologist Jesse Walter Fewkes, 1905. Photograph by Harris and Ewing.

Did you know that today is National Tell-a-Joke-Day? Neither did I, until one of my colleagues informed me. But it is timely, because I believe I have found the earliest audio recording of a joke being told. Read on for the full story and listen to the recording. But be forewarned: it’s a political joke!

When I joined the Library’s American Folklife Center as an archivist, one of my first tasks was to catalog ethnographic recordings of Passamaquoddy Indian tradition bearers made in 1890 by Harvard anthropologist Jesse Walter Fewkes (1850–1930). He was the first to use a wax cylinder recording machine, or phonograph, for ethnographic research. He brought one of the machines, invented by Thomas Edison, to Calais, Maine, in March of that year to record songs and stories of two Passamaquoddy tradition bearers. These recordings, as well as Fewkes’s Hopi and Zuni recordings, are fairly well known and were preserved as a part of the Federal Cylinder Project in the 1970s.

Less well known are several other recordings Fewkes made in his earliest days with the phonograph. While cataloging the Passamaquoddy recordings, I came across a group of cylinders noted to hold unidentified ethnographic recordings as well as several experimental recordings by Fewkes. I listened to recently digitized files of the cylinders and found some things relevant to the Passamaquoddy Collection. But I also found myself delighted by Fewkes’s personal and experimental recordings and discovered several items of interest, including folk songs, whistles, narratives, recitations—and outright clowning around. Because most of these have never been cataloged, they represent a largely untapped body of data.

One cylinder in particular was clearly shaved and rerecorded a number of times, showing the remnants of several recording sessions on it. The remaining audio is informal, without introduction, and is a fascinating example of American humor at the end of the 19th century. As far as I’ve been able to determine, it may be the earliest surviving audio recording of a joke.

Earlier humorous recordings exist, but I have found nothing you could clearly classify as a traditional joke. What exists is more along the lines of humorous spoken monologues. For example, a funny 1888 recording titled “Phonograph Talks with Mr. Edison” features recording pioneer George Gouraud pretending to be a little person hiding inside the phonograph machine making the sounds you hear.

Fewkes’s joke, which seems to have been recorded casually, is likely from 1890 or 1891.

Listen here:

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An Englishman and an American were once discussing the McKinley Bill, and the Englishman said, ‘If you do pass that bill, we shall have to come over to your country and give you a thrashing!’ And the American said, “What, AGAIN?!”

If you are like me, and not deeply steeped in economic policy debates of the late 1800s, then this joke might not be immediately funny.

The late 1800s saw a fierce and protracted debate over tariff law that has never really been totally resolved. Republican protectionists favored heavy tariffs on imported goods to protect newly forming domestic industries, while Democrats were pushing to remove trade restrictions altogether. Drawing on heightened Anglophobia of the time, protectionists made anti-British themes a central part of their campaign. In 1890, Republican Rep. William McKinley of Ohio sponsored a tariff bill, dubbed the “McKinley Bill,” which explains the reference in the joke. It passed in October of that year, raising the average duty on imports to almost 50 percent.

Contemporaneous versions of this joke can be found in print. All use it as part of a larger narrative to advocate protectionist viewpoints, make light of British bluster or note American wit. The joke mocks any potential retaliation by the English, implying that England would try, and fail, to reclaim its recalcitrant territory, as it had in multiple preceding conflicts.

Without knowing how Fewkes might have used the joke, it is difficult to tell what his aims were in telling it. But it certainly says much about his politics, and actually hearing him tell it gives a sense of his personality and humor. In the case of this particular joke, listening to the audio is also extremely helpful, because the humor relies so significantly on intonation. It is the exaggerated incredulity in Fewkes’s voice that makes the sarcasm clear.

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A cartoon from Puck magazine depicts a headstone (far left) mourning the demise of the McKinley Bill. It reads, “Here lies our dear McKinley Bill. Ruthlessly assassinated in the flower of its youth by the tariff reform bandits of the 53rd Congress.”

So is it the earliest joke? The cylinder has no definite date; however, several contextual elements allow a reasonable placement:

The cylinder came from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Miscellaneous Cylinder Recordings Collection. Fewkes worked for the Peabody Museum only from 1889 to 1894. (The American Folklife Center received over 250 cylinders from the Peabody Museum in 1970.)
The “McKinley Bill,” officially the “Tariff Act of 1890,” was introduced and passed that year. When Democrats won control of the presidency, Senate, and House after the 1892 election, they immediately started drafting new tariff legislation. Because of the specific reference to the “McKinley Bill,” it is probable that the joke was told between 1890 and 1892.
All other cylinders in the same record group that include dates are from 1890 and 1891.

The next earliest known recording that includes jokes was made in late 1892.

For a long time, informal recordings have been given short shrift in catalogs and have been largely overlooked for research. Yet they are interesting precisely because they are less rehearsed and self-conscious than much of the commercially produced sound that would soon follow. They are ethnographic recordings of the collectors themselves—they turn the lens on the ethnographer as informant.

So whether or not the Fewkes cylinder does in fact contain the earliest sound recording of a joke—and I invite anyone to prove me wrong!—it demonstrates the value of informal recordings as rich bodies of data for late 19th-century culture, as well as interesting markers in the history of recorded sound.

World War I: Exhibition Specialists to Host Live Web Talks

This is a guest post by Kathleen McGuigan, an educational resources specialist in the Educational Outreach Program.

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“Lest Liberty Perish,” by printmaker Joseph Pennell, encouraged purchase of bonds to support U.S. efforts in World War I. Pennell’s wartime work will be the subject of a November 28 Library of Congress webinar.

Hundreds of visitors to the Library over the past few months have taken a deep dive into the Library’s World War I resources by attending a gallery talk—a presentation by a Library specialist about the exhibition “Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I,” commemorating the 100th anniversary of U.S. entry into the war. Now you can participate in a gallery talk long distance through our new five-part webinar series.

We developed the webinar series based on gallery talks to highlight some of our most remarkable World War I resources, including documents, photographs, maps and personal stories collected through the Veterans History Project. A new 40-minute live talk will take place every month from August 22 through the end of the year.

The talks are open to everyone, but registration is required. Once you register, you will receive instructions for joining the session. If you can’t participate in a live talk, you can listen later: the Library will make recordings of all the talks available on its website.

Here is the schedule. All talks begin at 2 p.m. ET.

August 22

Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I

Cheryl Regan, the exhibition’s director, will guide you through the making of the exhibition and the upheaval of world war as Americans confronted it, both at home and abroad. The exhibition considers the debates and struggles that surrounded U.S. engagement; explores U.S. military and home-front mobilization and industrialized warfare; and touches on the war’s effects as an international peace settlement was negotiated, national borders were redrawn and soldiers returned to reintegrate into American society.

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Before Charles Hamilton Houston became the chief attorney for the NAACP and a mentor to Thurgood Marshall, he was a young officer serving in a segregated military during World War I. Here he is shown at reserve officers training camp in Des Moines in 1917. He is in the second row, fifth from the right. Houston will be the subject of a December 12 webinar.

September 26

Over Here, Over There: Immigrant Veterans of World War I

More than 120,000 veterans received citizenship as a direct consequence of military service, beginning a tradition of service-based naturalization. Owen Rogers of the Veterans History Project will explore the intersection of immigration and World War I military service through materials collected by the project.

October 24

Woodrow Wilson Chooses War

Like many individuals around the globe, Woodrow Wilson was shocked by the outbreak of a devastating world war among European empires in 1914. As U.S. president, however, he had a unique opportunity to shape the outcome of this catastrophic conflict. Sahr Conway-Lanz, a historian in the Manuscript Division, will discuss the Woodrow Wilson Papers at the Library. They are the most extensive and significant collection of Wilson documentation found anywhere and include his White House files as well as personal and professional materials from the rest of his life.

November 28

Lest Liberty Perish: Joseph Pennell and World War I

Katherine Blood, curator of fine prints in the Prints and Photographs Division, will discuss the wartime work of printmaker Joseph Pennell, including “Lest Liberty Perish,” an evocative image of New York City destroyed by the enemy. Created for the Fourth Liberty Loan Drive of 1918, Pennell’s design was mass produced. The division preserves impressions of virtually all of Pennell’s graphic works.

December 12

Charles Hamilton Houston and World War I

Before Charles Hamilton Houston became the chief attorney for the NAACP and a mentor to Thurgood Marshall, he was a young officer serving in a segregated military during World War I. Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division, will discuss Houston’s wartime experiences and their influence on his later work.

Request ADA accommodations at least five business days in advance of each webinar by contacting (202) 707-6362 or ada@loc.gov

World War I Centennial, 2017–18 . With the most comprehensive collection of multiformat World War I holdings in the nation, the Library of Congress is a unique resource for primary source materials, education plans, public programs and on-site visitor experiences about the Great War including exhibits, symposia and book talks.

Rare Book of the Month: A Man Driven by “Amazing Grace”

This is a guest post by digital library specialist Elizabeth Gettins.

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John Newton, composer of “Amazing Grace,” published in “Olney Hymns” in 1779. He started as a sailor for the Atlantic slave trade but later denounced that life and became a much-loved religious figure.

It is always interesting to examine how a particular book came to publication with a look toward the cast of characters involved as well as the influences of place. The rare book I am highlighting this month is “Olney Hymns,” written by an English clergyman by the name of John Newton in 1779 with the aid of his friend William Cowper. Within this title are 348 hymns—280 by Newton (1725–1807) and 68 by Cowper (1731–1800). Each man is quite interesting in his own right, and each is the author of a very well-known and well-loved hymn contained within this work.

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William Cowper, as he appears in “Olney Hymns.”

They became friends after suffering various trials and tribulations, finding each other along the paths of their religious journeys. They forged their friendship in the small town of Olney, England, for which the book is named. This small bucolic English town whose residents were mainly illiterate lace-makers was in many ways the perfect place for Newton to settle as a minister after an arduous, adventurous and less-than-saintly early life. Cowper also enjoyed the quiet and simplicity of the village, where he attempted to calm his troubled mind and practiced his craft of writing, for which he showed great talent. Both had an evangelical worshipping style and wrote hymns that spoke to the emotions. Cowper excelled at writing, while Newton was able to move his parishioners with his directness. They both produced hymns of great accessibility as well as simple beauty, which are made available in this work.

Newton’s greatest contribution to “Olney Hymns” is the perennially popular “Amazing Grace.” The lyrics speak to his great gratitude and awe at being saved from misguided ways. Newton grew up without any particular religious conviction and went to work as a sailor for the Atlantic slave trade. His habits and behavior in this course and arduous occupation were rough; he was known to swear, drink and buck authority more than most, which led to harsh punishments. He suffered through many, all the while witnessing acts of brutality committed against slaves. After surviving a near shipwreck, Newton vowed to denounce his old ways and seek out God. He went on to be a much-loved religious leader of his community and was ordained in the Church of England in 1764. “Amazing Grace” has been researched in detail and is highlighted with its own Library of Congress resource page.

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“Amazing Grace” begins on the lower half of this page. Click on the image for a larger view.

The other well-known hymn in this book was written by William Cowper. “Light Shining Out of Darkness” is better known by its first line: “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.” Originally published in 1773, this hymn wonders at God’s miraculous will and hand in all things. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper’s writing demonstrates a straightforward, heartfelt celebration of nature and God. He is known as one of England’s great early Romantic poets.

Cowper suffered from poor mental health throughout his life. At the tender age of six, he was deeply affected by the death of his mother. In addition, he was often bullied at school, most likely because his family was less well-to-do than others and also probably because Cowper displayed a sensitive artistic nature, which the other boys likely did not possess. Intellectually gifted, Cowper trained for a career in law, but the pressure of exams proved to be too much. He experienced a mental breakdown and attempted suicide several times. Thereafter, Cowper sought out a career writing prose.

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“God Moves in a Mysterious Way” by William Cowper.

According to a handwritten note in the digitized copy of “Olney’s Hymns,” Cowper wrote “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” after another emotionally turbulent time in his life:

The Poet . . . was stricken with madness. [H]e sought a coach; drove to the Thames intending to drown himself, but the coachman passed the spot which had fixed upon and drove him home. Upon his recovery, he wrote the [illeg.] “God moves in a mysterious way.”

As is often the case with intellectually curious and artistic souls, Newton and Cowper inspired the creation of new works by others and made new friends along the way, William Hayley (1745–1820) and William Blake (1757–1827) among them.

Hayley first met Cowper in 1792, and they became good friends, with Hayley helping Cowper through his mental difficulties and even assisting him with collecting his pension. Hayley was a minor poet who also wrote biographies, including, “The Life and Posthumous Writings of William Cowper, Esq.” Hayley was also friends with William Blake and employed him to engrave the illustrations for the Cowper biography.

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Image of Cowper from an original plate engraved by William Blake.

Digital materials on William Blake in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection include several prints. Cowper’s portrait for Hayley’s biography is among them, along with other prints Blake created for a piece entitled “Ballads Founded on Anecdotes of Animals.” Paging through the images reveals Blake’s great skill as an artist. Yet he was not at all happy executing this sort of work.

Blake was a powerhouse of original thought and artistic expression and a seminal figure in the history of poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. He embraced a sensuous, earthy concept of self, which was tied to his religious beliefs. He wrote about these beliefs in surreal, prophetic works, illustrated with beautiful, fantastical scenes. The Rosenwald Collection includes some of his finest prints.

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A design by Blake for “Ballads Founded on Anecdotes of Animals.”

Hayley secured Blake’s financial life by taking him in and employing him to illustrate books. Blake felt stifled by the work and came to resent Hayley for it, although he apparently felt somewhat badly for feeling that way. Still, he described Hayley as “an enemy of my Spiritual Life” who only coveted “the meer [sic] drudgery of business.”

It takes all kinds. Although Hayley may not have been as artistically talented as his contemporaries, we should all be thankful that he promoted incredibly gifted artists. Which brings us back to “Olney Hymns” and the sentiments therein: God works in mysterious ways, and it is by an Amazing Grace that man and his works are driven.

Also see

The letters from the Rosenwald Collection, some of which speak of Blake’s work on Cowper’s portrait.
The Pinterest board: Illustrations of William Blake

Pic of the Week: Bringing the Navy’s History to Life Through Photos

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Photo by Shawn Miller.

Robert Hanshew, a photo curator for the U.S. Navy, visits the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division almost every Friday to research images related to naval history. Some of his discoveries from the Library’s collections are featured in a major outdoor public history exhibit that opened this summer.

Titled “Behind These Walls,” the exhibit consists of nine-by-seven-foot panels mounted along the historical perimeter of the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard. The panels offer quick, easy lessons for passersby on uses of the Navy Yard since its establishment in 1799.

The 1864 photo shown here depicts six marines holding bayonets at the Navy Yard. It belongs to a group of photographs from 1861 to 1865 that relate to the federal navy and its seaborne expeditions against the Confederacy.

For more details, check out a blog post we published earlier this week in which Hanshew answers questions about his research at the Library.

World War I: Over There

This is a guest post by Rachel Telford, archivist for the Veterans History Project. It was first published on “Folklife Today,” the blog of the American Folklife Center.

Recently, the Veterans History Project launched “Over There,” part two of our companion site to the Library of Congress exhibit “Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I.” While part one explores the United States’ entry into the war, part two delves into the experiences of American servicemen overseas during the world’s first large-scale, industrialized war.

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Francis Edward Mahoney, circa 1918

Francis Edward Mahoney wrote to his mother regularly while he served in France. His wartime letters are full of details about his incoming mail and assurances that he is in good health but provide little insight into his experiences. However, shortly after the armistice, he writes:

I never told you about the front Ma, because I was afraid you would worry but now it is all over and safe I guess it is alright.

He goes on to describe frigid conditions during his first winter in France, service on the front lines as a truck driver and close calls with enemy artillery.

Louis W. Rosen also spared his parents the details of his service during the war, but in two lengthy letters written after the armistice, he details his experiences repairing telephone lines with the 77th Infantry Division and notes:

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Norvel Preston Clotfelter, 1918

Very often would I witness a shell land in a spot where I had been only a short while before.

While Mahoney and Rosen managed to avoid injury, others were not so lucky. Leo Joseph Bailey was wounded at Belleau Wood while diving

for his dugout during an artillery attack and would spend two months recuperating in various hospitals. Interestingly, in his memoir he recalls not the pain of the injury but the joy of sleeping in a bed for the first

time in nearly a year and waking to clean linens and a hearty breakfast.

Norvel Preston Clotfelter also found himself in the hospital, though not due to injury. Like thousands of other soldiers during this period, he fell ill with the Spanish flu and, in a move that likely saved his life, was removed from the front lines and hospitalized in the final days of the war.

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Lucius Byron Nash, 1918

The major battles involving the United States all occurred on land, but the Navy also played a vital role. Sailors like Lucius Byron Nash, who served aboard USS Roanoke, distributed mines across the North Sea to deter German U-boats (submarines). In letters home, he describes a dirty, grueling job, which demanded 12-hour shifts spent on deck in the pouring rain.

Whether they were on land or at sea, on the front lines or in support positions at the rear, American service personnel faced dangerous conditions and made considerable sacrifices as they fought for Allied victory. View all of the collections featured in the “Over There” exhibit here.

And don’t miss the third and final installment in our World War I series, “A World Overturned,” coming in September.

World War I Centennial, 2017–18 . With the most comprehensive collection of multiformat World War I holdings in the nation, the Library of Congress is a unique resource for primary source materials, education plans, public programs and on-site visitor experiences about the Great War including exhibits, symposia and book talks.

Inquiring Minds: Bringing the Navy’s History to Life Through Photographs

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Robert Hanshew works in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division in July. Photos by Shawn Miller.

Robert Hanshew visits the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division almost every Friday. Over the past two or so years, he has sorted through literally hundreds of archival boxes containing photographs related to U.S. naval history. On other days of the week, he can often be found at the National Archives. His goal: to find rare and interesting historical photographs for the new National Museum of the U.S. Navy.

Now located within the high-security Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., the museum is complicated to visit for those who don’t have military credentials. Still in the planning stages, the new and much larger museum—it will be the size of about four football fields—will sit outside the security perimeter, offering more opportunities for public education through photographic exhibits.

Hanshew has curated photographs for the Navy for about 18 years. Most recently, he helped produce a major outdoor public history exhibit, “Behind These Walls,” consisting of nine-by-seven foot photographs highlighting the history of the Washington Navy Yard. The display sits along the yard’s historical perimeter and includes photographs Hanshew identified in the Library’s collections.

Here Hanshew answers questions about his research at the Library.

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A 1935 photograph from the Library’s collection is the backdrop for a “Behind These Walls” exhibit panel titled “Community.” It sits along the exterior wall of the Washington Navy Yard. 

Tell us a little about your research for the “Behind These Walls” exhibit.

The exhibit was done in conjunction with D.C.’s Capitol Riverfront Development to draw people to the Washington Navy Yard. The 11 panels were designed as quick, easy lessons on the various uses of the Navy Yard since its establishment in 1799. While performing research for this project, I found that the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division had some of the best-quality photographs—simple yet educational.

For the new naval museum, what kind of images are you looking for?

I am looking for images that might differ from the photographs that have been used for many years or be of better quality (richer tones and unscratched). I am also looking to identify images that have not been previously identified that could be used for exhibit purposes beyond the new museum. For example, we are currently doing an exhibit about the Battle of the Atlantic. I am going through photos of engagements of the Allies against German U-boats and identifying the submarines with help from National Archives records and other sources to tell a fuller and richer story.

What are some of your interesting finds at the Library?

The captions on the reverse side of photographs in the Navy and Marine Corps donated collections have been a revelation. At the National Archives, the photographs are mounted on a stiff cardboard that covers the captions, and the mount-card fronts usually have only one or two sentences. The information on the backs of photos at the Library helps me build better captions and offer more history, as names and proper dates are given. Another fantastic find at the Library are the educational tools the Navy used for training during World War II, including colorful naval aviation recognition tools used to help pilots identify U.S. aircraft from hostile planes. The images will make the basis for a wonderful exhibit at the new museum.

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An 1864 Library of Congress photograph is the backdrop for a “Behind These Walls” panel titled “Defense.” 

How do you document the photographs you identify for potential use?

I bring one of my best friends, my Nikon D80, to “photograph the photographs” and any relevant text. I then break down the photographs into war and nonwar eras that the Navy and Marine Corps have been involved in since the American Revolution. In our digital databases, they are further categorized by the exhibit’s chronology and additional subjects such as aviation, places, people, ships and weapons. I have gathered close to 30,000 images from the National Archives and the Library, along with images from our own archives. Staff and graphic designers will be able to choose from these images when the final design and construction process starts. I have now accrued close to 2,000 pages of referenced, photograph material from the Library and other D.C. repositories.  

How did you come to be a Navy photo curator?

A Navy veteran, I was lucky enough to be stationed in London, where I went back to university and finished a history degree. Then I traveled to Dublin to study further. About 18 years ago, an artifact curator position opened at the Naval History Center. After some time, I began to deal with photographs and performed a wide range of outreach. When it came time to start work for a new museum, I was fortunate to be offered the chance to perform the mission of curating all the visual aspects of the exhibits.

Can you comment on your experience generally working at the Library?

Every trip to the Library has been a joy. I view my trips as a good chance to chat with others who do similar jobs and are also excited about my finds of the week. I am also appreciative that the staff goes above and beyond to help me find what I might be looking for. For example, there was one image I could not find for a “Behind These Walls” exhibit panel, and I left disappointed. The staff took it upon themselves to do more research and found the image. This project would not be as good as it is without the help I have received from the Prints and Photographs Division. For that, alone, my team and I are eternally grateful.

 

A Different Sense of Thomas Jefferson’s Library

This post is by Zein Al-Maha Oweis , a summer intern in the Library’s Communications Office.

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Zein Al-Maha Oweis. Photo by Shawn Miller.

You know that feeling when Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” walks into the beast’s library of books from around the world—the gleam in her eyes that shows you she is amazed to see so many books creatively filled with words from different languages?

That is how I felt when the tour guide at the Library of Congress said, “Welcome to the Thomas Jefferson Library.” I walked around the exhibit hearing people chatting, cameras snapping and sounds of amazement. I moved closer toward the shelves. But before I could reach the books, I felt the glass case that preserves them.

You might wonder why all my descriptions are sounds. Well, the answer is simple: I am visually impaired with only touch and sound as my tools to navigate the world around me. Still, I love books, and I can never imagine myself living without them.

When British troops destroyed the Library of Congress in 1814, former president Thomas Jefferson saved the day by selling his personal library of 6,487 books to Congress. Although a second fire on Christmas Eve of 1851 destroyed nearly two-thirds of the volumes, the Jefferson books remain the core from which the present collections of the Library of Congress developed.

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Photo by Shawn Miller.

The Thomas Jefferson Library exhibit is organized the same way Jefferson’s enlightened mind was organized. “He followed the premise of enlightenment, which is that all developments of the faculties of the human mind can be divided into three categories: memory, reason, and imagination,” explains Mark Dimunation, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. “He called them history, philosophy and fine arts.”

Physically, the space is also fashioned to reflect the way Jefferson used the library. “Jefferson wanted his books to be in a big circle, and he was supposed to sit in the center of it with his big desk and his Lazy Susan for books,” says Dimunation.

As you look around the moon-shaped cases with books hand-initialed by Jefferson, you can’t help but notice the white preservation boxes sitting among the sea of colorful spines. “These are the ghosts—these are the books that we are still looking for,” Dimunation says.

For 18 years now, the Library has been searching the world to replace the books lost in the 1851 fire. The goal is to match exactly the books that Jefferson owned. Later editions or editions published in other countries or cities won’t do. Dimunation has written to book specialists and sent emissaries to England, France and the Netherlands, and he and his team have even searched book dealers’ basements.

The way Jefferson collected titles makes the search especially challenging. Unlike other 18th-century bibliophiles, he collected his books in all languages. “His collection represents a much bigger base than almost any other collection in the world,” says Dimunation. Finishing the project requires locating 240 more books.

If you have not yet been to the Thomas Jefferson Library, I highly recommend a visit—you just might just see me sitting among the books, basking in all the wonders of the enlightened world. If you can’t make the trip, you can get your own—online—sense of the library here!

World War I Film Series: Testament of Youth

This is a guest post by Naomi Coquillon, an education specialist in the Interpretive Programs Office. It is the second of two posts by Coquillon about films the Library is screening this summer to highlight European perspectives on World War I. The screenings are part of the Library’s commemoration of the centennial of U.S. involvement in the conflict.

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Vera Brittain in the uniform of a World War I nurse with the Voluntary Aid Detachment. Photo courtesy First World War Poetry Digital Archive: http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/co....

This time last year He was seeing me off . . . and I had just begun to realise I loved Him. To-day he is lying in the military cemetery at Louvencourt—because a week ago He was killed in action. . . . And I, who in impatience felt a fortnight ago that I could not wait another minute to see him, must wait till all Eternity. All has been given to me, and all taken away again—in one year.

—Vera Brittain, New Year’s Eve, 1915

From “Chronicle of Youth: Vera Brittain’s War Diary”

In 1915, Vera Brittain—the daughter of a wealthy British paper manufacturer—suffered the first of many losses: her fiancé, Roland Leighton, was killed in action in the First World War just days before they were to be reunited for the Christmas holiday. That loss was followed in 1917 by those of her close friends Geoffrey Thurlow and Victor Richardson. Also in 1917, Brittain’s brother Edward was wounded in the Battle of the Somme; Brittain would nurse him back to health only to learn in June 1918 that he, too, had been killed in action. Roland, Geoffrey, Victor and Edward were among more than 700,000 soldiers from the United Kingdom to perish in the Great War. Through it all, Brittain recorded her thoughts and experiences in diaries, letters and poetry.

In 1915, Brittain wrote that “I am longing to begin nursing; the only way to support suffering one’s self is by alleviating even if it is only a little & indirectly, the sufferings of this unhappy stricken world.” Shortly thereafter, she left her studies at Oxford University to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment as a nurse, a role she would play for the remainder of the war. By 1918, more than 12,000 detachment nurses were serving in military hospitals throughout Europe.

After the war, Brittain returned to complete her studies at Oxford. She published her first novel, “The Dark Tide,” in 1923. It was followed 10 years later by “Testament of Youth,” her most famous work, which was based on her wartime diary and letters. In 2014, Brittain’s daughter, Baroness Shirley Williams, recalled that her mother “felt a need to recreate the young men that she loved by writing about them so their lives would not be ended. They’d live forever.”

“Testament of Youth” and Brittain’s personal correspondence present an unparalleled account of the World War I home front, battle front and aftermath of war. The novel was made into a BBC miniseries in 1979, nine years after Brittain’s death. In 2014, BBC Films produced a full-length feature starring Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander as Brittain and Kit Harington (now best known for his role in “Game of Thrones”) as Roland Leighton. At the premier of the film, Baroness Williams noted, “The great thing about this film is that in it, those young men do come alive again.” And through her letters and writings, Brittain does, too.

So it seems fitting that, as our summer series of European films on the Great War comes to an end, we should help to bring Brittain and her beloved brother and friends to life once again through Brittain’s story of that moment in time.

The Library will screen “Testament of Youth” at 2:30 pm on Saturday, August 12, in the Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building.

World War I Centennial, 2017–18 . With the most comprehensive collection of multiformat World War I holdings in the nation, the Library of Congress is a unique resource for primary source materials, education plans, public programs and on-site visitor experiences about the Great War including exhibits, symposia and book talks.

Uncovering the Story of Cats in the Biodiversity Heritage Library

This post is by Madison Arnold-Scerbo, a 2017 summer intern with the Junior Fellows Program . She is a student of history and museum studies at Haverford College. Her Junior Fellows project in the Science, Technology and Business Division combined many of her interests—the history of science, exhibition curation, library science and cats!

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At the Washington, D.C., Cat Show, Wardman Park Hotel, 1920.

Rodent catchers, lab specimens or treasured companions? Cats have played all these roles and more, as I found out this summer as a Junior Fellows intern in the Science, Technology and Business Division. I was assigned to create a digital exhibition drawing on sources from the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) about a species of my choice, and I selected my favorite animal—the domestic cat.

Titled “Wild Mouser to Household Pet: A History of Cats in Science and Society, 1858 to 1992,” my exhibition showcases—through the story of a popular pet with a complicated history—resources from the Library’s science collections contained in the BHL, an open-access digital library that includes holdings from the Library and other institutions. My project also included choosing additional books from the Library to add to the BHL.

I discovered that from the 1850s to the 1920s in the United States and Europe, the role of the cat changed. Early on, cats were viewed as drifters that caught rodents, biological specimens for physicians and literary muses. It wasn’t until the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s that cats became domestic pets. In fact, in 1866 they were excluded from the Book of Household Pets.

But with popularity came consequences. A combination of negligent cat owners and the inability to spay or neuter cats led to widespread overpopulation. Cats became seen as a menace to wildlife, especially songbirds. Books from this time suggest some unpleasant ways to deal with this issue—an example is The Domestic Cat; Bird Killer, Mouser and Destroyer of Wild Life by Edward Howe Forbush.

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A May 8, 1895, newspaper story about the opening day of the first U.S. national cat show, held in Madison Square Garden, New York City.

Toward the end of the 19th century, another role for cats emerged: they became objects of display. Cat shows were places of entertainment, education and philanthropy. The first national cat show in the world was held in 1871 at the Crystal Palace in London. In 1895, the first national cat show in the United States took place.

Books and newspaper articles from the time share information for “cat fanciers.” A major concern was developing pedigreed breeds with particular traits. They did so using emerging scientific theories about heredity and genetics.

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A black-and-white cat from the 1898 book “The Angora Cat.”

One of my favorite discoveries about cat shows is the story “The Homeliest Cat” in Robert James’ 1898 book, The Angora Cat; How to Breed, Train and Keep It. In this story, a girl named Maysie enters her kitten Rags into the 1895 Madison Square Garden Cat Show. We get a glimpse into how spectacular this event was:

Oh, wasn’t it beautiful? All lit up with “’lectric” light! Row after row of cages crossed the floor, in each of which blinked and stretched and softly purred, a lovely lovely kitty.”

Rags ends up winning a prize for the ugliest cat, a real prize in the 1895 cat show! Other prizes went to the best long-haired cat, the best litter of kittens and the heaviest cat.

Check out my exhibition—suitable for scientists and cat enthusiasts alike!—to find out more about the long and complicated history of cats and their relationships with humans.

Learn More

Explore the full online exhibition Wild Mouser to Household Pet: A History of Cats in Science and Society, 1858 to 1992.
View all the digitized books from the BHL Book Collection “A History of Cats from 1858 to 1922”
Read a Science, Technology and Business Division blog post titled “Can Cats Speak to Us?”
See the list of books the Library of Congress has contributed to the BHL.

This Day in History: James Baldwin

This post draws on an essay about Baldwin’s life and achievements by Alan Gevinson of the Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center .

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Photograph of James Baldwin from the Carl Van Vechten Collection. LC-USZ62-42481.

James Baldwin was born 93 years ago today, on August 2, 1924, in New York City. His many novels include his first, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” (1953), considered an American classic. He was also a poet and a playwright, but he is most well known and remembered as an essayist and social critic.

The Library of Congress has several notable audio recordings of Baldwin in its collections, including a December 10, 1986, lecture Baldwin gave at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., a year before he died. In it, he reflects on the meaning and impact of race in American life, a subject he investigated from the start of his writing career in the 1940s.

The lecture is one of nearly 2,000 recordings in the series “Food for Thought: Presidents, Prime Ministers and Other National Press Club Luncheon Speakers, 1954–89,” available on the Library’s website. Other speakers include Leonard Bernstein, Fidel Castro, Bob Hope, Nikita Khrushchev, Richard M. Nixon and Jonas Salk. The Library’s recordings of Baldwin, including his National Press Club lecture, are embedded at the end of this post.

Baldwin grew up in Harlem, the eldest of nine children. “I began plotting novels at about the time I learned to read,” Baldwin reminisced in an autobiographical essay that served to introduce his first collection of essays, “Notes of a Native Son” (1955). In grade school, his principal and teachers fostered his interest in reading and writing, urging him to visit the local branch of the New York Public Library.

At Frederick Douglass Junior High School in Harlem, Baldwin received encouragement from two African American teachers, acclaimed Harlem Renaissance poet Countee Cullen and Herman W. Porter, a Harvard-educated math teacher, who helped Baldwin run the school magazine.

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Photograph of Countee Cullen from the Carl Van Vechten Collection. LC-USZ62-42529

Cullen persuaded Baldwin to attend his own alma mater, DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, considered one of the top public schools in the city. Interested mainly in English and history, Baldwin became an editor of the school’s literary magazine, The Magpie, to which he contributed stories, plays and poems. During high school, Baldwin also preached at a Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem, where his stepfather was a preacher. His novel “Go Tell It on the Mountain” draws on his experiences there.

Baldwin was inspired in the 1940s by American modernist painter Beauford Delaney, whom he viewed as “living proof . . . that a black man could be an artist.” Baldwin spent time listening to jazz and blues recordings in Delaney’s Greenwich Village studio, an experience Baldwin described as spiritually meaningful. He later credited Delaney with teaching him to observe reality closely and to honestly confront disturbing phenomena.

Baldwin moved to Greenwich Village himself after a dispiriting year as a laborer at a defense-related construction site in New Jersey, where he endured racial prejudice. In Greenwich Village, he began to explore his sexual identity and commenced his professional career as a writer. He initiated a meeting in 1944 with Richard Wright, author of the acclaimed 1940 novel “Native Son.” After reading Baldwin’s work, Wright recommended him to his editors at Harper and Brothers publishers.

Beginning in 1947, Baldwin published essays and book reviews in The Nation, The New Leader, Commentary and Partisan Review. His first short story to appear in a major publication, “Previous Condition,” was published in Commentary in October 1948.

The next month, Baldwin moved to Paris, feeling that he had reached the limit of his tolerance for racial prejudice and eager to develop his literary career in a broader context. In the years following, he produced some of his most famous work, including “Go Tell It on a Mountain” and “Notes of a Native Son.” His work addressed complex pressures arising from integration not only of African Americans, but also of gays and bisexual men. Other titles include the novel “Giovanni’s Room” (1956), in which he explores the issues of race, sexuality and identity; the bestseller “Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son” (1961); the novel ”Another Country” (1962); and “The Fire Next Time” (1963), a book of two essays.

Although he lived outside the U.S. for much of his life, Baldwin’s writing remained focused intently on the American experience. He became a leader of the U.S. civil rights movement and on May 17, 1963, Time magazine featured Baldwin on its cover, stating, “There is not another writer who expresses with such poignancy and abrasiveness the dark realities of the racial ferment in North and South.”

In a December 1986 interview, shortly before he appeared at the National Press Club, Baldwin described writing as an act of faith. “The time of any artist—the time of any person—is brief. But that does not mean that he or she doesn’t have an inheritance which one way or another he is compelled to pass down the line. So you work in the dark; you work in your time. The only real sin is despair . . . and you try to tell the truth.”

James Baldwin died on December 1, 1987, at his home in France.

Scroll down for recordings of Baldwin: an April 1986 reading by Baldwin at the Library of Congress, introduced by poet Gwendolyn Brooks; the December 1986 National Press Club recording cited in this post; and an audiovisual interview Baldwin conducted in San Francisco in 1963 for a television documentary on the racial situation in the U.S.

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