Library of Congress's Blog, page 114

Champions of America: Early Baseball Card

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This 1865 portrait of the Brooklyn Atlantics is considered an early prototype for baseball cards.

Baseball “has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere—belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions [and] laws.

—Walt Whitman

What better way to welcome April—National Poetry Month and the start of baseball season—than with a quotation about baseball from one of America’s greatest poets?

Americans have debated the exact origins of their national pastime for more than a century. But it’s generally agreed that the American game of baseball started in towns and cities of New England, New York and the Mid-Atlantic, with rules of play varying by region. The Knickerbocker Club, formed in New York in 1845, was among the first organized baseball clubs. It instituted the so-called New York rules, considered to be the basis for the modern game. On June 19, 1846, the Knickerbockers played under the rules for the first time at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. The local press championed the sport, including Walt Whitman, who as an editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846, proclaimed, “The game of baseball is glorious.” An avid player himself, Whitman associated baseball with vigor, masculinity and health.

The Civil War boosted the popularity of the game, which was often played by soldiers in camp. After the war, they took it home with them, and it spread to every region of the country. As baseball increasingly captured the American imagination, baseball-inspired visual works proliferated, a trend continued to this day.

“Champions of America” is a portrait of the Brooklyn Atlantics. Mounted on a card, the photo was passed out as a souvenir to fans and is considered an early prototype for baseball cards, which first became popular in the 1880s. The Brooklyn Atlantics won championships in 1861, 1864 and 1865. Their season continued throughout the winter, when the team donned skates and played on frozen ponds.

The type at the bottom of the photograph indicates that photographer Charles Williamson registered the copyright to the photo in 1865 in U.S. district court for the Eastern District of New York.

The Library of Congress has a collection of more than 2,000 early baseball cards from 1887 to 1914. They portray such legendary figures as Ty Cobb stealing third base for Detroit, Tris Speaker batting for Boston and Cy Young posing in his Cleveland uniform.

Happy Spring!

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“Spring” by Penrhyn Stanlaws

Temperatures are still a little cool here on the East Coast, but it’s definitely time to put those winter coats away: spring arrived officially on March 20 at 6:29 am EDT. Soon, pleasant days like the one captured in this poster will be common. Penrhyn Stanlaws created the poster in 1907 and titled it, simply, “Spring.”

It is part of the Library’s online Artist Poster Collection. Online offerings make up a small but growing proportion of the more than 85,000 artist posters in the Library’s collections, dating from the 19th century to today. The series includes many fine examples from styles including Art Nouveau, Russian Constructivism, Art Deco, Bauhaus and Psychedelic.

Most of the posters were produced in the United States, but other countries are represented as well. The posters came to the Library as copyright deposits, gifts, transfers, purchases and exchanges; their subject matter covers travel and tourism, cultural events, advertising, sports and more.

Penrhyn Stanlaws (1877–1957) was a well-known portrait painter and illustrator of his day. His depictions of elegant “Stanlaws Girls” graced the covers of magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and Colliers, and their popularity rivaled that of Charles Dana Gibson’s “Gibson Girls.”

Born in Dundee, Scotland, the multitalented Stanlaws built the Hotel des Artistes in New York City in 1917, then the largest studio building in the United States, and he directed motion pictures including “The Little Minister” starring Betty Compson. He died in Los Angeles after falling asleep while smoking in an upholstered chair, setting his studio on fire.

 

Play Ball!

This is a guest post by Jeffrey Flannery, head of the Reference and Reader Services Section of the Manuscript Division.

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Branch Rickey

Spring has arrived, which all fans know marks the beginning of the baseball season. Opening day was April 2 for major league baseball, and the new season brings hope that this year may be the year for the hometown nine. The traditions of baseball form an important part of the appeal of this unique sport, with the rich history of the game, filled with innumerable stories and statistics, keeping fans interested all year long.

No one encapsulates baseball’s history more than Branch Rickey (1881–1965), a former player and manager who became an innovative baseball executive and part owner.

In a career spanning nearly 60 years, Rickey is perhaps best known as the man responsible for bringing Jackie Robinson into major league baseball in 1947, thereby breaking baseball’s long-established color barrier. The Library of Congress Manuscript Division’s collection of Branch Rickey Papers offers a fascinating glimpse into the history of 20th-century baseball, viewed through the prism of this influential figure.

The Rickey Papers are extensive, including 29,000 items of correspondence, photographs, memoranda, speeches, scrapbooks, subject files and notes, arranged in 87 containers, as described in the collection’s finding aid and available for research use in the Manuscript Reading Room.

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Rickey’s frank assessment of Henry (Hank) Aaron, 1963

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the trove documenting Rickey’s extraordinary career are the scouting reports he compiled during the 1950s and 1960s. Long active as a player evaluator, by 1963 Rickey was in the sunset of his career and serving as a consultant for the St. Louis Cardinals. But the reports of this period still show him as an astute judge of talent and also reveal his unique appraisal style.

Rickey evaluated all players who crossed his path with an unsparing eye, be they rookie or veteran, and his reports are written in a strongly opinionated, succinct and often caustic style. Some reports resemble modern-day tweets in their brevity and make for provocative reading.

For example, he says of Henry Aaron, the greatest home-run hitter of the 20th century, “[I]n spite of his hitting record and admitted power ability, one cannot help think that Aaron is frequently a guess hitter.” Of Willie Mays, another Hall of Famer, Rickey wrote, “I would pitch a lot of slow stuff to Mays, particularly when he is anxious to hit. The slow curve ball he ‘slobbers’ all over the place.”

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Rickey’s dismissal of Minnie Minoso, 1963

Of course, not every player Rickey evaluated was Hall of Fame material. Roy Majtyka was a minor league infielder for the Cardinals who later coached briefly in the major leagues before settling in as a minor league manager. He caught Rickey’s attention but was dismissed as “a puny hitter. Pretty good runner, pretty good fielder. A nice boy.”

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Report expressing Rickey’s interest in Don Drysdale, 1954

Some of Rickey’s reports are written in a jargon that requires knowledge of references beyond baseball. In April 1963, Rickey produced a report on aging Cuban star, Orestes “Minnie” Minoso, then with the Cardinals. After reluctantly admitting that the player would have to be traded before the season began, Rickey wrote, “[O]f all the old ‘spavs’ who are not calculated, in my opinion, to win a pennant for St. Louis, Minoso comes the nearest qualifying for retention. Good-bye Minoso.” A “spav” is a truncated reference to spavine, an arthritic condition found in racehorses.

Of course, Rickey did not always get his man. In 1954, then with the Pirates, Rickey scouted and sought to sign a young Don Drysdale, but Rickey’s old team, the Dodgers, beat him to it. In an annotation, Rickey noted “signed with Brooklyn, father is bird dog for them.” A “bird dog” was an unpaid scout.

Rickey’s career had a significant impact on baseball. Enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Rickey’s contributions are a legacy to the game that endures to this day.

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Brief remarks about Majtyka, 1962

Pic of the Week: Celebrating Cherry Blossoms

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A cherry tree in full bloom this week on the grounds of the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, looking toward the Adams Building. Photo by Shawn Miller.

The cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C., reached peak bloom this week, just in time for the National Cherry Blossom Festival. This year’s festival commemorates the 105th anniversary of the gift of some 3,000 cherry trees to Washington, D.C., from the city of Tokyo in 1912. The trees were given as a symbol of friendship between the United States and Japan. Only nine trees from the original gift remain, two of them located on the grounds of the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress.

A webcast illuminating the history of Washington’s cherry trees, the significance of cherry blossoms in Japan, and their continuing resonance in American culture is available here.

Women’s History Month: First Woman Sworn into Congress 100 Years Ago

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Jeannette Rankin, 1917

One hundred years ago this Sunday—on April 2, 1917—Jeannette Rankin was sworn into the 65th Congress as the first woman elected to serve. She took her seat more than two years before Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women nationwide the right to vote. That alone is remarkable, but Rankin also made history in another way: she voted against U.S. involvement in both 20th-century world wars—and paid a price for doing so.

To commemorate Rankin’s life and career, the Library of Congress is co-presenting a world premiere song cycle on April 7 with Opera America. “Fierce Grace—Jeannette Rankin,” a collaborative work by multiple women composers, will be performed in the Coolidge Auditorium, followed by a panel discussion.

Rankin campaigned in 1916 as a suffragist, pacifist and social reformer, prevailing against seven men in the Republican primary in her home state of Montana, where women had gained the right to vote in 1914. She became a national celebrity when she won a seat in the general election to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rankin arrived in Washington, D.C., to festivities in her honor. Suffrage leaders, including Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul, hosted a breakfast for her, and a procession of suffragists accompanied her to the Capitol. Fellow House members greeted her with applause.

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Jeannette Rankin, right, in a carriage with Carrie Chapman Catt, center, upon Rankin’s arrival in Washington, D.C.

But things turned somber quickly. On the evening of April 2, President Woodrow Wilson called on Congress to authorize U.S. entry into World War I. On April 6, after days of debate, Rankin joined 55 congressional colleagues in voting against the war resolution. She did so in opposition to many suffragists, who feared a no vote would hurt the suffrage cause. “I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war,” Rankin is widely quoted as stating.

For the remainder of her term, Rankin advocated for the rights of women and children, worker safety, and equal pay for women, and she played a major role in bringing a suffrage amendment to the House floor, where it passed before the Senate voted it down.

Rankin ran for a Senate seat in 1918, but she failed to win her primary. She returned to private life, moving to Georgia, where she lectured and supported causes dear to her, including women’s rights and peace.

She ran for Congress again in 1939, following the start of World War II in Europe. She felt that she could have the most effect as a member of Congress in keeping the United States out of the war. She returned to Montana to run as a peace candidate, winning handily.

But her time in Congress was once again short lived. She was the only member to vote against U.S. entry into the war on December 8, 1941. “As a woman I cannot go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else,” she reportedly said. An angry mob nearly attacked her when she left the chamber, and she sought safety in a telephone booth, where police rescued her.

At the end of her term, Rankin opted out of national politics for good, although she continued her involvement in peace efforts, speaking out against the Korean and Vietnam Wars. On January 15, 1968, at age 87, she led nearly 5,000 women in a march on Washington, D.C., against the Vietnam War. The marchers called themselves the Jeannette Rankin Brigade. Rankin died in May 1973 at age 93.

In an article published in McCalls’s magazine in 1958, John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator, cited Rankin as one of three truly courageous women in U.S. history. “Few members of Congress since its founding in 1789 have ever stood more alone, more completely in defiance of popular conviction,” Kennedy wrote. We may disagree with her stand, he added, but it is impossible not to admire her courage.

Information about Library of Congress concerts and ticketing is available here.

Women’s History Month: Those Magnificent Women in Their Flying Machines

This is a guest post by Henry Carter, digital conversion specialist in the Serial and Government Publications Division.

In the first decades of the 20th century, aircraft were new, and flying was exciting. Newspapers, the most powerful media outlet of the time, reported broadly on this new technology and its celebrities as well as the many social changes of the early 1900s—including the advent of women pilots, described in one 1910 headline as “heroines of the air.”

[image error]Sissieretta Jones. Read more about it!

 

Oz Squared, Cowboy Pop, Ziggy, Gospel and Pie

This year’s National Recording Registry is a sonic smörgåsbord– quite a lot to choose from, and all of it audibly appetizing. The 25 selections being preserved by the Library of Congress based on their cultural, historic or aesthetic value include two takes on “The Wizard of Oz,” in the form of Judy Garland’s version of “Over the Rainbow” from the 1939 movie and the entire soundtrack of the 1975 original Broadway cast version of “The Wiz,” the urbane African-American take on the tale.

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Lots of people recorded “Over the Rainbow,” but Judy owned it. Courtesy MGM

There’s ethereal beauty, from opera soprano Renee Fleming’s album “Signatures” featuring arias such as “Dove sono e bei momenti” from Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” to Judy Collins’ goosebump-inducing version of “Amazing Grace” from her 1970 album “Whales and Nightingales.”

There’s soul – “In the Midnight Hour” by Wilson Pickett; disco, via “We are Family” by Sister Sledge (rest in peace, Sister Joni); rap, in “Straight Outta Compton” by N.W.A.

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Richard Pryor “Wanted-Richard Pryor” album cover. Courtesy Warner Bros.

And there’s “Ziggy Stardust” by the late, icon-breaking David Bowie and “Wanted:” by the late, side-splitting Richard Pryor. Also “People,” by the early Barbra Streisand, whose amazing career is nearing its sixth decade.

There’s western-influenced music, from “Their Greatest Hits” by The Eagles to Marty Robbin’s “Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs,” featuring that ultimate earworm, “El Paso.” (Years ago, when I worked in the Lansing bureau of Associated Press, we had a technical problem that forced us to send our copy by phone lines out of Michigan to El Paso, Texas and back into the state to our member papers in Michigan. A song parody emerged: “Out in the west Texas town of El Paso/Michigan copy was clearing the wire/Suddenly circuits snapped loose like a lasso/zapping reporters and starting a fire …”)

There’s gospel— another two-versions recognition, with “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the “Black National Anthem,” by the Manhattan Harmony Four (1923) and a more recent version recorded by Melba Moore in 1990 backed by Stevie Wonder, Anita Baker, Dionne Warwick and Bobby Brown, in an attempt to reacquaint young African Americans with this historic and beloved song. The registry also recognizes the 1948 recording of “I’ll Fly Away” by the Chuck Wagon Gang.

Also history (the 1888 London cylinder recordings of Col. George Gouraud, a pal of Thomas Edison and the Vin Scully broadcast of the 1957 last game at the Polo Grounds between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants) and more Broadway, with Irving Berlin’s inimitable “Puttin’ On the Ritz” as sung by Harry Richman in 1929.

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Talking Heads, “Remain In Light” album cover. Courtesy Sire Records

There’s the song everyone knows the words to, perhaps better than they know the words to the U.S. national anthem: Don McLean’s “American Pie.” And an album you may know the words to, even if you don’t quite get the free-verse way they hang together: “Remain in Light” by Talking Heads, which includes the singles “Once in a Lifetime” and “Houses in Motion.” (“And as we watch him/ Digging his own grave/ It is important to know / That was where he’s at. / He can’t afford to stop / That is what he believe./ And he’ll keep digging/ for a thousand years.”)

The National Recording Registry will begin taking nominations for next year’s selections right away, however, so if you have a song or album at least 10 years old that you particularly dig, you can nominate it here.

Before Jackie Put the White House on TV, Mrs. Hoover Made Home Movies

This is a guest post by Stephen Leggett, a program coordinator of the National Film Preservation Board for the Library of Congress.

On the eve of the Great Depression, there were movies, but they were as devoid of brilliant hues as the economy was about to be. But even as those dark clouds moved in, a technological breakthrough captured a priceless record of the Hoover-era White House, in color: seven reels of home movies taken by then-first lady Lou Hoover.

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Film clip of Mrs. Hoover in the White House Rose Garden. Courtesy of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum.

Those movies, shot with a 16mm camera using the now-obsolete Kodacolor process, have been preserved by the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, with a $5,600 federal grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation, the charitable affiliate of the Library of Congress’ advisory body, the National Film Preservation Board. The nonprofit NFPB has a mandate from Congress to provide national leadership in the field of film preservation.

As chronicled in a March 22 article, this archived footage—preserved with grant funding provided by Congress—is believed to be the earliest color footage of the White House grounds. The exciting discovery of these films highlights once more the critical need for our nation to preserve its richly diverse moving-image heritage, so future generations may enjoy and study these works as a cultural record.

Since its inception in 1996, the foundation has raised $14 million, supplemented that sum with $7 million in federal funds from the Library and made that pool available as grants and preservation support to 284 institutions in all 50 states, saving 2,287 films. The NFPF receives federal money through the Library of Congress to distribute as grants, but raises operating and project funding from other sources.

View brief excerpts below of the newly discovered film footage. Courtesy of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum.

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Celebrating Women’s History: Women on the March

Hundreds of thousands of women marched on Washington, D.C., on inaugural weekend this year to voice their concerns about an array of issues. News outlets nationwide and overseas reported a massive turnout that exceeded all expectations. Crowd size aside, the march was not without precedent. More than a hundred years earlier, American women organized a march on Washington to coincide with a presidential inauguration.

On March 3, 1913, on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, the National American Woman Suffrage Association sponsored a procession to support enactment of a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.

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Official program for the March 1913 suffrage procession.

“We march today to give evidence to the world of our determination that this simple act of justice shall be done,” the official program stated. “We march that the world may realize that, save in six states, the newly-elected President has been chosen by only one-half of the people.” At the time, only six states enfranchised women.

The marchers rushed to organize in time for President Wilson’s inauguration because they knew press would be in town for the event. “We talk about how quickly the women’s march this past January got organized,” says Janice Ruth, assistant chief of the Manuscript Division, where many papers related to women’s suffrage reside. “Think about . . . December 1912, no Internet, not many people with telephones, and they were able to get the word out and assemble in Washington.” Between 5,000 and 8,000 women participated.

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Crowd shot on Pennsylvania Avenue looking toward the Capitol. Photo by G.V. Buck.

Lawyer Inez Milholland, the event’s “mounted herald,” led the procession astride a white horse, an image reflected on the cover of the official program. Behind her were groups of women organized by different categories, including occupation. Harriet Hifton of the Library of Congress Copyright Division led the librarians’ contingent.

The procession started out smoothly. But after a few blocks, the crowd began to encroach on the marchers, jeering, tripping and shoving the women. “Ambulances were making trips for six hours, taking women to the area hospitals,” Ruth says.

The women’s treatment by the onlookers resulted in indignation meetings across the country. A congressional inquiry was held, and the police superintendent for Washington, D.C., lost his job. “It certainly marked a shift in the American women’s suffrage movement at that point in time,” Ruth says. Before the march, suffrage organizers had been casting about for ways to reinvigorate support.

Within two weeks, marchers obtained an audience with President Wilson, and they had several more afterward. “Sadly,” however, “it took him about five years to come out publicly in support of women’s suffrage,” Ruth says. He did so in 1918.

Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote, on June 4, 1919. It was ratified on August 18, 1920, and become law on August 26.

The Library of Congress holds many collections related to women’s suffrage, including the records of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the National Woman’s Party, the Susan B. Anthony Collection and suffrage scrapbooks.

For a full recounting of the 1913 women’s march and links to additional materials, see “Marching for the Vote: Remembering the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913.”

Pic of the Week: Celebrating Women’s History Month at the Library

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Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, far right, shares a laugh on March 22 with, from left, Molly Smith of Arena Stage, Deborah Rutter of the Kennedy Center and Marin Alsop of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Shawn Miller.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden hosted a conversation with three dynamic leaders in the arts on March 22 in celebration of Women’s History Month at the Library of Congress. Hayden, who is the first woman to serve as Librarian of Congress, spoke with Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Deborah Rutter, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; and Molly Smith, artistic director of Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Hayden spoke with them about their life experiences and achievements and trends in the cultural community.

The event took place in the Members Room of the Thomas Jefferson Building and was streamed live. A recording is available on the Library’s YouTube site.