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Food for Thought: Presidents, Premiers at Press Club Luncheons

(The following is a story written by Mark Hartsell for the Gazette, the Library of Congress staff newsletter.)

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Fidel Castro

For decades at the National Press Club, America got acquainted with the men and women who made history: presidents and premiers, rising stars and old heroes, allies and enemies, establishment figures and revolutionaries – all hoping to explain themselves, over lunch, to the public.

“I am not afraid of any questions for one reason: I believe in what I do. I tell what I think, and I do what I tell,” Fidel Castro told journalists at the club in 1959, just three months after he helped over- throw the Cuban government.

Since 1932, the National Press Club has hosted luncheons that offer prominent figures the chance to meet the Washington journalism establishment and, perhaps, like the young rebel Castro, make news. Those gatherings served as a forum for many of the 20th century’s most important leaders: Truman, Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Reagan, Thatcher, Nixon, Begin, Sadat and de Gaulle.

The club donated nearly 2,000 recordings of the luncheons to the Library of Congress in 1969. Last week, the Library launched a web presentation that showcases more than two dozen of the recordings – many of them speeches that haven’t been heard in their entirety since they were delivered decades ago.

The presentation, “Food for Thought: Presidents, Prime Ministers, and other National Press Club Luncheon Speakers, 1954–1989,” is now available online.

“In recognition of the historical importance of the luncheon talks, the Library of Congress has undertaken to digitize the complete National Press Club collection of recordings,” said Eugene DeAnna, head of the Library’s Recorded Sound Section. “Researchers visiting our Recorded Sound Research Center can listen to any of the hundreds of speeches, but we have selected talks by some of the most distinguished speakers.

“This enlightening online presentation has great potential for use in the classroom because audio has the ability to convey experience and ideas more powerfully than the written word.”

The speeches capture history as told by the people who made it.

In 1958, then-Vice President Richard Nixon spoke at the club following a “good-will” trip to South America that ended in violent anti-American demonstrations. March on Washington director A. Philip Randolph addressed the club in 1963, two days before the historic civil-rights demonstration.

Ronald Reagan, a movie star turned rising political star, spoke at the club just after his dominating victory in the California gubernatorial election of 1966.

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Ronald Reagan

Reagan discussed his philosophy of governance, the Civil Rights Act, the Watts riots and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Miranda v. Arizona – and poked some fun at his old movies and the career he’d left behind.

“You just sit up late enough at night in front of the TV set and they all come back to haunt us. Sometimes as I sit there, I think it’s like looking at a son you never knew you had,” Reagan quipped.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev appeared at the club the day after his arrival in Washington in 1959 on the first visit by a Soviet leader to the United States.

In a nationally televised address, Khrushchev gave Americans their rst close-up view of the man who recently had promised the U.S., “We will bury you.” In a combative question-and-answer session with the press, Khrushchev tried to explain himself.

“Now, capitalism is fighting against communism. I personally am convinced that communism would be victorious,” he said. “As a system of society which provides better possibilities for the development of a country’s productive forces, which enables every person to develop his capacities best and ensures full freedom of a person in that society. Many of you will not agree with that.

“What is to be done? Let us each of us live under the system which we prefer.” Sixteen years later, the woman who helped the West win that struggle with the Soviets made her Washington debut in the same forum.

“In the past generation, there are many political giants: Marshall, Bevin, Churchill, Adenauer, de Gaulle, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower – all in their different ways met the challenge of their times,” Margaret Thatcher told the Press Club crowd. “Today, we have to meet the challenge of our times.”

She did. Thatcher went on to become the first woman prime minister in British history and, along with Reagan, played a key role in achieving the West’s Cold War victory.

The luncheons weren’t all war, life and death; there were fun and games, too.

Muhammad Ali spars with Ken Norton at the Press Club in 1976.

Heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali sparred with rival Ken Norton at the club in 1976 before the third and last of their three great bouts. Comedian Bob Hope needled accident-prone pal and ex-President Gerald Ford about his golf game: “He made golf a contact sport. You never have to worry about his score – you just look back along the fairway and count the wounded.”

Director Alfred Hitchcock, in town to promote his new thriller “The Birds,” delivered 20 minutes of deadpan one-liners, then took questions. Who, he was asked, is your favorite actor?

“There is no such thing. Actors and actresses are necessary evils that we have to tolerate in our business,” Hitchcock joked. “I’ve always said, apropos of this problem of actors and actresses, that Mr. Disney has the right idea.”

Collectively, the luncheon talks provide an audio window into the past that help reveal how movers and shapers of the Cold War era explained divergent policies, opinions and worldviews, said presentation curator Alan Gevinson of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.

“We hear not just their words, but also attitudes, expressiveness and personal charm,” Gevinson said. “Our views of the past always inform our understandings of the present, and listening to these talks can aid in clarifying the issues, events, and conflicts of a bygone era that still impact us today.

 All photos courtesy of the National Press Club archives. 

World War 1: “Kim,” the Life Saver

(The following is a guest blog post by Mark Diminution, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, and Elizabeth Gettins, Library of Congress digital library specialist.)

“Kim,” by Rudyard Kipling, with bullet hole on upper left corner. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

There are the occasional stories that one hears about a book saving a life due to an informational or even spiritual message, but how many people can claim a book literally saved their life? Maurice Hamonneau did.

Hamonneau, a French legionnaire and the last survivor of an artillery attack near Verdun in the First World War, lay wounded and unconscious for hours after the battle. When he regained his senses, he found that a copy of the 1913 French pocket edition of “Kim,” by Rudyard Kipling, had deflected a bullet and saved his life by a mere 20 pages. Hamonneau’s reward was a Croix de Guerre medal, which also engendered a close friendship with the noted author. Hearing that Kipling was mourning the loss of his son John, who had served with the Irish Guards, the young Frenchman was moved to send the medal and the torn copy of “Kim” to Kipling. Kipling was overwhelmed and insisted that he would return the book and medal if Hamonneau were ever to have a son. Hannonneau did and named him Jean in honor of John Kipling. Kipling returned the items with a charming letter to young Jean, advising him to always carry a book of at least 350 pages in the left breast pocket.

Hamonneau’s Croix de Guerre medal. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

The book is now in the collections of the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The work was a gift from Armida Maria-Theresa and Harris Dunscombe Colt and joins a sizable collection of Kiplingiana, including a large number of early editions, manuscripts, photograph, realia and a great deal of supporting secondary materials that chronicle Kipling’s life and works.

Letter exchanged between Kipling and Hammoneau. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

 

 

 

 

In addition to the book, the Library has the original Kipling/Hammoneau correspondence dating from December 1918 through September 1933. There are eight handwritten and six typescript letters in total.

Mark Dimunation, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, talks about Kipling’s life-saving book in this video.

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*All photographs by Emily Grover

World War I Centennial, 2017-2018: With the most comprehensive collection of multi-format 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.

 

A New Look at America’s Insurgents and the King They Left Behind

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From left: Oliver Urquhart Irvine, Librarian, Royal Library and Royal Archives; Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden; and Dr. Joanna Newman, Vice President and Vice Principal (International) King’s College London sign MOU. Photo by David Rice

King George III of England: wasn’t he the one effectively told by the feisty New World colonists to “Nix the tax, Rex?” When they turned Boston Harbor into the world’s largest teapot, it was to get the attention of a government back home in England headed by George III, a monarch they would eventually disown.

But a new collaboration between the United Kingdom institutions holding George’s papers and the Library of Congress, which preserves the papers of many of the United States’ seminal figures, may shed new light on this admittedly thorny relationship.

The Library of Congress holds the papers of many Founding Fathers (and Founding Mothers – women were well-represented in the early history of this nation, and left a record we can learn from today). Meanwhile, the letters, official edicts and other historical records of King George III reside in the United Kingdom, under the jurisdiction of the Royal Library and Royal Archives.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden today signed a memorandum of understanding with the Royal Library and King’s College London. The pact will provide personnel from the Library of Congress Digital Stewardship Residency program to aid in creating digital background information (“metadata”) for the papers of George III; it will also lay the groundwork for a special joint academic conference and a possible exhibition at the Library of Congress in 2020/2021, featuring materials of George III and such American figures as President George Washington.

The project is just one example of how the Library of Congress, under new Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, is reaching out both nationally and internationally to forge new alliances. The goal of all this outreach is to make useful linkages and place assets online with all due speed.

Considering what we know about George Washington’s determination not to become, as leader of the new nation, a king by any other name, this promises to be a very interesting collaboration.

Pics of the Week: Opening the Door

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Barbara Morland, head of the Main Reading Room, speaks with visitors.

Last Monday, the Library of Congress welcomed thousands of visitors into its Main Reading Room for the twice-yearly open house. New this year was an open house a few miles down the road at the Library’s Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Preservation, where the free tour tickets quickly “sold out” on Eventbrite in advance of the event.

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Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden shows visitors the Ceremonial Office.

 

 

 

 

 

While opening the doors to the Main Reading Room was certainly a treat, the open house packed a double whammy for visitors. Not only was Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden on hand to meet attendees, she also announced that the Ceremonial Office of the Jefferson Building will be open for regular viewing by the public – the first time in the building’s 119-year history the room will regularly be open to visitors. Those at the open house were the first to enjoy the opportunity.

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Lesli Foster of WUSA9 looks over the contents of President Abraham Lincoln’s pockets on the night he was assassinated, October 10, 2016. Photo by Shawn Miller.

“I thought it would be wonderful to let everyone have a chance every day, whenever the Library is open, to come into the librarian’s office and feel the wonder of this jewel box,” Hayden said.

All photos by Shawn Miller

Rare Book of the Month: “The Raven” and Mr. Halloween Himself

(The following is a guest blog post written by Elizabeth Gettins, Library of Congress digital library specialist.)

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The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe; Illustrated By Gustave Doré; With comment By Edmund C. Stedman. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1884. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

Halloween is upon us and what better time to recount some of the classic gothic stories by American writers? Henry James’ ghostly tale “The Turn of the Screw” (1898) and Washington Irving’s headless horseman from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820) may readily come to mind. Some may even think of H.P. Lovecraft’s “Shadow over Innsmouth” (1931). However, it stands to reason that many would think of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” as a quintessential American gothic tale.

Poe published the poem in January 1845, and it became an overnight success. It still remains one of the most famous poems ever written. Poe became a household name almost immediately and is widely known as a founding father of Romanticism in American literature. He can also boast being one of the first American writers to work with the short story genre, helping to invent detective fiction, as well as creating the genre of science fiction.

There are many publications of “The Raven” that include artwork by well-known illustrators, including the likes of John Tenniel and Édouard Manet. Here we feature an edition of “The Raven” with illustrations by the French national Gustave Doré (1832-1883). You can view the edition in several ways, including a handy page-turner or simple pdf.

Known as an oversized edition, it measuring 47 centimeters and features 28 finely detailed woodcuts depicting the scenes from the poem. Paging through the digital copy, one can see the poem come alive with haunting portrayals of the scenes that Poe describes. The tome was published in 1884 by Harper & Brothers, shortly after the Doré’s death. Doré was a child prodigy and began carving in cement by the age of seven. At the age of 15 he began his career of printmaking for books for famous authors including Rabelais, Balzac, Milton and Dante and Byron. Doré was self-taught and his art quite prolific. His engravings are considered to be some of the finest examples ever made.

displays.

Very Superstitious

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The Black Cat, October, 1895. Prints and Photographs Division.

To say I’m not very superstitious is like saying the sky isn’t blue. I can probably attribute it (very lovingly) to my mother. I can recall on a few occasions being halfway down the road when a black cat crossed in front of our car and my mom immediately turned around to go back the way we came, only to turn back around to continue on in the right direction. The backtracking apparently negated the bad luck. Don’t even get me started with knocking on wood – a habit that I can’t quite break even today. And, if my mom is reading this, perhaps she can clarify who comes to visit when you drop a spoon, fork or knife – I can never remember!

Certainly every culture, community and even family has superstitions ranging from the mundane to just plain silly. The Library’s collections are full of accounts of local lore, many from its various oral history collections like “American Life Histories” from the Federal Writers’ Project. Following are just a sample. Search for “superstitions” in the collection for many more.

In this narrative from the Federal Writers’ Project collection, “Myer” recounted Yiddish folklore from his grandfather, who would admonish him not to whistle lest all the evil spirits be called together.

Mrs. Erret Hicks believed in several superstitions: If a dog howls under your window, it is a sure sign of death for someone you love. The breakage of anything you like or admire is a sign that you are losing a friend or sweetheart. Always put your right shoe on first or bad luck will follow. If a child is born with a caul over his face, he will never suffer a death of drowning and will be a genius.

Mrs. Ernest P. Truesdell recalled a few “uninteresting” superstitions including returning to your house after you just left meant bad luck. To offset the bad luck, you needed to go sit on your bed for a few minutes.

An old Russian superstition, as told by Gussie Spector, believes that if you see leaves turning around in the wind, the devil is there.

This post was actually inspired by a story on Slate’s The Vault blog on lost superstitions. The post highlighted the work of Fletcher Bascom Dressler, who wrote a book on a research study he conducted on superstition and education at the University of California. The Library has a copy in its collections. The list of superstitions is quite thorough. Some of the most common include dropping a dishrag means company is coming, never begin a new task on Friday because it will mean bad luck, dreaming of snakes means you have an enemy and opening an umbrella inside means bad luck.

Believing in superstitions may be a habit that is comforting without the consequences. Goodness knows, I’ve broken a mirror and not suffered bad luck. And I’ve certainly walked by my fair share of black cats. Still, I find I come back to them now and again. Perhaps Carl Sagan said it best in this note from Sept. 21, 1979:

“Superstitions may be comforting for a while. But, because they avoid rather than confront the world, they are doomed. The future belongs to those able to learn, to chance, to accommodate to this exquisite Cosmos that we have been privileged to inhabit for a brief moment.”

King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand (1927-2016)

The following cross-post is written by Cait Miller and originally appeared on the In the Muse blog.

The following post is co-written with Musical Instruments Curator Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford.

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His Majesty, King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, visited the Library of Congress on June 29,1960 as part of his official visit in the Nationa’s Capital. Pictured viewing the Thai musical instruments, which were a gift of His Majesty’s to the Library, are left to right: Harold Spivacke, Chief of the Library’s Music Division, His Majesty, Cecil Hobbs, Head of the South Asia Section, Library of Congress, and Librarian of Congress L. Quincy Mumford.

Early yesterday morning the world learned of the death of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, crowned in 1946 and known as the world’s longest-reigning monarch. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and educated in Switzerland and the United States, King Bhumibol was interested in musical performance and composition, and played clarinet and other reed instruments. In 1960, His Majesty visited the Library of Congress as part of an official visit to the United States. While visiting, the King presented the Library with ten musical instruments, including a pair of ching (hand cymbals), one thon and one rammanā (small hand-played drums), two khlui ū (bamboo flutes, small and medium), one jakhē (čhakhē, a three-string zither), and two sq duang and two sq ū, both being forms of a vertically played two-string fiddle. A silver plaque accompanying the gift carried these engraved words: To the Library of Congress. This set of Thai musical instruments is presented as a token of sincere respect for a centre of knowledge and culture. Washington, DC, 1960.

Further enriching King Bhumibol’s generous gift made over half a century ago, the Music Division is also home to the Bhumibol Adulyadej (King of Thailand) Collection, consisting of his compositions (13 music manuscripts and 100 pieces of printed music), clippings, correspondence, and other miscellaneous documents. The collection had been assembled by Serge Rips, a friend of the King of Thailand. His Majesty’s original compositions are closely tied to traditional Thai musical influences; however, they simultaneously reflect his affinity for jazz and swing music. Specific jazz influences include Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, and Lionel Hampton, with whom he participated in jam sessions.

World War 1: Irving Greenwald’s WWI Diary

(The following is a guest post by VHP Reference Specialist Megan Harris, reprinted from the Folklife Today blog.)

[image error]One look at Irving Greenwald’s diary is all it takes to bring to mind the old adage “good things come in small packages.” This World War I diary, written by Pfc. Irving Greenwald, was donated to the Veterans History Project (VHP) in December 2015 by his family.

The diary itself is small – pocket-sized, only slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes. When Greenwald’s grandson brought it by the VHP offices last December and opened it up to show us the contents, I gasped: the diary is written in the tiniest, most-minute handwriting I have ever seen. It starts off small, and then gets even smaller and then smaller still. It is unfathomable how Greenwald was able to write such teeny print – particularly in light of the fact that much of the diary was written while he was serving in combat in France, and then after he was injured and recuperating in the hospital.

Some portions of the diary can be read by the naked eye, but much of it is so small and blurred with age as to render it illegible. Luckily, the diary was transcribed by Greenwald’s daughter and sister in the late 1930s. Reading through the diary transcript, I got goosebumps all over again. Greenwald wrote in a staccato, rat-a-tat manner, focusing on specific elements of his daily routine. At first glance, his prose seems mostly fact-based, without a lot of extraneous emotional content. Reading further, I realized that not only are his entries jam-packed with rich historical details, but they also contain deeply poignant passages that convey the enormity of his experiences in a few concise sentences. Here’s an early entry that caught my eye; in it, Greenwald describes receiving a pass that will allow him time away from training at Camp Upton so that he may visit his wife:[image error]

December 23, 1917: Up at 6:45. Roll call. Breakfast, orange, pettijohn’s, hash, coffee. Made bed. Tidied bunk. Then began great preparations for journey home. Shined shoes, dressed, packed grip, shaved with infinite care. 9:30 and get my pass. I walked on air.

Greenwald’s diary also connects to one of the most famous American units of World War I, as he was part of the “Lost Battalion,” a group known for the losses they incurred during battle in the Argonne Forest in October 1918. Part of the 77th Division, the nine companies that were part of the Lost Battalion were cut off from the rest of the Allied forces and spent a week in a ravine surrounded by the Germans. Of the more than 500 soldiers in the group, only 194 survived; the rest were killed, missing in action or were taken prisoner. Following their rescue, the Lost Battalion immediately became notable for the circumstances of the battle, and the story has become part of WWI lore. For example, carrier pigeons were used by stranded members of the unit to communicate with headquarters; one of these carrier pigeons, Cher Ami, was eventually preserved and is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

You can watch more about Greenwald’s diary in this video.

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WWI Video Transcript

Do you have original WWI material that you would like to see preserved at the Library of Congress? Please consider donating it to the Veterans History Project!

World War I Centennial, 2017-2018: With the most comprehensive collection of multi-format 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.

Technology at the Library: Display By Design

(The following is an article in the September/October 2016 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, LCM. The article was written by Fenella France, chief of the Library’s Preservation, Research and Testing Division.)

Physicist Charles Tilford attaches an apparatus that replaces air in the encasement with inert argon gas to help preserve the 1507 Waldemüller map. Photo courtesy of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Technological advancements have made it possible for the Library to put several rare maps on long-term display.

Preserving and making the Library’s vast collection accessible to researchers is a challenge. Even more challenging is putting rare and unique items on display. Lighting, temperature and even air itself pose a threat.

The Library, in collaboration with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has designed, constructed and installed anoxic (oxygen-free), hermetically sealed encasements to mitigate the potentially damaging effects of long-term display.

Oxygen promotes the deterioration of materials such as paper, parchment, and organic-based media including inks and other colorants. This deterioration is often visible as yellowing, embrittlement and color-fading.

Anoxic encasements are created by displacing oxygen with an inert gas, such as nitrogen or argon. A good seal that can maintain interior case conditions requires advanced case construction, materials and design.

In addition to allowing oxygen-free display, the encasements have to meet preservation needs for long-term display of historic materials; allow monitoring of the maps by measuring environmental changes; integrate with the Library’s electronic and security infrastructure monitoring and be movable.

The Library first began using the special encasement in 2007 to display Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map— the earliest known map to name the land mass of “America.”

A crane hoists a specially designed map encasement into the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building. Photo by Dianne van der Reyden.

More recently, the Library worked with NIST in 2013 to design, construct and install another anoxic encasement to display Abel Buell’s 1784 map— the first map of the newly independent United States that was compiled, printed and published in America by an American.

One challenge in the design of the Buell map encasement was to replace an oxygen sensor used for the previous encasement monitoring that was no longer commercially available. A prototype of the sensor was built, calibrated and tested, and is currently in use for the monitoring of the interior conditions of the Buell case.

The encasement, tooled from a single block of aluminum and covered with hurricane- proof glass, allows tight control of the map’s environment, reducing its potential degradation by oxygen and moisture. Performance testing of cases and sensors is an ongoing program in the Library’s Preservation Research and Testing Division.

You can read the complete issue of the September/October 2016 LCM here.

New Website on Martin Waldseemüller

The Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress and the Galileo Museum in Florence, Italy, today unveiled a multi-media interactive website that celebrates the life and times of 16th-century cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, who created the 1507 World Map, which is the first document to use the name “America,” represent the Pacific Ocean and depict a separate and full Western Hemisphere.

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1507 Waldseemüller map. Geography and Map Division.

The website, “A Land Beyond the Stars,” brings the map’s wealth of historical, technical, scientific and geographic data to a broader public. Interactive videos explain the sciences of cartography and astronomy and the state of navigational and geographic knowledge during the time of Waldseemüller. Developed with materials from the Library of Congress and other libraries around the world, the name of the website stems from Waldseemüller’s use of a passage from Roman poet Virgil, which can be found in the upper left corner of the 1507 map.

The 1507 map is the crown jewel of the unparalleled collections of maps and atlases in the Geography and Map Division at the Library of Congress. It is the only known surviving copy of the first printed edition of the map, which, some scholars believe, consisted of 1,000 copies. In 2003, the Library purchased Waldseemüller’s 1507 map from Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg in Baden-Württenberg, Germany, whose family owned it—and Waldseemüller’s 1516 Carta Marina, a nautical map of the entire world—for many centuries. Jay I. Kislak, a member of the Library’s James Madison Council, a private-sector advisory group, purchased the Carta Marina and donated it to the Library in 2014.

In 1507, cartographers in St. Dié, near Strasbourg, France, undertook an ambitious project to document and update new geographic knowledge derived from the discoveries of the late 15th and the first years of the 16th centuries. Waldseemüller’s world map was the most exciting product of that effort and included data gathered during Amerigo Vespucci’s voyages of 1501–1502 to the New World. Waldseemüller christened the new lands “America” in recognition of Vespucci’s understanding that a new continent had been uncovered, as a result of the voyages of Columbus and other explorers in the late 15th century.

The Galileo Museum, in collaboration with the Library of Congress, created the online multimedia presentation. Ente Cassa di Risparmio, a foundation in Florence, sponsored the project.