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Library in the News: March 2016 Edition

Headlining Library of Congress news for March was the announcement of new selections to the National Recording Registry.

Michael O’Sullivan of The Washington Post spoke with singer Gloria Gaynor, whose “I Will Survive” was one of the selections.

“For Gaynor, the Library of Congress honor simply acknowledges what the world has already figured out,” he wrote. “‘The honor means that it will be purposefully preserved,’ she says,” “‘whereas the song itself has kind of been accidentally preserved, and passed down, without any real purpose, from generation to generation. It’s like a family heirloom, and now it’s like a family heirloom of the family of the United States.’”

“It’s a trip through the 20th century, with something for everyone, including plenty of romance, from a 1911 recording by the Columbia Quartet of ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart’ to Julie London’s version of ‘Cry Me a River’ in 1955,” reported Jeffrey Brown for PBS NewsHour.

“There’s nothing more American than Bobby Darin’s swingin’ version of ‘Mack The Knife’—a song so embedded in U.S. culture that it was just inducted into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry,” wrote Erin Blakemore for Smithsonian. “Or is there? It turns out that the toe-tapping, bizarre tune is a product of Germany…and its history is as convoluted as the tale of Old Mack himself.”

Kelly Carlin, daughter of comedian George Carlin, responded to the Library of Congress Facebook page with “On behalf of my father, George, I can unequivocally say that he would be thrilled, over the moon, with this honor. Thank you, Library of Congress for recognizing his essential place in the cultural history of this nation. (We’re all a bit verklempt over here at the Carlin house).” George Carlin’s “Class Clown” album earned his spot on the list.

Metal band Metallica also reported on the addition of their third album “Master of Puppets” being added to the list. []

Also covering the story were national outlets including NPR, CBS Evening News and Sunday Morning, Associated Press, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, Variety and Conan, among many others.

Speaking of recording registry, The Atlantic highlighted the inclusion of the fourth-quarter radio coverage of Wilt Chamberlin’s 100-point game (Philadelphia Warriors vs. New York Knicks) March 2, 1962, emphasizing the importance of radio preservation.

“Today, those 36 seconds were entered into the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress,” wrote Adrienne Lafrance. “Most radio isn’t so lucky.

“In what the Library of Congress is billing the largest digital humanities and history initiative in the discipline of film and media, the Radio Preservation Project seeks to identify, catalogue, and preserve a gargantuan—and, for now, disparate—collection of noncommercial radio recordings in the United States.”

In other audio recording news, Library experts continue to be featured in The Washington Post’s series of “Presidential” podcasts.

While the selections included in the registry are considered culturally significant to American heritage, the Library also recognizes culturally significant contributions made by individuals. In March, the institution announced that Mario Vargas Llosa is the recipient of a Living Legend Award.

 Also making the announcement were Fox News Latino, Latin Times and .

Speaking of awards, the Library also announced that author Marilynne Robinson will receive the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.

According to Ron Charles of The Washington Post, “Robinson said she was ‘awfully happy to be on the list’ of winners because she feels such a strong kinship with the classic authors of the United States.”

Also running the news was the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Associated Press and The Examiner.

And, for a bit of holiday fun, CBS Sunday Morning spoke with the Library’s Stephen Winick of the American Folklife Center on the origins of the Easter Bunny.

Rare Book of the Month: A Billedbog to a Boy

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

Sample page of “Billedbog til Jonas Drewsen,” by Hans Christian Andersen,
with Andersen’s handwriting describing the events depicted. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

“Billedbog” is a Danish word for picture book, and one lucky boy by the name of Jonas Drewsen was gifted this picture scrapbook by the very famous children’s author Hans Christian Andersen. This one-of-a-kind book is not the product of any printing press but was instead handcrafted in Kjøbenhavn, Denmark, in 1862 by Andersen and his Councilor of State friend Adolph L. Drewsen. Andersen and Drewsen both applied their handiwork by pasting fanciful pictures in this album and writing stories, poems and rhymes about the pictures in and around the margins. The book was then presented to Drewsen’s grandson, Jonas, who was around eight years old at the time.

The pictures are hand-colored and are taken from American, English and German papers and from books and periodicals – all pasted in a collage form. Andersen himself contributed poems and rhymes for 19 of the pictures. They can be viewed in the margins or around the illustrations.

Hans Christian Andersen. Prints and Photographs Division.

In total, this 140-page book features hundreds of illustrations that appeal to a young boy’s imagination. Many of the scenes include soldiers from various time periods, the cavalry, sword fights, boxing matches, tropical forests, various modes of transportation and many different scenes of children at play. Animals also play a large part of this scrapbook, including various depictions of snakes, lions, gorillas, pigs, cows, horses, bears, insects, fishes and birds of prey among others. Leafing through the pages offers nearly endless possibilities for conjuring up story after story to please the fancy of a young boy.

This scrapbook is part of a the Jean Hersholt Collection, which is comprised of Andersen’s early writing and papers, as well as first editions of the writings of his personal friends including Hugh Walpole and Sinclair Lewis. Hersholt was a Danish-born actor who moved to the United States and became a leading film and radio talent.

In the early 1950s, Hersholt and his wife presented their collection of Anderseniana to the Library of Congress. It is likely the most comprehensive collection in America of first editions, manuscripts, letters, presentation copies and pictorial material relating to Hans Christian Andersen. Formed by the collectors over a 30-year period, it chronicles Andersen’s publications beginning with his first book, “Ungdoms-Forsøg” (“Youthful Attempts”), published in Copenhagen in 1822 under the pseudonym William Christian Walter. Among the first editions in the collection are the six pamphlets published by C. A. Reitsel of Copenhagen between 1835 and 1842 titled, “Eventyr, Fortalte for Børn” (“Fairy Tales Told for Children”). These contain the earliest printings of 19 of Andersen’s fairy tales, among them “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “Thumbelina.” The collection also includes manuscripts of several other fairy tales, Andersen’s correspondence (1868-74) with his American publisher Horace E. Scudder, volumes inscribed by Andersen, early translations, significant posthumous editions and works about Andersen.

“Billedbog til Jonas Drewsen” joins many other rare children’s books available on the Library’s website.

New Online: Civil War and Persian Gulf Stories, National Recording Registry

(The following is a guest post by William Kellum, manager in the Library’s Web Services Division.)

The Manuscript Division has added two collections to its growing list of Civil War materials now available online.

Sheridan’s Papers include a draft of his published memoirs. Manuscript Division.

The papers of army officer Philip Henry Sheridan (1831-1888) span the years 1853-1896, although the majority of the material dates from 1862 to 1887. Relating chiefly to the Civil War, Reconstruction, Mexican border disputes, Indian wars and military administration, the collection of approximately 18,000 items includes correspondence, reports, orders, memorabilia, scrapbooks, commissions, financial records and speeches. Dominated by correspondence and reports, the papers document Sheridan’s service as a Union army commander in the Civil War and his postwar commands up to and including that of commanding general of the United States Army (1883-1888). A draft of Sheridan’s published memoirs is included in the collection. Two letters from Abraham Lincoln to Sheridan, written on September 20 and October 22, 1864, can be found in the General Correspondence series, and letters received from Generals William T. Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant are located in the Autograph Letters section of the Sheridan Papers.

The Nathan W. Daniels Diary and Scrapbook also documents the experience of an officer in the Union army during the Civil War, but in this case a colonel of the 2nd Regiment of the Louisiana Native Guard, an African-American infantry regiment chiefly stationed at Ship Island, Mississippi. The collection, spanning the years 1861-1867, consists of three volumes of a handwritten diary with rare photographs, illustrations and newspaper clippings mounted throughout the text. Also included are a typescript of summaries and transcripts of the bulk of the diaries, and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings.

A page from Nathan Daniel’s Diary. Manuscript Division.

Volume three was written jointly by Daniels and his wife, the noted spiritualist medium Cora Hatch. Nathan Daniels notes throughout the three volumes of the diary his own interactions with spiritualists and attendance at spiritualist events. After his marriage to Cora Hatch in December 1865, some diary entries not only include content about Daniels’s activities within the spiritualist community but occasionally also document the content of interviews with spirit guides speaking through Cora Daniels.

Also new this month is the annual update to the National Recording Registry. You can read the full description of all 25 new inductees, which span the years 1911-1986. Among the selections are the rock group Santana’s 1970 album “Abraxas,” two blues numbers from the 1920s (Clarence Williams’ 1923 “Wild Cat Blues” and Blind Willie McTell’s 1928 “Statesboro Blues”), Julie London’s 1955 recording of “Cry Me A River,” George Marshall’s 1947 speech outlining the Marshall Plan to restore Europe following World War II, saxophonist John Coltrane’s 1964 oeuvre “A Love Supreme,” Merle Haggard’s 1968 song “Mama Tried,” Clifton Chenier’s 1976 Zydeco album “Bogalusa Boogie,” Buffy Sainte-Marie’s 1964 album “It’s My Way,” George Carlin’s groundbreaking 1972 comedy album “Class Clown” and Metallica’s 1986 takeoff from its thrash-metal roots, “Master of Puppets.” Listen to an audio montage of the selections:

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The Veterans History Project has a new presentation in its series of featured interviews: Experiencing War: The Persian Gulf War, 25 Years Later. In these audio and video interviews (some also including photos and written materials), veterans describe in their own words their experiences serving in the conflict, relating how they coped with challenges such as Scud missile alarms, potential chemical weapon attacks and the harsh desert environment. The voices of female veterans are of particular note: the Persian Gulf War saw the largest deployment of women to a combat theater in American history.

Pic of the Week: Ask Us Anything on Rosa Parks

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Stephen Wesson, an educational resources specialist, answers online questions during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session on the Library’s Rosa Parks Collection. Photo by Shawn Miller.

Library experts involved in making the papers of Rosa Parks available online answered questions in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session on Tuesday.

During the Reddit AMA, experts from the Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, the Prints and Photographs Division and Educational Outreach took questions about Rosa Parks and about how the Library cataloged, preserved, digitized, and made her papers available to the world.

Here are some of the highlights:

QUESTION: As a non-American whose familiarity covers only the basics of the civil rights movement, what new historical insights and knowledge do you think will we be able to gain from her papers about topics such as the insight workings of the civil rights movement?

ANSWER: This might not be an expected answer to your question, but it is what immediately came to my mind when I read it (and I thank you for that, because I haven’t had a chance to write about this). The collection makes the personal sacrifices of civil rights activists palpable. One of the most poignant aspects of the collection is the way it documents the sacrifices Rosa Parks made in standing up to discrimination. Most of us I think know that she and her husband lost their jobs in the weeks following her arrest. Neither of them was able to find sustained employment in Montgomery after that. But did we know the extent and duration of the poverty that resulted from their prolonged unemployment? The collection includes their income tax returns. In 1955, they had a combined income of $3,749.94. Their combined income tax return for 1959 lists only $661.06. By then they were living in Detroit, a city that had been rocked by the 1957 recession. Rosa Parks was also grappling with serious medical conditions.

In 1960, a reporter for Jet magazine spent the day with Mrs. Parks. In a feature article, magazine’s readers learned that the woman whose courage had launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott was “penniless, debt-ridden, ailing with stomach ulcers and a throat tumor, compressed into two rooms with her husband and mother.” Few people knew the conditions under which this proud woman was living. In 1965, newly-elected Congressman John Conyers hired Mrs. Parks to work in his Detroit office, providing her with greater financial stability.

There was backlash against the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) for not giving financial assistance to Rosa Parks and her husband when they were in such need. In 1957 the Pittsburgh Courier wrote about her poverty, implying that something should have been done within the movement to help the family. On November 21, 1957, Rosa Parks wrote to her husband that she was sick over the articles and would not have said anything against the MIA. Civil rights leaders in Montgomery had written a strong reply to the newspaper.

QUESTION: What’s the most surprising discovery in the collection?

ANSWER: Thanks for your question. I think each of us will have a different answer. For me, I was struck by Rosa Parks as a writer. Her writing is powerful, clear-eyed, revealing, and lyrical. If you have only a limited time to look at the collection, I suggest that you look at three folders of her early writings. They are largely undated and fragmentary, but very powerful. Folder 1 and Folder 2 concern racial discrimination in general and her bus protest and the boycott in particular. The third folder contains autobiographical writings.

But if you don’t have time to look at all three, read this one page about “treading the tight rope of Jim Crow” that moved me so greatly. In it, she weaves together the imagery to ropes, strings, and lines:

“Treading the tight-rope of Jim Crow from birth to death, from almost our first knowledge of life to our last conscious thought, from cradle to the grave, is a major mental acrobatic feat. It takes a noble soul to plumb this line. There is always a line of some kind – color line, hanging  rope, tight rope.”

“To me it seems that we are puppets on strings in the white man’s hands. They say we must be segregated from them by the color line, yet they pull the strings and we perform to their satisfaction or suffer the consequences if we get out of line.”

SECOND ANSWER: The item that surprised me the most was one of the first items I saw. It’s one I go back to again and again: “I had been pushed around….”

Having grown up with the Rosa Parks myth, I saw – right before my eyes – the incontrovertible evidence that Parks wasn’t just “tired” that day. Even though I already knew this history, seeing her handwritten words made a powerful impact on me. The pages following this one are equally moving.

We have heard from teachers who have incorporated this page in their classroom activities; an interesting note is that students often insist on reading Rosa Parks’ handwritten notes, even when a transcript is available. To me, this shows that students instinctively recognize the power of the original.

QUESTION: How did Parks interact with the Civil rights movement and it’s leaders after the boycott, say up until 1970? Did she correspond with people like John Lewis, and keep up her acquaintence with King?

ANSWER: After the bus boycott Rosa Parks remained active in the civil rights movement. She participated in the Prayer Pilgrimage (1957), the March on Washington (1963), Mississippi Freedom Summer (1964), the Selma to Montgomery March (1965), and the Poor People’s Campaign (1968). She maintained a lifelong friendship with Coretta Scott King and served on the board of trustees of the Martin Luther King Center for Nonviolent Social Change. She fought for women’s rights and against the Vietnam War. She advocated for prisoners and supported the growing Black Power movement. Rosa Parks was employed by Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan) from 1965 to 1988. She worked with local groups to improve Detroit. She supported Jesse Jackson’s 1964 presidential campaign. In the mid-1980s she participated in anti-apartheid protests. She was part of the welcoming party for Nelson Mandela when he visited the U.S. She co-founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development with Elaine Steele in 1987 to promote and direct youth. She addressed the 1995 Million Man March. In 2000, Rosa Parks met with Pope John Paul II in St. Louis and read an appeal for racial healing. The Rosa Parks collection at the Library of Congress includes manuscripts and photographs that document these associations and varied activities.

SECOND ANSWER: Great question. Many photographs in the collection show how active Parks was within the civil rights community long after the boycott, through the 1990s. Some examples from the 1960s and 1970s show her supporting activist Sallye Davis, mother of Angela Davis. Here she’s with Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. We also have photos of Parks with Stokely Carmichael. She also attended NAACP related events with Coretta King and maintained a friendship with her after Kings death. Here she is at an event with King, around 1970.

Here is the full transcript of the Library’s Rosa Parks Reddit session.

10 Stories: April Fool! Chronicling America

In celebration of the release of the 10 millionth page of Chronicling America, our free, online searchable database of historical U.S. newspapers, our reference librarians have selected some interesting subjects and articles from the archives. We’ve been sharing them in a series of Throwback Thursday #TBT blog posts — one day late today, due to the special holiday.

Today we return to our historical newspaper archives for stories about that most impish of holidays, April Fools’ Day. Keep a sharp eye out and don’t believe every bit of news you hear…

“April Fools of Today and Yesterday”

An extensive survey of the holiday throughout time and around the four corners of the globe, in the Topeka State Journal, March 30, 1912.

“An Idyll of April 1 — What Fools These Mortals Be!”

Wherein “the small boys’ well-tried and proven schemes will hold sway,” those including “the wallet with a string to it,” “the fastened coin,” the cotton apple dumpling,” “the hurtful tack” (ow), “string for the unwary,” and “the same old brick in the hat joke” (a favorite of ours). Washington (D.C.) Morning Times, March 29, 1896.

“All Fool’s Day—A Relic of Ancient Rome”

The Clarksburg (W.Va.) Sunday Telegram of March 28, 1915, pegs the holiday to classical Roman times. No explanation, however, of how that brick-in-the-hat ties into Caesar’s era.

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“Life’s April Fool,” illustrated advertisement from the Ogden (Utah) Standard, April 1, 1919.

“Life’s April Fool“

A sumptuous, full-page ad in the Ogden (Utah) Standard, April 1, 1919, uses rich illustrations and the words of Lord Byron to encourage folks to deposit their money in “Odgen’s good banks” and hence, avoid being life’s prize April Fool.

“French Answers to Query ‘Why Is An April Fool?‘”

The Washington (D.C.) Evening Star of April 4, 1909, offers this report on French culture by an American abroad.

“Little Nemo in Slumberland”

Winsor McCay’s classic dreaming little boy visits Indiana while his questionable companions proceed to stick April Fools signs on each other’s backs. Washington (D.C.) Evening Star, April 2, 1911.

“Mr. Tappe’s April Fool Joke and Its Sequel”

A prank gone terribly wrong: “Who Would Have Ever Thought That the Frolicsome Tricks Played on Miss Meer, His Serious Minded ‘Saleslady,’ Would End Up in the Courts!” from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, December 5, 1920.

“Statesmen Recall Their April Fool Pranks of By-Gone Days”

Senators and Congressmen tell of fake wax ladies and exploding cigars, those scamps! Washington (D.C.) Evening Star March 29, 1914.

“In Search of the Origin of April Fools’ Day, the Observer Learns Many Things”

In that same issue of the Washington (D.C.) Evening Star (March 29, 1914)—obviously a slow news day—the writer begins a quest to run down “the cousin of the man-who-rocks-the-boat and the half-brother of the individual who didn’t-know-it-was-loaded,” but ends up learning much more.

“April Fools of Today and Yesterday”

This repeat of the first story in today’s blog is notable that here, in The Daily Missoulian, March 31, 1912, it is alongside an advertisement emphatically endorsing a ballot proposition to open saloons for liquor sales on Sunday afternoons, complete with a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln looking on benevolently to give the venture the needed gravitas—plus a dire prediction of the loss of thousands of dollars in revenue to the Missoula community.

Speaking of Chronicling America, the National Endowment for the Humanities (our partner in the project) has launched a nationwide contest, challenging you to produce creative web-based projects using data pulled from the newspaper archives website. We’re looking for data visualizations, web-based tools or other innovative web-based projects using the open data found on Chronicling America. NEH will award cash prizes, and the contest closes June 15, 2016.

Launched by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in 2007, Chronicling America provides enhanced and permanent access to historically significant newspapers published in the United States between 1836 and 1922. It is part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a joint effort between the two agencies and partners in 40 states and territories. Start exploring the first draft of history today at chroniclingamerica.loc.gov and help us celebrate on Twitter and Facebook by sharing your findings and using the hashtags #ChronAm #10Million.

Remember the Ladies

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

Abigail Adams. Prints and Photographs Division.

Abigail Adams wrote these words to her husband, John Adams, on March 31, 1776, nearly 150 years before the House of Representatives voted to pass the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. Her words urged him and the other members of the Continental Congress to consider the rights of women while laying the framework for the new, independent nation.

Abigail Adams was an advocate for greater political rights for women, especially in regards to divorce and property ownership. While her husband didn’t heed her advice then, he did consider her his better half. The two exchanged countless letters discussing everyday life and his political work, although wrote John, “as to what passes in Congress I am tied fast by my honour to communicate nothing.”

The two were married for 54 years, and their marriage was one of mutual respect and affection. Adams died in 1818, eight years before her husband. Her obituary read, “Possessing, at every period of life, the unlimited confidence, as well as affection of her husband, she was admitted, at all times, to share largely of his thoughts. … she was a friend, whom it was his delight to consult in every perplexity of public affairs; and whose councils never failed to partake of that happy harmony, which prevailed in her character; in which intuitive judgment was blended with consummate prudence; the spirit of conciliation, with the spirit of her station, and the refinement of her sex. In the storm, as well as on the smooth sea of life, her virtues were ever the object of his trust and veneration.”

Equal Franchise Society reproduces extract from famous Abigal Adams letter of March 31, 1776 in which she warns John to “Remember the Ladies.” Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

The Library’s collections contain a wide variety of resources related to John and Abigail Adams and his contributions to the nation. This resource guide compiles links to digital materials related such as manuscripts, letters, broadsides, government documents and images that are available throughout the Library of Congress website.

In addition, the Library is home to the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection along with the papers of suffrage movement leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt. Even more resources can be found on the Library’s Women’s History Month web portal.

Easter Week Illuminations

(The following is a guest post by Levon Avdoyan, Armenian and Georgian area specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division.)

The feast of Easter is arguably the holiest of holidays for the various Christian denominations but especially for the Eastern Churches – among those, the Armenian Church. For it, Easter Week (Avag Shabat, the “Holy” or “Great” Week), begins on Monday preceding the crucifixion and ends on Sunday with the resurrection of Jesus, or Holy Easter (Surb Zatik).

It comes as no surprise, then, within Armenia’s rich Christian literary tradition, that its manuscripts and early publications are replete with stunning images dedicated to the various events of Easter Week. I merely wish with this blog post to present simply and with minimal description engravings and illuminations from four items among the rich collection of Armenian rarities in the custody of the Near East Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress.

In 1666, the first complete publication of the Armenian bible was published in Amsterdam. Edited by Oskan Erewantsʿi (Oskan of Erevan), it included select engravings by the renowned Dutch artist, Christoffel van Sichem, who had richly illustrated the Dutch Bible in 1657 with more than 1,000 images.

Among the Armenian manuscripts in the Near East Section are two richly illuminated missals, copies of the Armenian liturgy prepared for the use of the celebrants at the altar. Both were copied by unknown scribes in 1722 AD in the environs of Sebastia (Sivas) and Tʿokhatʿ of modern Turkey. Michael Stone, a former distinguished senior visiting fellow at the Kluge Center, and his late wife Nira, an art historian, had determined that both were products of the same workshop. However, each is adorned and decorated in different fashion. One depicts throughout its margins the actions of the bishops, priests and deacons at various moments in the liturgy, while the other concentrates on still yet ornately colored birds and devices.

Another item is one of the six leaves that came from a disbound 17th century Haysmawurkʿ (Lectionary/Synaxary), which is part of the Near East Section’s collection of calligraphy sheets acquired from the Armenian merchant and book dealer, Kirkor Minassian, in the 1930s.

I hope you will admire these images as much as I continue to.

 

Pic of the Week: It’s Bloomin’ Time

Cherry blossoms reach peak bloom outside the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building. Photo by Shawn Miller.

This week marks the beginning of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, an annual event held in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the gift of some 3,000 Yoshino cherry trees given to the city in 1912 as a symbol of friendship between Japan and the United States.

The grounds of the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building are home to two of the original group, which are also among only nine remaining from the 1912 gift.

You can learn more about the local blossoms in this resource guide or through this video that presents highlights of the Library exhibition (now available online) “Sakura: Cherry Blossom as Living Symbols of Friendship.”

Congas, Sambas and Falling Plaster

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Billy Joel (Credit: Columbia)

I was 15 years old, sitting cross-legged next to my friend Mascha on a cork-tile floor at Mammoth Gardens, a roller-skating rink built in 1910. Plaster, occasionally, was falling from the ceiling – because the band on the stage that night was the drum-heavy Santana, which had just released its 1970 album “Abraxas.” That’s the album with the breakout singles “Black Magic Woman,” “Oye Como Va” and the beautiful “Samba Pa Ti.”

What we thought was seriously cool then has held up pretty well. “Abraxas” has just been added to the Library of Congress National Recording Registry, which recognizes sound recordings worthy of permanent preservation on grounds they have cultural, artistic or historic importance. This year’s offerings also include Billy Joel’s single “Piano Man.”

“I am very honored to have my song, ‘Piano Man,’ included in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress,” said Joel. “While the recording of the album featured the now familiar song “Piano Man,’ some may not know that it was not initially a retail success. It was, however, considered a ‘turntable hit’, due to widespread airplay of various ‘album tracks’ by progressive FM radio stations around the country. Both the single and the album ‘Piano Man’ eventually went on to achieve ‘platinum’ status, thanks to that kind of free-form radio airplay.

“I personally owe a great deal of thanks to those independent disk jockeys who did not have to adhere to the restrictions of ‘program consultants’ and ‘hit formats’ as commercial radio does today,” added Joel (who received the Library’s Gershwin Prize for Popular Song two years ago). “They took the risk of broadcasting new and unproven music, based mostly on listener requests and their own enthusiasm for the recording artists of that time.”

The other recordings among this year’s 25 selections range from Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” to blues numbers, a landmark Zydeco album, a frenzied 1938 Mahler’s Ninth that foreshadowed Hitler’s invasion of Austria and the speech by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall that kicked off the “Marshall Plan” that gave hope to citizens of the European nations devastated by World War II.

The registry also includes George Carlin’s icon-smashing “Class Clown,” the fourth quarter of Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain’s astounding 100-point basketball game in 1962; the LP in which Metallica stopped thrashing and took metal music in a new direction; and two variations on the song “Mack the Knife,” by Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin.

(I had a boss once who used to deliberately botch the words of “Mack.” “Oh, the snark bites, with its feet, dear …” Try working on deadline with that distraction!)

Congress created the National Recording Registry (which now holds 450 designated recordings) to preserve these sounds of our times for posterity. You can nominate recordings of all kinds to become part of the registry, and you should. Here’s the link where you can have your say.

 

Ask Us Anything: Reddit AMA on Rosa Parks Papers 3/29

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Rosa Parks, left, speaks with U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm

The following is a guest post by Library of Congress Information Technology Specialist Michelle Rago:

Library experts involved in making the papers of Rosa Parks available online will answer your questions in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session beginning at 9 a.m. (ET) on March 29, 2016. Join us on the AskHistorians subreddit.

The collection contains some 7,500 manuscripts and 2,500 photographs.  It is on loan to the Library for 10 years from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

Parks, an African American, made history on Dec. 1, 1955, when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.  Parks’ arrest triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a major event in the Civil Rights Movement.  Parks died at age 92, in 2005.

The Rosa Parks collection brings forward many details of her life and personality, from her experiences as a child in the segregated South to her problems finding work after the Montgomery Bus Boycott and from her love for her husband to her activism on civil-rights issues.

During the Reddit AMA experts from the Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, the Prints & Photographs Division, and Educational Outreach will take your questions about Rosa Parks and about how the Library cataloged, preserved, digitized, and made her papers available to the world.

To participate in the AMA you must have a Reddit account. If you can’t make it to the session you can always send questions through our Ask a Librarian service.