Library of Congress's Blog, page 152

David Seymour (CHIM), Photographer of the Spanish Civil War

The following is a guest post by Beverly Brannan, Curator of Photography, Prints and Photographs Division, and first appeared on the Library’s “Picture This” blog.

Photographer David Seymour (CHIM), with three Leica cameras around his neck. Photographer unknown, ca. 1950. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppbd.00599

When I read For Whom the Bell Tolls in my junior year of high school, it was just the most romantic thing I had ever come across, and I fell in love with the thought of fighting for one’s ideals. The Spanish Civil War seemed to epitomize just such a struggle. I was not alone in my idealism. When fighting broke out in 1936, individuals from all over the world rushed to Spain to fight variously for democracy, Fascism, or Communism.

The conflict in Spain also fascinated CHIM, the photographer whose legacy and 103rd birthday we observe on November 20 with a program in the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building (Room 119, 3-4 pm).

Born David Szymin in Poland, he changed his surname to “Seymour” when he emigrated to France. For his pen name, he used CHIM, which is an abbreviation for the French pronunciation of his original surname.

CHIM worked in France as a photojournalist for Regards magazine from 1935 to 1936. From 1936 to 1939, he took many assignments in war-torn Spain. While fellow photographers Taro and Robert Capa focused on combat scenes, CHIM concentrated on the social and cultural aspects of the conflict. His photographs reveal the grim reality of war and represent some of the most iconic images of the conflict.

Soldier kisses his son goodbye, Spain. Photo by CHIM, 1936. © Estate of David Seymour (CHIM)/Magnum, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.37988

Spain Fighting 2: 5 soldiers aiming gun. Photo by CHIM, 1936. © Estate of David Seymour (CHIM)/Magnum, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.38033

After the war, CHIM continued his work as a photojournalist covering international news events. Tragically, he was killed while covering the Suez crisis in 1956.

The Library is grateful for the gift of 112 photographs, including CHIM’s photographs from the Spanish Civil War and other stages of his career donated by his niece, Helen Sarid, and his nephew, Ben Shneiderman. The photographs are an important addition to the Library’s rich documentation of a conflict that attracted international participation and was a precursor to the ideological warfare among fascism, communism, and democracy that affected so many countries in World War II and later.

Learn More:

Take a look at the David Seymour (CHIM) photographs (they show in small size outside Library of Congress buildings because of rights considerations).
View a press release about the recent acquisition of the CHIM photographs and the upcoming commemorative event.
Read an overview of the David Seymour (CHIM) photograph collection in the Prints & Photographs Division.
Explore the relationship between the CHIM photographs and other Library of Congress holdings relating to the Spanish Civil War.

Chasing Sadie

My remembrances of Sadie Hawkins Day don’t stem from reading the well-known “Li’l Abner” comic strip by Al Capp, although it was his imagination that created the pseudo-holiday. Growing up in the early 90s, participating was a sort of rite of passage for the girls at school, both junior high and high school. The novelty: girls ask the guys out to a dance. We took it a step further and bought matching plaid shirts for our dates and ourselves to get even more in the spirit.

While this event may not be so relevant today, it’s interesting that a nationwide fad began with a comic strip.

Capp introduced Sadie Hawkins Day on Nov. 15, 1937. In his comic strip, Sadie was the “homeliest gal in all them hills.” Her father, Hekzebiah Hawkins, a prominent resident of their town Dogpatch, was concerned that his daughter would never get married. So he declared Sadie Hawkins Day, bringing all the town’s eligible bachelors together to be chased down by the resident single ladies in a footrace.

The idea really caught on with the public. A Dec. 11, 1939, double-page spread in Life Magazine proclaimed, “On Sadie Hawkins Day, Girls Chase Boys in 201 Colleges” and printed pictures from Texas Wesleyan University. Two years later, Life again reported on a day of “humorous osculation” at the University of North Carolina, along with 500 other colleges, clubs and Army camps across the country.

According to Capp, he received, “tens of thousands of letters from colleges, communities and church groups,” asking when he would declare Sadie Hawkins Day that year so they could make plans accordingly.

In an article Capp wrote for the March 31, 1952, issue of Life, he said, “And how about that Sadie Hawkins Day? It doesn’t happen on any set day in November; it happens on the day I say it happens.”

The comic strip’s main characters, Li’l Abner and Daisy Mae, did the song-and-dance for 15 years before finally getting married, after Daisy Mae caught her prize.

According to Sara Duke, curator in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, the feature generally began with an announcement that the day was occurring and a few mystical elements about how Li’l Abner was to avoid being trapped. The story line invariably shifted away from Sadie Hawkins Day, only to weave back in a few days before the race.

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“Midnight madness. Warnin to all Dogpatch bachelors – Sadie Hawkins Day comes on Nov. 6th.” Al Cap, Sept. 25 1943. Prints and Photographs Division. © Capp Enterprises, Inc. Used by permission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this 1943 three-panel strip (above), L’il Abner reads the notice about the upcoming Sadie Hawkins Day. And while he predicts that he will be “as far outa her reach as – as – as them stars,” he is horrified when he looks to the sky to see the constellations in the shape of a girl catching her man.

Here’s another strip (below) from the 1943 series, in which it appears that Li’l Abner is trapped.

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“This is it. Oh *sob* feet! After all we has gone through together … “Al Capp, Nov. 15, 1943.
© Capp Enterprises, Inc. Used by permission.

In the footrace, the men took off first, followed shortly thereafter by the women. Whomever was caught by sundown had to marry. The race started on the announcement day and generally lasted for several days afterward. Li’l Abner always figured out – usually by accident – how to avoid the marriage trap and narrowly escaped – that is until 1952.

“Capp had a wonderful sense of humor and a great ability to tell a story,” Duke said.

The bold cartooning style, use of effective black and Capp’s ability to spin a yarn made “L’il Abner” an award-winning comic strip from 1934 to 1977.

The Library has about 1,000 “Li’l Abner” comic strips in the Art Wood Collection, which have been cataloged but do not yet appear online. There are additional original drawings in the Swann Collection for Caricature and Cartoon and from the George Sturman collection, for which there are some digital images.

The Library’s collections are also rich in American cartoon prints and original drawings, British cartoons and is the repository for the Herblock collection.

Pic of the Week: Princess Anne Opens Magna Carta Exhibition

Library curator Nathan Dorn and Princess Anne view the exhibit. Photo by John Harrington.

Last Thursday, the Library of Congress opened a new exhibition, “Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor,” which marks two special occasions: Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary and the return of the Lincoln Magna Carta to the Library after 75 years, where it was sent for safekeeping during World War II. Guest of honor for the festivities, which also included an evening program following the exhibition’s opening, was Britain’s Princess Anne.

During the opening ceremony, the U.S. Army Herald Trumpets, the Temple Church Choir of London and the Howard University Singers performed, their sounds echoing majestically in the Library’s Great Hall.

“This exhibition really does underscore the importance of great cultural institutions like the Library of Congress and the British Library,” said the princess, who is Queen Elizabeth’s daughter, at the gala. “They have been entrusted with acquiring and preserving the intellectual heritage of our two nations as well as providing access to that heritage.

“This exhibition will very much enrich the public understanding of our heritage, not only by revisiting the major achievements of history but by offering new insights into those achievements in these changing times.”

The Lincoln Magna Carta is one of only four remaining original copies of the document to which King John affixed his seal at Runnymede in 1215. After a six-month public showing in the British Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, the document traveled to Washington, D.C. On Nov. 28, 1939, the British Ambassador to the United States, in an official ceremony, handed Magna Carta over to Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish for safekeeping during World War II. The Library placed the document on exhibition until the U.S. entry into the war, when the Library sent Magna Carta to Fort Knox, Ky. The document returned to England in 1946.

You can read more about the opening day events and see more pictures in these  two blog posts from In Custodia Legis, the Law Library of Congress’s blog.

Veterans History Project in the News

NBC4 Reporter Chris Lawrence (center) interviews VHP Director Bob Patrick for a Veterans Day-themed news feature.
Photo by Owen Rogers.

As has been the case every year since its inception, the Veterans History Project receives an increased amount of media coverage during the Veterans Day season, both prior to and after the holiday. This year’s coverage included a segment on Washington’s NBC affiliate, NBC4, which aired on Nov. 8. The segment featured VHP Director Bob Patrick explaining the VHP process and a look at a few collections that piqued the reporter’s interest. You may access the story online at www.nbcwashington.com.

Patrick is also featured in a Comcast Newsmaker’s segment, where he discusses VHP’s mission and how to participate. The segment will run on the national XFINITY “On-Demand” and Comcast HD platforms through Nov. 29, 2014. It is also accessible on Comcast Network’s YouTube page.

Today, several radio stations across the country will air interviews of Patrick explaining how to make Veterans Day meaningful and how easy it is to record veterans’ oral histories for the Library of Congress.

Tune in at one of the stations below:

Metro Networks Seattle (Regional)

WAMV (Roanoke)

WPHM (Detroit)

KLTF (Minneapolis)

WBAV (Charlotte)

WYRQ (Little Falls)

WELW (Cleveland)

WDBL (Nashville)

WATD (Boston)

WVNU (Cincinnati)

WQEL (Columbus)

WFAS (New York)

WOCA (Orlando)

WFIN (Toledo)

WSAT (Charlotte)

KDAZ (Albuquerque)

WLKF (Tampa)

KOGA (Denver)

WTER (National)

WRTA (Altoona)

KMA (Omaha)

KWCC (Seattle)

Kansas Information Network (Regional)

Military Life Radio and Navy Wife Radio (National)

CRN- The Chuck Wilder Show- (National)

Making Veterans Day a Meaningful One

(The following is a guest post from Lisa A. Taylor, liaison specialist with the Veterans History Project.)

Amie Pleasant interviews Vietnam Veteran Peter Young. Photo by Christy Chason.

Millions of Americans across the country observe Veterans Day every Nov. 11. Armistice Day, now Veterans Day in the United States, is a commemoration dedicated to all veterans – a way to remember and thank them for their bravery and sacrifice. People choose to mark the day in a variety of ways. However, the Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP) has one suggestion that I’d like to pass on to you: make Veterans Day meaningful.

How can you make it meaningful? By volunteering to record the story of the military veteran in your life and submitting it to the Library of Congress, where it will be preserved for generations to come. Participating in this effort will make Veterans Day  meaningful, not only for you, but also for the veteran in your life. Go one easy step further and encourage others to do the same by sharing on your social media accounts one or more of VHP’s 16,000 digitized collections that resonate with you.

Established by the U.S. Congress in 2000, VHP’s mandate is to collect, preserve and make accessible the firsthand recollections of America’s wartime veterans. Through a network of volunteers from across the country, VHP has collected more than 95,000 stories and added them to a searchable online database found on VHP’s website.

Participation is easy. All you need is you – the volunteer interviewer, a veteran willing to be interviewed, a recording device and a few forms found in VHP’s instructional field kit. Everyone, from 10th grade students to senior citizens, is welcome to volunteer.

Individuals are not the only ones conducting VHP interviews. Local businesses, libraries, houses of worship, Scout troops, universities, retirement communities and congressional offices participate as well. Here is a look at how some groups are making Veterans Day meaningful this year.

The Veterans History Project is hosting its annual Take Your Veteran to Work Day for all Library of Congress staff.


The National Court Reporters Foundation and the National Court Reporters Association are encouraging their membership to interview the veterans in their lives for VHP.


The VA Center for Minority Veterans launched a new VHP Initiative, which will inspire VHP participation at all 300 locations.


Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) hosted “Vets Count Day of Service” in Fort Washington, Md.


The Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts at Historic Flushing Town Hall in New York will host a workshop with local students and volunteers and begin interviewing local veterans on Veterans Day.


The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development hosted a combined Veterans Day and employee Health Fair in Washington, D.C.


The Lehigh Valley Veterans History Project in Pennsylvania is encouraging people across the area to interview the veterans in their lives for VHP.


Strong Tower Apostolic Assembly hosted a Veterans Day Brunch and VHP training workshop in Capitol Heights, Md.


In addition to hosting a week-long exhibit, students and volunteers at Carroll College in Montana will read aloud VHP collections, drawing from memoirs and correspondence identified as meaningful to their community.


Blacks in Government hosted a VHP training workshop in Silver Spring, Md.


The Craft in America Center in Los Angeles, Calif., in conjunction with their Service episode and exhibit, will host a VHP workshop for students and volunteers.


DC Public Library is hosting a VHP training workshop at a local branch.


Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) will host a week of “Make It Meaningful” events throughout the district.


The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will host its annual Salute to Veterans at the Washington, D.C. headquarters.


The Mexican American Community Center in Stockton, Calif., is installing an exhibit centered on community veterans’ photographs, manuscripts and memorabilia, and will host an open house and oral history training workshop.

With all these activities going on, I implore you to do something for Veterans Day, something meaningful that is.

LC in the News: October 2014 Edition

Just as the Washington Nationals were closing out a winning baseball season, the Library of Congress discovered rare footage of the Washington Senators’ 1924 World Series victory over the New York Giants.

“Finding footage that has probably not been seen since its last theatrical run 90 years ago is usually a moment for celebration for fans and archivists,” wrote New York Times reporter Richard Sandomir. “For followers of baseball in Washington, the 1924 World Series victory was the only one for the franchise until it moved to Minnesota as the Twins and won championships in 1987 and 1991.”

“When archivists from the Library’s Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation watched the reel, they found nearly four minutes of footage from that 1924 World Series, footage that somehow had remained in nearly perfect condition for 90 years,” wrote Washington Post reporter Dan Steinberg. “Bucky Harris hitting a home run, Walter Johnson pitching four innings of scoreless relief, Muddy Ruel scoring the winning run, fans storming Griffith Stadium’s field: It was all there, and it was all glorious.”

In other news, the Library launched an initiative to celebrate another pastime, as it were: Halloween. The American Folklife Center has been gathering photographs of people participating in the traditions and celebrations at the end of October and beginning of November in an effort to create an archival photo collection of this slice of folklife.

“This is a good chance to show off your photography skills and maybe be a part of the annals of history,” wrote Tanya Pai for the Washingtonian.

Promoting the initiative were other outlets including McClatchy News Service, School Library Journal and Boing Boing.

Speaking of photographs, Mashable ran a fascinating pictorial piece on photographs by a young Stanley Kubrick while working for Look Magazine. The Library is home to the magazine’s archives.

2014 marked the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal. The Library has a variety of resources related to the historic waterway and pulled items from the collections for a special exhibit. C-Span’s American Artifacts series presented a feature on the canal and the Library’s collections.

C-SPAN also covered a Library symposium that was part of the ongoing commemoration of the Civil Rights Act. Former member of the Black Panther Party, Bill Jennings, joined author Lauren Araiza to discuss multiracial coalitions during the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 70s.

In addition, Christian Science Monitor chose the Library’s exhibition “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom” as a “top pick” in the arts for October saying “Smartly written, it highlights images, letters, and audio components from the library’s collection to illustrate the fight to establish social and racial equality.”

The Library of Congress continues to be recognized for its innovation and commitment to advancing human knowledge, creativity and understanding. The Good Magazine’s Cities Project recently named the institution a “Hub for Progress” noting that the Library and other locations have “emerged as particularly kind to collaboration and innovation, ushering along vital advances for human progress in a diverse range of fields.”

The Fall/Winter 2014 issue of Geico NOW magazine called the Library a “world leader” and “Library of dreams.”

Celebrating Native American Heritage: Whispering Giants

Statue of the Cherokee leader Sequoyah, Cherokee, N.C. Photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, between 1980 and 2006. Print and Photographs Division.

November is Native American Heritage Month and a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions and histories and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people. When looking through the Library’s collections to find blog post ideas, I came across this picture of a carved statue of Cherokee leader Sequoyah taken by photographer Carol M. Highsmith. It actually reminded me of a similar piece of art found in my hometown of Ocean Springs, Miss. – that of another large carved sculpture of a Native American. The statue, known as Crooked Feather, sits overlooking Highway 90, just east of the Biloxi Bridge. The local landmark has been there for as long as I can remember, and I’ve always wondered the story behind it.

Prior to its colonization in 1699, the area along the Gulf Coast was inhabited by American Indian tribes including the Bylocchy, Pascoboula and Moctoby. Crooked Feather is a composite of the area’s first settlers. The 30-foot sculpture is carved from a cypress log five-feet wide by 11-feet high. The original Crooked Feather was created in 1975 by Hungarian artist Peter Wolf Toth and officially donated to the city a year later. However, due to termite damage, Toth’s work was replaced in 1999 by a replica carving done by Thomas King.

Crooked Feather was part of Toth’s sculpture series called “Trail of the Whispering Giants” paying tribute to the tribal people of the country. Some 74 sculptures, including at least one in every state, as well as parts of Canada and Hungary, are part of the collection. Turns out, the Highsmith photograph of Sequoyah is also one of Toth’s creations that can be found in Cherokee, N.C.

Peter Toth sculpting Crooked Feather in 1975 and the completed memorial photographed in March 1997. Photo courtesy of Ocean Springs Archives.

The Library is marking Native American Heritage Month with a  topic page in partnership with other federal agencies like the Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives and the National Portrait Gallery. The site includes online resources related to Native American history.  In addition, the Library has launched a Pinterest board dedicated to Native American Heritage Month, featuring images from the Library’s collections.

You can read more about Sequoyah in this blog post from the Library’s Inside Adams blog and another post from the Prints and Photographs blog.

The Library’s blogosphere has several other posts highlighting Native American Heritage Month and related collections and resources. Make sure to check back for new posts. In the meantime, here are some great posts relating to Native American music, legislation and teacher resources.

 

 

 

 

 

Pic of the Week: Dr. Funkenstein

George Clinton performs at the Library of Congress on Oct. 31. Photo by Amanda Reynolds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 1994, I had the pleasure of meeting funk singer-songwriter George Clinton while attending the Lollapalooza music festival in New Orleans. Clinton and his P-Funk All Stars were main-stage performers that year. A friend of mine and myself were able to get backstage after meeting one of the members of his band. Clinton and his crew were getting ready in their trailer, and I had a chance to chat with the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer for a very brief moment. Following, we enjoyed a front-and-center view of his performance, which was fantastic.

Twenty years later, things came full circle of sorts when Clinton was here at the Library last Friday. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, he was here promoting his book, “Brothers Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?” and speaking about his decades-long musical career.

“Funkin’ ain’t hard at all,” said the 73-year-old funk pioneer as he took the Coolidge Auditorium stage to be interviewed by James Funk of WPFW.

The two bantered back and forth for the next 20 minutes, discussing just about everything, including Clinton’s early days with The Parliaments in the 1960s, developing his musical collective during the 70s known both as Parliament and Funkadelic, his efforts to win back rights to much of his popular music and the indelible mark his music has made on contemporary artists of today.

“We were too late getting to Motown, and we didn’t fit into that mold,” said Clinton. “We went psychedelic ‘loud Motown.’ We made our own niche and then didn’t have to compete.”

Clinton said his fan base grew slowly but steadily. When his 1975 album “Mothership Connection” came out, it “blew the whole thing wide open.” It became Parliament’s first album to be certified gold and later platinum. The Library also added the album to the National Recording Registry in 2011 for its “enormous influence on jazz, rock and dance music.”

“I’ve enjoyed all the time it took to get where I’m at,” he said of his career’s successes and setbacks.

While Clinton didn’t bring the weird on the Halloween afternoon – gone were the multi-colored dreadlocks and flashy clothes that I remembered, along with is costume-clad band – he did bring the funk, rousing the crowd with a musical medley of some of his greatest hits. And, he was just as entertaining.

Royalty, Justices Help To Celebrate Magna Carta

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

The Library of Congress will celebrate the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta and the opening of its new exhibition about the historic charter with programs, both public and private, featuring three U.S. Supreme Court justices and a royal touch.

Beginning this week, Princess Anne, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer and Associate Justice Antonin G. Scalia will take part in discussions that explore the enduring influence of Magna Carta, the charter at the heart of English and American law.

“The events related to the Library’s celebration of Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary are designed to welcome visitors to the Library to learn more about the Great Charter’s impact on the rule of law,” Law Librarian David Mao said. “The Law Library developed programming that not only celebrates the document but also raises awareness and invites discourse about its history, impact and relevance to today’s legal issues.”

The 10-week exhibition, “Magna Carta: Muse and Mentor,” opens tomorrow in the Jefferson Building’s South Gallery and closes Jan. 19. The show’s centerpiece is the Lincoln Magna Carta – one of only four remaining original documents to which King John affixed his seal at Runnymede in 1215.

That copy of Magna Carta – on loan from Lincoln Cathedral in Britain – will be accompanied by more than 75 items from Library collections that tell the story of the charter’s influence on centuries of political liberty.

Exhibition-related events begin this afternoon, when Roberts and the former chief justice of England and Wales, Lord Igor Judge, discuss the importance of Magna Carta in a conversation in the Jefferson Building’s Members Room. That event is closed to the public. However, a video of the discussion will be posted on the Library’s website.

The exhibition opens the next morning with an “entrusting ceremony” in the Great Hall, in which Magna Carta is formally placed on loan to the Library. Princess Anne, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth, will address the audience, as will Librarian of Congress James H. Billington; Mao; and Lord Lothian, cousin of the British ambassador to the United States who in 1939 delivered Magna Carta to the Library for safekeeping during World War II. Sir Peter Westmacott, the current British ambassador to the United States, also will take part in the ceremony.

Music will be provided by the U.S. Army Herald Trumpets, the choir of the Temple Church in London and the Howard University choir. The event, which begins at 10:15 a.m., is open to the public. Space will be limited.

On Dec. 9, philanthropist David Rubenstein will interview Breyer in the Coolidge about the impact of Magna Carta on American law as part of a day long symposium, “Conversations on the Enduring Legacy of the Great Charter.”

The symposium’s morning sessions, in the Members Room, are closed to the public. The six afternoon sessions in the Coolidge – including the appearance by Breyer – are open to the public. Details about the afternoon sessions will be posted later in November.

The series also includes gallery talks in November and a Law Day event in the spring. On Nov. 12, exhibition curator Nathan Dorn of the Law Library will discuss highlights from the exhibition. On Nov. 19, Susan Reyburn of the Publishing Office will discuss “Magna Carta in America: From World’s Fair to World War,” including the charter’s first visit to the Library of Congress in 1939.

Finally, the Law Library on April 7 will stage a Law Day program featuring Nicholas Vincent, a professor of medieval history at the University of East Anglia in Britain. Vincent will present “Magna Carta: New Discoveries.”

King John affixed his seal to Magna Carta in a grassy meadow at Runnymede in June 1215, when rebellious barons coerced him into granting certain rights and liberties. Scribes made parchment copies and sent them to bishops, sheriffs and other officials across England. Of the four surviving original copies, the Lincoln Magna Carta is considered the best-preserved and easiest to read. It also has the clearest provenance: On the back, scribes wrote “Lincolnia” – the Latin form of its intended destination.

The charter arrived at Lincoln Cathedral about June 30, 1215, and has been held by the cathedral ever since. Magna Carta today is considered a historic symbol of the rule of law: No one – even a king – is above the law.

Magna Carta established some principles – trial by jury and no taxation without representation, among them – that resonated around the world and down through the ages, including with the framers of the U.S. Constitution.

“The events of 800 years ago marked the commencement of a major undertak ing in human history,” Roberts said at the American Bar Association annual meeting in August. “We mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta because it laid the foundation for the ascent of liberty. We celebrate not so much what happened eight centuries ago as what has transpired since that time.”

The Library’s exhibition is made possible by The Federalist Society and 1st Financial Bank USA. Additional support comes from the Friends of the Law Library of Congress, BP America, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Earhart Foundation, White & Case LLP, The Burton Foundation for Legal Achievement, the Office of the General Counsel of the American University, and other donors as well as contributions received from Thomson Reuters, William S. Hein & Co. Inc., and Raytheon Company through the Friends of the Law Library. The Library also acknowledges the support and assistance provided by the British Council. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

A Spirited Story

A Harris Poll of 2,250 people surveyed in November 2013 found that 42 percent of Americans said they believe in ghosts. And, nearly one-in-five adults in the United States say they have seen or been in the presence of a ghost, according to a 2009 Pew Research Center survey.

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Double exposure “spirit” photograph of girl standing, holding flowers, surrounded by spectral figures of three people. Photograph by G.S. Smallwood, Chicago, Ill., c1905. Prints and Photographs Division.

Many people know of at least one ghost story that has been told within their family – my dad likes to say it’s his Uncle George watching over us when something strange happens around us, particularly in their house.

And some even believe they know of haunted houses close to where they lived.

I can recall a night spent at The Myrtles Plantation, an antebellum home in St. Francisville, La., that’s been the subject of several paranormal television shows and often known as one of America’s most haunted homes. Me and a friend of mine had the place all to ourselves, which certainly upped the creepy factor. While I can’t say that we saw any unexplained phenomena, each bump and creak of the house throughout the night could certainly have been any number of haunted happenings. We believed.

Our folklore is rich with tales of haunted happenings.

Eldora Scott Maples tells the tale of the family ghost, Alex – short for Alexander the Great – who came to her father when he was 12 and kept watch over him and the family through the years.

“When my father was 12 years of age he heard a strange tap, tap one night as he lay in bed that sounded as if water was dripping from the top of the house down to a feather mattress. The tap, tap came repeatedly through a duration of a year or more before he recognized that some message was trying to be revealed. The tap, tap, tap, appeared so frequently that they soon ceased to be taps but were an insistent stream, then stopped when the usual tap, tap, tap, began as before. While in that lone room in the stillness of the night with blared eyes the constant tap, tap, never varying from sound except by frequency, my father decided that the visitor was a ghost.”

The haunted auto by artist Bryant Baker. April 20, 1910. Prints and Photographs Division.

Her story is just one of many in American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940. The Library’s collections hold other ghostly tales sure to fright and delight, including a story about phantom horses heard in Rock Creek, W.V.

If seeing is believing, you can also search the Library’s online motion picture collections for movies on ghosts. See, for example, “Uncle Josh in a Spooky Hotel” from the collection Inventing Entertainment: The Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies and “Dud Leaves Home“ from Origins of American Animation.