Library of Congress's Blog, page 179

Civil War Cartography, Then and Now

During the Civil War, cartographers invented new techniques to map the country and the conflict more accurately than ever before in the nation’s history. Since then, cartographic technology has evolved in ways never imagined, but many basic elements of mapmaking remain the same. The following is an article, written by Jacqueline V. Nolan and Edward J. Redmond of the Library’s Geography and Map Division, that is featured in the November-December 2012 issue of the Library’s new magazine, LCM, and highlights progress in cartography since the Civil War.

A sketch map of the battlefield of Gettysburg, 1863, by Jedidiah Hotchkiss combined with U.S. Geological Survey’s satellite-derived map with attributes from the National Hydrography dataset

Mapmaking has been revolutionized since the Civil War. Comparatively speaking, creating a map using modern technologies little resembles yesteryear’s methodology. Yet, many consistencies in mapping prevail from one era to the next. The basic elements of map production still consist of determining geographic coordinates and reference points, construction of projections, design, compilation, drafting and reproduction.

During the Civil War era, the production of a finished map was a protracted and labor-intensive process that involved a variety of skills and crafts. It began with a land survey or field reconnaissance by a military topographer—often on horseback—with sketchbook in hand. Rivers, roads and significant landscape features were rapidly drawn in pencil on pages marked with grid lines. Direction was determined by compass bearings, and distance was tracked by pacing on foot or horseback. Data from these field sketches were later transferred to larger sheets notated with geographic coordinates to produce a composite manuscript map of an area or region at a particular scale.

If a map was to be reproduced for wider dissemination, copies could be furnished in a variety of formats. Various photographic methods were devised during the war to reproduce manuscript field surveys quickly, in limited numbers for field commanders. Woodcut engraving was favored by newspapers, which published maps almost daily to help war families locate the remote places described in the letters they received from their loved ones at the front. Official and commercial maps were engraved or lithographed, and then hand-colored. Each of these processes required trained craftsmen as well as specialized tools and equipment. The copperplate engravers who worked for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, for example, were primarily German craftsmen recruited especially for the detailed engraving required by that agency.

Current trends in mapping allow for multiple layers of data to be combined by one cartographer using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software on a desktop computer. GIS has become a useful tool for research using spatial data analysis and is being applied to many fields of study, wherever geography can be modeled.

U.S. Geological Survey’s satellite- derived map of Gettysburg, 2007

U.S. Geological Survey’s satellite- derived map of Gettysburg, 2007

Creating a map using GIS is also a layered process. Using multiple sources of data, such as field data, research statistics, real-time data, and so on, information can be overlaid on a base map representing a geographic area of interest such as a Civil War battle site. Base layers may be characterized as either a pixilated, raster format, derived from remote-sensing imagery, or as a vector file, which depicts geography as points, lines and polygons.

Map specifications such as projection, scale, and key details are determined in this initial phase. Data is standardized to ensure attribute- matching with the base layer prior to performing data analysis.

GIS software packages include toolkits containing many devices for analysis and editing. Metadata is compiled to document specific information about the GIS project, such as source data, attribute definitions, or algorithms used for statistical computations. Analysis is the primary end-product of a GIS project, though a cartographic rendering may be created such as a paper map, a web-based application for visual interpretation on a computer screen, or applications software for display on mobile devices (apps).

MORE INFORMATION

“Re-imagining the U.S. Civil War: Reconnaissance, Surveying and Cartography” (webcast: Part I, Part II)

Hotchkiss Map Collection

Download the November-December 2012 issue of the LCM in its entirety here. You can also view the archives of the Library’s former publication from 1993 to 2011.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

I remember the moment I found out that jolly old St. Nick was more an idea than a physical person shimmying down a chimney to deposit presents underneath the tree. First clue, we didn’t have a fireplace.

Carol Highsmith / Prints and Photographs Division

I can’t remember exactly how old I was, probably elementary school age. The night before Christmas I could never fall asleep, which is probably the way of most kids. I remember hearing noises coming from the far side of the house and the screen door off the carport slamming from time to time. As I inched closer to the bedroom door to investigate the ruckus, I remember hearing my dad ask my mom – not quietly enough apparently – where she wanted him to put the presents.

The thing is, I can’t remember being too terribly upset. Christmas was, and still is, wonderful at my house. It’s a time of happiness, silliness, love and giving.

I think Santa still lives on in us, regardless of whether you actually believe – he appeals to the hope and imagination of young and old alike.

Perhaps this editorial for the Sept. 21, 1897, issue of the New York Sun says it best.

Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial. The work of veteran newsman Francis P. Church has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

“Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would the world be if there were no Santa Claus. …. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.

“Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men see. … Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

“A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.”

Happy holidays to you and yours!

The Sensei from Sioux City

Today marks 19 years since the passing of one of the world’s great management thinkers—W. Edwards Deming.

W. Edwards Deming in Japan, around the time he revolutionized Japanese manufacturing (courtesy W. Edwards Deming Institute)

After World War II, the U.S. did something remarkable in the history of war – it helped its friends and even its former foes get back on their feet economically.  In Europe, that was accomplished through the Marshall Plan – but in Japan, where the U.S. also gave broad counsel, one man had a singular impact: Ed Deming.

Born in Sioux City, Iowa and reared in Iowa and Wyoming, Deming was officially a statistician and college professor, and he was sent to Japan post-war to give his expertise to the U.S. allied command and help the Japanese government set up a census.

But he had studied work processes from a statistical point of view for years and had come to some interesting conclusions – essentially, that quality with the goal of satisfying customers and even employees must govern production decision-making, and ultimately costs less than trying to sell lower-quality goods. In that war-torn nation lacking a broad industrial base, Deming in 1950 was invited by a Japanese scientists’ and engineers’ group to give a talk – the first of many –  that set the stage for a Japanese resurgence in electronics, automobiles and other produced goods. Later, he authored many books and taught at several U.S. universities.

Deming’s teachings, which came to be known as Total Quality Management or TQM (and originated to address production-style workplaces) have been summarized as 14 points:

1. “Create constancy of purpose towards improvement.” That is, plan for the long term instead of reacting, short-term.

2. “Adopt the new philosophy.” Everyone in the workplace – including the management – understands and lives by the philosophy established for that workplace.

3. “Cease dependence on inspection.”  If statistical variation is reduced, inspection for product defects loses importance because there will be few, or no, defects.

4. “Move towards a single supplier for any one item.” Multiple suppliers increase the potential for statistical variation and defects.

5. “Improve constantly and forever.” A workplace must constantly strive to reduce variation.

6. “Institute training on the job.” If people aren’t sufficiently trained, they will not all work the same way, and this will introduce variation.

7. “Institute leadership.” Deming made a distinction between leadership and supervision, which he defines as quota- and target-based.

8. “Drive out fear.” Deming believed workers would act in an organization’s best interest if they would not be punished or demoted for pointing out problems or telling uncomfortable truths.

9. “Break down barriers between departments.” In Deming’s analysis, customers are not just people outside the organization – customers include other departments within a workplace.

10. “Eliminate slogans.” Deming felt that posting slogans or exhortations was not nearly as effective in improving a workplace as finding out where, in that workplace’s processes, the bugs were, and removing them.

11. “Eliminate management by objectives.” Deming disliked production targets, saying they led to delivery of poor-quality goods.

12. “Remove barriers to pride of workmanship.”  Satisfied workers make quality products.

13. “Institute education and self-improvement.”

14. “The transformation is everyone’s job.”

Deming remains one of the most revered business thinkers of our time – and his papers are in the Manuscript Division here at the Library of Congress.

The W. Edwards Deming Institute entertains applications for grants to aid students or authors in conducting their research using that Library of Congress collection.

 

 

Trending: The End of the World

(The Maya calendar has generated a lot of buzz about the impending end of the world as we know it, on Dec. 21, 2012. The following is an article written by colleague Audrey Fischer from the November-December 2012 issue of the Library’s new magazine, LCM, highlighting what’s “trending” in the news, on the web and in social media.)

An Interpretation of the Mayas’ “Long Count” calendar, which began with the ritual date of Maya creation, Aug. 11, 3114 B.C., shows its end on Dec. 21, 2012.

Don’t delay your Christmas shopping just yet. Nothing in what is known of Maya writing supports this conjecture.

The Dresden Codex / Rare Book and Special Collections Division

That reassuring word comes from art historian and epigrapher Mark Van Stone. In his book, “2012: Science & Prophecy of the Ancient Maya,” he takes a scientific and archaeological-focused look at what the ancient Maya actually believed. Van Stone, who spoke at the Library of Congress in October, concludes that end-of-the world prophecies are the creations of our current society, with little basis in what is known about the Maya and their beliefs.

David Stuart, the foremost expert on Maya hieroglyphs, agrees. In his book, “The Order of Days: The Maya World and the Truth about 2012,” Stuart reveals that by deciphering dates and information carved into stone stelae (monuments), one may postulate that the full Maya calendar accounts for nearly 72 octillion years. Stuart delivered the fifth Jay I. Kislak lecture on this topic at the Library last year. (This lecture is now available as a webcast.)

In addition to establishing the lecture series, the Jay I. Kislak Foundation donated to the Library an important collection of books, manuscripts, historical documents, maps and art of the early Americas. A permanent rotating exhibition of materials from the Kislak Collection, “Exploring the Early Americas,” opened in December 2007 and remains on view in the Thomas Jefferson Building.

A handful of Maya artifacts were recently rotated into the “Early Americas” exhibition in a section titled “The Heavens and Time: 2012 Phenomenon.”These include a facsimile edition of the Dresden Codex—the most comprehensive source of the Maya calendar system and astronomy—and the oldest known book written in the Americas.

Download the November-December 2012 issue of the LCM in its entirety here. You can also view the archives of the Library’s former publication from 1993 to 2011.

Inquiring Minds: Scholar Manuel Castells on Social Movements

The following is a guest post by Jason Steinhauer, program specialist in the Library’s John W. Kluge Center, as part of the Inquiring Minds series.

The revolutionary wave of demonstrations, protests and wars known collectively as the Arab Spring has spanned Algeria to Oman, covering a distance of 3,400 miles and toppling regimes that governed for a generation. The use of social media by demonstrators to organize and communicate has raised new questions about social movements in the Internet Age.

Scholar Manuel Castells addressed these questions in a lecture August 23 at the Library of Congress John W. Kluge Center, titled “Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age.” The talk is now available as a webcast.

Castells is among the world’s leading sociologists: an author of 26 books, an advisor to foreign governments and the 2012 winner of Norway’s prestigious Holberg Prize. This summer he resided at The John W. Kluge Center as the Kluge Chair in Technology and Society, continuing his research on social movements in the Internet Age. These unexpected movements have sprung up across the world, not solely in the Middle East, but also Iceland, Tunisia, Chile and the United States. Demonstrations have occurred in thousands of cities.

Castells sees a pattern common to these movements. The trigger, he says, is anger; the repressor is fear. In each movement, fear was overcome by individuals sharing in the outrage together online.

“We are all trembling,” Castells said in the lecture. “When we cannot hold hands in the street, we hold hands on the internet.”

Once fear is overcome, Castells theorizes, mobilization then ensues. Mobilization begets enthusiasm, which breeds hope that things can be different. (Hence the title of his new book, “Networks of Outrage and Hope.”)

The shape of these recent social movements is defined by the Internet. Castells reminds us that the Internet is an “old” technology, first deployed in 1969. It does not create social movements. Rather, today’s social movements are defined by the new forms of the Internet, specifically the shift from mass communication to mass self-communication. Mass self-communication reaches everywhere and operates independently of ruling authorities. These movements are leaderless. They do not need control centers. And they are impervious to destruction. As Castells says, you may kill the messenger, yet the message lives on in the network. He describes the networks as “rhizomatic”: they are underground, they emerge, they go down, and are connected all the time.

Ultimately the movements coalesce by occupying the urban space. On the Internet, you connect but you do not touch. In the city, together, there is a moment of re-formation. By forming on the internet first, though, as opposed to the street, the same movement that failed in Egypt in 2008 can succeed in Egypt in 2011.

Castells cautions us to be  careful in evaluating the “success” of these movements. Social movements aim to change the way we think—and in the mind, he says, is where power truly originates, for thoughts dictate actions. Castells points out that before the Occupy movement, in 2009, Pew Research Center found that 45 percent of Americans thought income inequality was the defining conflict in American society. In 2011, 70 percent thought so. While that change may not be felt in the next election, it will be felt in the next generation. Castells reads a tweet from Tahrir Square to re-enforce his point:

“We have brought down the wall of fear. You brought down the wall of our house. We’ll rebuild our homes. But you will never build again that wall of fear.”

Trending in Washington this month are a diverse group of think tank events on the topics of the Arab Spring and regulating the internet. As a society we are still grappling to understand the full ramifications of the Internet age we have ushered in. Scholarship will be critical. Bringing enquirers to ask questions and offering a space for the transfer of knowledge and informed discussion is what the Kluge Center aims to do.

InRetrospect: November Blogging Edition

In November, Library bloggers presented a feast of posts, sure to whet a variety of appetites. Here are a few selections.

In the Muse: Performing Arts Blog

1707: A Year That Will Resonate with Handel Lovers

1707 was a good year for Handel.

The Signal: Digital Preservation

When Data Loss is Personal

Leslie Johnston talks about being robbed and lessons learned for protecting personal data.

Picture This: Library of Congress Prints & Photos

Happy Thanksgiving

Mr. and Mrs. Crouch in Ledyard, Conn., enjoy the holiday and pie with their family.

From the Catbird Seat: Poetry & Literature at the Library of Congress

Poetry at Work

Caitlin Rizzo welcomes new poetry traditions.

Inside Adams: Science, Technology & Business

Pic of the Week: Sequoyah

Native American Heritage Month is celebrated.

In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress

The Electoral College – What is it and How Does it Function?

Legal reference librarians Barbara Bavis and Robert Brammer explain the Electoral College.

Teaching with the Library of Congress

Thanksgiving and Football: A Unique American Tradition

Watching football is part of Thanksgiving celebrations for many Americans.

Fa la la la la

This Saturday marks my return to the Kennedy Center stage singing as part of The Washington Chorus in our annual series of holiday concerts. I’ve been a part of this large ensemble for about three years now, and our December concerts are some of our most popular. There’s nothing like singing yuletide carols to get people in a festive spirit, and our audience is always encouraged to sing along.

During the holidays, we all have tried-and-true tunes we enjoy. A search for “Christmas” in the National Jukebox uncovers recordings of holiday classics and some not-so-classic.

Some favorites on tap for the chorus program include “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Joy to the World,” “Silent Night,” “Good King Wenceslas” and “The Hallelujah Chorus.”

Developed by the Library of Congress, with assets provided by Sony Music Entertainment, the National Jukebox offers free online access to a vast selection of music and spoken-word recordings produced in the U.S. between the years 1901 and 1925. More than 10,000 historic sound recordings are available to the public for the first time digitally.

Visitors to the National Jukebox are able to listen to available recordings on a streaming-only basis, as well as view thousands of label images, record-catalog illustrations and artist and performer bios. In addition, users can further explore the catalog by accessing special interactive features, listening to playlists curated by Library staff, and creating and sharing their own playlists.

Also as part of The Washington Chorus program, we’re singing two versions of a carol previously unfamiliar to me, “In Dulci Jubilo” – one by Praetorius and the other by Scheidt. This year, why not incorporate some new songs to your yuletide collection – how about “Sylvia’s Christmas Song” or “It’s Not a Regular Christmas, Unless You’re with the Folks Back Home.”

Thanks to the Library’s Historic Sheet Music Collection, you can gather around the piano and try your hand at approximately 9,000 items published from 1800 to 1922.

What are some of your favorite holiday carols?

 

Curator’s Picks: Exposing Cartoon Art

The collections of the Library of Congress are vast and varied. And, what better way to get to know them but through our many wonderful curators. In this edition of “Curator’s Picks,” Sara Duke, curator of popular and applied graphic art in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division, and reference librarian Megan Halsband of the Library’s Serial and Government Publications Division, note some of their favorite items in the Library’s Small Press Expo Collection.

“Le Sketch #9”

Le Sketch is a free mini-comic series with each issue devoted to a selection of sketches from a single contemporary cartoonist or illustrator. “Mini-comics are a wonderful example of just one of the formats artists are using to publish their comics. They are often self-published, have very limited print runs, are informally distributed— often for free—and therefore not regularly collected by libraries,” said Halsband.

2011 SPX Festival tote bag

“SPX President Warren Bernard told us that original drawings by Jim Woodring such as this one on a tote bag, are rare because he has not given away or sold many,” said Duke.

“Papercutter”

“Tugboat Press has donated a complete set of “papercutter” to the SPX Collection,” said Halsband. “This comic book anthology, which features young and emerging comic book artists, has been the recipient of numerous Ignatz awards since its debut in 2006.”

Matt Bors

Matt Bors won the 2012 Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning. “Unlike the previous generation of cartoonists, Bors utilizes the Internet to reach his audience yet continues to work in traditional pen-and- ink media,” said Duke.

“(Th)ink”

Keith Knight produces three cartoons each week: The Knight Life, The K Chronicles and (Th)ink. “This cartoon from (Th)ink reflects on the life of Henrietta Lacks, whose cells have been used for decades of scientific research,” said Duke.

About SPX

Founded in 1994, the Small Press Expo (SPX) is an annual festival in Bethesda, Md., for alterna- tive comic creators. SPX hosts the annual Ignatz Awards, which recognize outstanding achieve- ment in comics, cartooning and graphic novels.

Through an agreement reached with SPX in 2011, the Library can acquire independent com- ics and cartoon-art forms not received through copyright deposit.

 

MORE INFORMATION

Prints and Photographs Division Reading Room

Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room

These items are also spotlighted in the November-December 2012 issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, now available for download here. You can also view the archives of the Library’s former publication from 1993 to 2011.

Inquiring Minds: An Interview With Author William Martin

What if Abraham Lincoln recorded his innermost thoughts as he moved toward the realization that he must end slavery? What if he lost that diary, but a recently discovered letter suggests that the diary is still out there? Such is the premise of “The Lincoln Letter” (Tor/Forge, 2012) by William Martin, his latest mystery novel featuring treasure-hunter Peter Fallon. Martin was at the Library today talking about his book, which he also researched here. I also had the opportunity to speak with Martin on his writing and his experience using the Library’s collections.

Q. What inspired you to write “The Lincoln Letter?”

A. You don’t need a lot of inspiration to want to write about Lincoln. He’s such an interesting character, a man of great convictions and greater contradictions.  I had written a bit about Lincoln in a novel called “Annapolis” (1996) and had decided then that some day I would come back to him in a larger way. My editor and I had talked a lot about the Emancipation Proclamation, too. So, I thought, a novel about Lincoln and the Proclamation, in its sesquicentennial year? It’s time.

Q. What about historical fiction appeals to you most?

A. The opportunity to live history before it becomes history, when no one knows how it will all turn out. You do that through fictional characters whose fates are intertwined with the historical events of their era and, sometimes, the historical figures of their time. That way, you also get to look the giants of history in the eye and see that they were as human as we are, and if they could endure and succeed, so can we.



Q. How do you stay true to the facts while incorporating the fiction?

A. In my books, historical characters never act contrary to what we know about them. And historical events never unfold in a way that leads to a different outcome. Other than that, well, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.



Q. Tell me about the research you did at the Library for “The Lincoln Letter.”

A. The digital revolution has been great for those of us who do not live in Washington. We are still able to access some of the remarkable Library of Congress materials on an instantaneous basis. Two places that I turned: to the online newspaper collection and to the image catalogue. I read the Washington Daily Republican on the Library’s site for most of the Civil War. I didn’t read it for the battle reporting. That was usually inaccurate or incomplete. I read it for the ephemera, the argot, the prose style and the advertisements. In essence, I read it to find out what people were thinking about and talking about when they weren’t talking about the war. I know, for example, that the Gosling Restaurant on Pennsylvania Ave. is a “happenin’” place. And Miss Laura Keene will be playing a week’s engagement at Ford’s Theater in “Our American Cousin,” which closes Friday. And that’s part of the excitement of reading the newspapers. You have a wonderful sense of dramatic irony as you read, because you know things that the people of the time didn’t.

Then there were the photographs. People have no idea of how many images of the Civil War you can find on the Library’s website, which is superbly arranged and very accessible. Creating Washington D.C. in 1862 became a much easier task when I had the images on the site to use. This is not, like most historical image collections, a pile of usual suspects. Some are extremely rare. There was one shot, for example, looking out from the Capitol at the [National] Mall, which was cut by a canal and covered at Seventh Street with the barracks of the Armory Square Hospital. I have never seen it before, anywhere, and it expressed how incomplete the Washington of 1862 was – like the nation.



Q. While researching this book, what did you learn about Lincoln and the Civil War that helped you develop your book?

A. I learned that Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, was also the Great Politician. And he had to be because the war he was fighting was not simply against the Southern slaveholders and their States Rights supporters. He was also fighting “the fire in the rear,” a collection of politicians, opinionators and other Northern opportunists who were advancing their own agendas – even at the nation’s expense – throughout the war. I had never considered any of that before I started researching.  

Q. Some of your other books feature key American historical figures and documents. What is it about the nation’s history that inspires you in such a way?

A. I suppose that the clash of high ideals and base desires is a hallmark of all human history. But we see it vividly in American history. Take Civil War America. It was a nation that, as Lincoln often commented, proclaimed its commitment to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and yet enslaved 10 percent of its population for profit. High ideals and base desires clash and create spectacular drama from 1861-65 and throughout our history.



Q. Have you used the Library’s collections for your other works?

A. Always, though not always directly. Everyone who does any kind of research touches upon the Library’s collections, even secondarily, through the work of other scholars.  We are all beholden to the work of the Library of Congress.  

Q. Are there any other periods in American history or historical figures you’d like to write about?

A. I have covered American history from the Pilgrims to 9/11, but there are still plenty of periods and events that I would like to drill more deeply into, like World War II or the building of the transcontinental railroad, And my imagination is inspired by place. We are products of the places we build, the places we destroy and those that we restore. Washington D.C. is a powerful character in “The Lincoln Letter.” I’d love to write about the rich history of California.

Q. Why do you think it’s valuable for the Library to preserve such historical items and what do you think the public should know about using them and doing research here?

A. Not only are we the products of the places we inhabit, we as Americans in the 21st century stand on the shoulders of all those who have thought, written, photographed, built and dreamed before us. Institutions like the Library of Congress are the great repositories of all those earlier aspirations. It is essential to a society’s sense of itself and its mission in history that those materials be preserved. They are national treasures, like the natural treasures we can visit in our national parks. Even if we never see Yellowstone, it’s important to us as a people to know that it’s there and that it’s part of our heritage.  And that goes double for the materials that the Library has collected and catalogued. And all Americans should know that those collections, which help to define us as a people, are open to them in Washington and on line.

Dave Brubeck: A Legend in Life, and After

Dave Brubeck performs

 

Pianist Dave Brubeck, one of America’s all-time greats in the field of jazz —  and a seminal force in making jazz popular in the U.S. and throughout the world — died today, just shy of his 92nd birthday.

The Librarian of Congress bestowed the Library’s “Living Legend” award on Brubeck in 2003, and it was our pleasure here at the Library to have Dave Brubeck on our stage in the Coolidge Auditorium both that year — he performed with the Dave Brubeck Quartet and the Brubeck Institute Sextet — and on April 10, 2008, where he was interviewed on the Coolidge stage by the journalist Hedrick Smith.

That evening, billed as as “The Dave Brubeck Quartet 1958 State Department Tour: The Music & The Memories,” featured a performance by the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet performing the works on the DBQ album, “Jazz Impressions of Eurasia.”

Dave Brubeck was interviewed in April 2008 for this webcast by the Library’s jazz specialist, Larry Appelbaum.  Brubeck was known for his his million-selling recording “Time Out” and his use of different time signatures, as well as his songs “In Your Own Sweet Way,” “The Duke” and “Summer Song,” which are considered jazz classics, Appelbaum said.

“During the Cold War, he took jazz out to the world under the auspices of the State Department,” Appelbaum said.  “He was one of the people who not only took American music abroad – he helped expose a lot of people to U.S. values through the music – but he also absorbed a lot of music he heard in Turkey, Eurasia and other places,” which became a part of Brubeck’s work.