Library of Congress's Blog, page 181
October 31, 2012
Mapping Slavery
Edwin Hergesheimer. “Map Showing the Distribution of the Slave Population of the Southern States of the United States Compiled from the Census of 1860.” Washington: Henry S. Graham 1861. Geography and Map Division.
According to the 1860 census, the population of the United States that year was 31,429,891. Of that number, 3,952, 838 were reported as enslaved. The 1860 census was the last time the federal government took a count of the Southern slave population. In 1861, the United States Coast Survey issued two maps of slavery based on the census data: the first mapped Virginia and the second mapped Southern states as a whole.
The landmark map of the Southern states provided a graphic breakdown of those census returns, specifically focusing on slave population per county as a percentage of the total population in the southern portion of the nation. Using statistical cartography, low percentages were shown in light grey while higher percentages were illustrated using more intense shading. This provided a dramatic representation of slavery across the region. The counties along the Mississippi River and in coastal South Carolina show the highest percentage of slaves, while Kentucky and the Appalachians show the lowest.
According to Susan Schulten, history department chair at the University of Denver, the map reaffirmed the belief of many in the Union that secession was driven not by a notion of “states’ rights,” but by the defense of a labor system. A table at the lower edge of the map measured each state’s slave population, and contemporaries would have immediately noticed that this corresponded closely to the order of secession. However, the map also illustrated the degree to which entire regions – like eastern Tennessee and western Virginia – were largely absent of slavery and thus potential sources of resistance to secession.
(Schulten spoke about the map at a Library of Congress symposium last year. You can view the webcast here.)
The Southern stages slavery map is a featured item in the “The Civil War in America” exhibition, opening next month, and has never before been displayed by the Library to the public.
This map was, by some accounts, consulted by Abraham Lincoln throughout the course of the Civil War. It even appears in the famous 1864 painting of the president and his cabinet, titled “First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln,” by artist Francis Bicknell Carpenter — a print of which is in the Library’s collections.
Next Wednesday’s post will be the final spotlight on items from the exhibition. You can read about others in these previous blog posts:
October 26, 2012
Growing a Library
(The following is an article from the September-October 2012 issue of the Library’s new magazine, LCM, discussing how the Library acquires its collections.)
By Audrey Fischer
Beginning with a purchase of 740 books by Congress in 1800, the Library of Congress collection has grown to nearly 152 million items. But purchase is just one acquisition method that the nation’s library uses to build its unparalleled collection in all formats, on myriad subjects, from all over the world.
On April 24, 1800, President John Adams approved an act of Congress establishing the Library of Congress. The legislation also appropriated $5,000 “for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress.”
The bulk of the Library’s nascent collection of 740 volumes was purchased from London booksellers Cadell & Davies in June 1800. Fourteen years later, the British would burn those volumes—and several thousand additional tomes—when they pillaged the U.S. Capitol during the War of 1812.
The collection got a big boost when former president Thomas Jefferson agreed to sell his personal collection of 6,487 volumes to Congress in 1815 to rebuild the congressional library. Congress appropriated $23,950 for that historic purchase.
But perhaps the biggest boon to the Library’s collection came on July 8, 1870, when President Ulysses S. Grant approved an act of Congress that centralized all U.S. copyright registration and deposit activities at the Library of Congress. Copyright deposits—copies of work submitted for copyright registration—make up the core of the collections, particularly in the Library’s holdings of maps, music, motion pictures, prints and photographs. Last year, the Copyright Office forwarded more than 700,000 copies of works with a net value of $31 million to the Library’s collections.
In addition to purchase and copyright deposit, materials are acquired by gift, exchange with other libraries in the U.S. and abroad, transfer from other government agencies and through the Cataloging in Publication program (a pre-publication arrangement with publishers).
On average, the Library acquires about 2 million items annually. Some 22,000 items arrive each working day, from which about 10,000 items are added to the collections—according to guidelines outlined by the Library’s collection policy statements (and in consultation with Library specialists and recommending officers).
Items not selected for the Library’s collections are made available to other federal agencies and are then available for donation to educational institutions, public bodies and nonprofit tax-exempt organizations through the Surplus Books Program.
Download the September-October 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.
MORE INFORMATION
October 25, 2012
Terminology in Office
(This is the third in a series of posts featuring presidential campaign items from the Library’s collections. Read the others here and here.)
“The Gerrymander. A New Species of Monster.” Boston Gazette, March 26, 1812. Serial & Government Publications Division
Every election year, as candidates go head to head during their campaigns, a new wave of vocabulary is born. Political idioms that have found their way into our lexicon include POTUS, left-wing, right-wing, working class, bipartisan, pork barrel, pundit, swing state and the list goes on and on.
So, what’s the genesis of the jargon? Let’s take a look at one:
In 1812, Jeffersonian Republicans forced through the Massachusetts legislature a bill rearranging district lines to assure them an advantage in the upcoming senatorial elections. Although Gov. Elbridge Gerry had only reluctantly signed the law, a Federalist editor is said to have exclaimed upon seeing the new district lines, “Salamander! Call it a Gerrymander.” A political cartoon-map delineating these redrawn electoral districts first appeared in the Boston Gazette for March 26, 1812. Therein lies the origin of the modern day term “gerrymandering.”
The Library also holds the original woodblocks from the 1812 Boston Gazette cartoon “The Gerry-Mander.”
“Words Like Sapphires”
(The following is a guest article written by my colleague Mark Hartsell, editor of the Library’s staff newsletter, The Gazette, about today’s opening of a new exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the institution’s Hebraic collection.)
A simple label inside thousands of rare books bears witness to the origins of one of the great collections of Hebrew material in the world: “Deinard Collection Presented by Jacob H. Schiff.”
Beginning next week, the Library of Congress will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its Hebraic Collection – started with a gift from Schiff in 1912 – with a five-month exhibition that explores the Jewish experience through the written word.
“Words Like Sapphires: 100 Years of Hebraica at the Library of Congress, 1912-2012” opens on Oct. 25 in the South Gallery of the Jefferson Building and closes March 16.
The exhibition showcases more than 60 items dating from the seventh century to the present: Hebrew manuscripts, incunabula (pre-1501 books), a Torah scroll, the first Hebrew book published in the United States, a Yiddish-language version of the U.S. Constitution – and more than a dozen books donated by Schiff a century ago.
“We are pleased to be able to bring to the American people and visitors from around the world items from the collections of the Hebraic Section that have never before been exhibited, plus treasures that haven’t been on view at the Library in more than two decades,” said Peggy Pearlstein, head of the Hebraic Section.
Medieval rabbis and poets used the image of sapphires to convey the clarity of carefully selected words and the beauty of the written page – an idea that provided the exhibition with its title and inspired the presentation of the objects.
“Every exhibition at the Library is unique, based first on its content but also on its unique design,” said Kim Curry, a senior exhibition director in the Interpretive Programs Office. “For ‘Words Like Sapphires,’ we were inspired by the beauty of the objects in the exhibition, while the exhibit’s title inspired us to create a sumptuous, jewel-like presentation. We also worked closely with our designer to create a wide-open design because we expect the exhibition to be very well attended.”
The collection of Hebraica at the Library got its start in the early 1900s as part of an effort by then-Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam to build an institution that more fully represented the breadth of world knowledge and cultures.
“This was part of his overall vision of having a much broader library,” Pearlstein said.
Washington Haggadah (1478)
In this, Putnam sought the help of Jacob Henry Schiff, one of the most influential bankers and philanthropists of the age.
As head of the Kuhn, Loeb and Co. investment bank, Schiff helped finance America’s growing railroads, emerging companies such as Westinghouse and Western Union, and even Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.
Schiff made a lot of money – he was worth an estimated $50,000,000 upon his death in 1920 – and donated large portions of it to charitable causes.
“Mr. Schiff spends almost as much time giving away money as in making it,” Forbes magazine reported at the time.
Schiff felt strongly about his Jewish heritage and devoted much of his life and fortune to supporting Jewish causes and institutions. His philanthropy helped support Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Jewish Division of the New York Public Library.
To Putnam, Schiff seemed a natural choice to help establish a Hebraic collection at the Library of Congress. He also knew exactly what kind of help he wanted Schiff to provide.
In a letter to Schiff written on April 1, 1912, Putnam described a Hebraic collection owned by bookseller Ephraim Deinard and gently proposed that Schiff buy the material and offer it as a gift to the Library of Congress.
“I venture to lay this suggestion before you,” Putnam wrote.
Schiff obliged.
He purchased 10,000 books and pamphlets from Deinard – a collection that spanned nearly 500 years – and donated them to the Library. He also went Putnam one better: Schiff provided funds to hire a person specially designated to maintain the collection.
Schiff’s original gift and another donation in 1914 formed the basis of a collection that now includes more than 200,000 items in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Arabic, Aramaic, Syriac and Amharic.
“Washington wasn’t a large city at the time. It was small, and there wasn’t a large Jewish community,” Pearlstein said. “But scholars in the United States would be able to come here and do research. It put us on a par with the great national libraries of Europe.”
The exhibition, part of the Library’s multiyear “Celebration of the Book,” was made possible with support from the Abby and Emily Rapoport and the Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen trust funds at the Library of Congress.
Several other programs are planned in conjunction with the exhibition.
Earlier this year, the Library published “Perspectives on the Hebraic Book: The Myron M. Weinstein Memorial Lectures at the Library of Congress.” The book will be the subject of a free, public program at the Library on Oct. 29.
On Oct. 25, Emile Schrijver, curator of the Jewish special collection at the University of Amsterdam, will discuss “The Jewish Book Since the Invention of Printing.” On Nov. 5, poet Peter Cole will discuss “One Hundred Years of Hebrew Poetry.”
“It’s an exciting moment to be able to celebrate a centennial, and we’re looking forward to the next century of collecting material and making it available to researchers and the public,” Pearlstein said. “It’s not an end. It’s really just a stop along the way for what I hope will continue to be more wonderful materials we can acquire for the Library.”
October 24, 2012
Dear Diary
LeRoy Gresham (1847-1865) was a teenaged invalid who kept a diary for nearly every day of the Civil War, recording the news, his Confederate sympathies and perceptive details about life on the homefront as he experienced the conflict through newspapers, letters and personal visitors. The son of an attorney, judge, and plantation owner in Macon, Ga., Gresham’s diaries provide a poignant record of his suffering and that of his family during those trying times.
LeRoy Wiley Gresham, diary entry of November 17, 1864. Lewis H. Machen Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
Gresham had just turned 17 when Gen. William T. Sherman’s Union forces left Atlanta for the army’s “March to the Sea,” November-December 1864. Macon was thought to be in the line of advance, and LeRoy Gresham’s diary reflects the uncertainties felt by many Georgians who feared their homes would be in Sherman’s path.
An entry chronicling the historic event, dated Nov. 17, 1864, will be featured in the Library’s “The Civil War in America” exhibition, opening Nov. 12. The diary has never before been on public view.
“Clear and warmer. Rode down to Dr. Emerson’s and found the town in an uproar about the approach of the enemy, who are this side of Griffin and ‘marching on,’ 10 & some declare 15,000 strong. The trains have been running in all day with the stores, etc. The College will be broken up tis thought. We have about 10 or 11,000 to oppose them & I can’t see why Macon should give up. 8 P.M. We have received the following from Mr. Bowdre which I copy for future reading:
‘Mrs. Gresham: The news is bad enough: our forces have been compelled to retreat, & were at Barnesville last night (40 miles from Macon) & Gen. Toombs tells me they will be some 15 miles from Macon tonight—I mean ours— Sherman’s army is coming on as rapidly as they can; his cavalry camped last night, it is said, only 10 miles from Forsythe in Butts co. He is coming in two columns—it is thought by those who ought to know that Sherman’s forces will be here on Sunday or Monday, possibly sooner, unless opposed & we have too small a number to do anything much I fear. We may fight him in this vacinity [sic] but I fear not with any chance of success. Gen. Toombs advises all ladies & children to get away if they can. He is now at our store. I am greatly disturbed myself about my family. Yours in haste P.E. Bowdre.’
“We do not know what to do or think. We have no place to run to, where we could be safe, and we feel awfully about it. The town is in a furor of excitement & I fear little or nothing will be done to save the town. If Father were only here!”
Gresham began a final diary entry on June 9, 1865, and died nine days later due to causes unknown.
His “voice” will also be lent to a special blog featuring historical Civil War figures and complementing the upcoming exhibition. You can read more about it here.
Stay tuned next Wednesday for another spotlight on other items from “The Civil War in America.” Until then, you can read about them in these previous blog posts:
October 23, 2012
Black and White and (Still) Read All Over
Old newspapers have acquired an iffy reputation over the years. We bemoan the trees that had to die to bring them into existence for their one day of glory; we dub them “mullet-wrappers” or note, as they do in the British Isles, that “Yesterday’s news is tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper.”
But old newspapers can be addictive! And if you’d like to find out just how, the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities have a little something to show you – a website called “Chronicling America,” which recently digitized its 5 millionth old-newspaper page. It features 800 newspapers from 25 states.
Short of watching a well-assembled documentary, or a movie like “The Godfather” that re-creates another place and time in great detail, there’s nothing like an old newspaper to give you a dimensional sense of a past era.
Not only can you find out what was news in that city at that time; you also see advertisements that convey everything from the fashions of the day to the nostrums people took for their ailments – including maladies like “catarrh,” “ague” and “scrofula.”
You see changes in the way people absorbed information – a newspaper published in 1912, for example, might make no effort to separate its editorial positions from its news coverage, openly lacing its news with ridicule. Legitimate news sources moved away from that in the latter part of the 20th century.
And you can see how hot topics of the day cropped up in unexpected places. Here, for example, reported in the Fayette, Missouri “Boon’s Lick Times” in 1848,
Hmmm … the spring-bottom jeans don’t seem to be in vogue this year
we find the topic of extending slavery westward raised in a letter from U.S. Sen. Thomas Hart Benton to the denizens of California, just liberated from Mexico:
“The treaty with Mexico makes you citizens of the United States; Congress has not yet passed the laws to give you the blessings of our government; and it may be some time before it does so. In the mean time … The edicts promulgated by your temporary Governors (Kearny and Mason, each an ignoramus), so far as these edicts went to change the laws of the land, are null and void …
… you are apprised that the question of extending African slavery to California occupies, at present, the attention of our Congress. I know of nothing that you can do at this time that can influence the decision of that question here. When you become a state, the entire and absolute decision of it will be in your own hands. In your present condition … I would recommend total abstinence from the agitation of the question.”
Here’s another classic old newspaper, the “Tombstone Epitaph” of Tombstone, Ariz. We all know this as the locale of the shootout at the O.K. Corral – that was in 1881 – but what was it like in Tombstone as the 20th century was rounding the corner?
This edition of the paper – March 27, 1898 – has lead stories about the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine (prelude to the Spanish-American War) and ads for such remedies as Dr. King’s New Discovery for Consumption, Ely’s Cream Balm (cures colds, hay fever, headaches and deafness!) and S.M. Barrow’s One Price Cash Store, where you could buy anything from silk and dimity fabrics and “Buckingham & Heck’s Cowboy Boots” to “guns, pistols, and cartridges.” Also, you could book a trip to the Yukon to mine for gold.
Thar’s gold in them thar yellowing pages, too. And, because Chronicling America is digital, you can dive in from your desk or home computer. No trees – no more trees, anyway — were harmed in the making of this website.
October 19, 2012
First Drafts: “The Star-Spangled Banner”
(The following is an article from the September-October 2012 issue of the Library’s new magazine, LCM, highlighting “first drafts” of important documents in American history.)
O! say, can you see by the dawn’s early light …”
Francis Scott Key autographed manuscript of “The Star Spangled Banner,” 1840. Manuscript Division.
These words are as American as, well, the American flag that inspired them.
Francis Scott Key, a young lawyer and poet, was so moved by the sight of the Stars and Stripes that he penned those very words, which became the lyrics to our country’s national anthem.
On Sept. 14, 1814, while detained aboard a British ship, Key witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British Royal Navy ships in the Chesapeake Bay. The failure of the British to take Baltimore during the Battle of Fort McHenry was a turning point in the War of 1812.
As dawn broke, Key was amazed to find the flag, tattered but intact, still flying above the fort. Inspired, he penned “The Defense of Fort McHenry” (later dubbed “The Star-Spangled Banner”) on the back of an envelope.
Almost immediately, his poem was published with the instruction to sing it to the music of “To Anacreon in Heaven.” Contrary to popular belief, it was not a drinking song. Written by British composer and musicologist John Stafford Smith, the tune was the beloved song of the Anacreontic Society, a London society of doctors and lawyers who were avid amateur musicians.
More than a century later, with the help and encouragement of bandleader John Philip Sousa, President Herbert Hoover signed the act establishing Key’s poem and Smith’s music as the nation’s official anthem on March 3, 1931.
The Library holds several hundred editions of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” most notably an 1840 copy of the poem in Key’s own hand. According to Loras John Schissel, a specialist in the Library’s Music Division, Key handwrote numerous copies of the poem for friends near the end of his life. The Library purchased its copy, known as the “Cist Copy,” in 1941. According to Schissel, “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the only national anthem to end in a question mark.
“Unfortunately, we don’t know what became of the back of the envelope that contained the manuscript original,” he said.
MORE INFORMATION
Bound manuscript of “The Star-Spangled Banner” (page-turner version)
Download the September-October 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.
October 18, 2012
Library in the News: September Edition
With the announcement of the new Library website, congress.gov (you can read more about it here and here), media outlets in September were all over the story.
The Washington Post’s Ideas & Innovations column called the site’s design a “boon” for mobile users, allowing those pages to expand or contract based on screen size.
Other high profile outlets running the story included The New York Times, Roll Call, The Hill, Politico, Associated Press, Bloomberg Business Week, UPI and The Washington Times.
On the heels of such a big announcement came one of the Library’s premier events, the National Book Festival, on Sept. 22-23. Coverage of the festival was popular on Twitter, capturing the most buzz: 84% of online volume throughout the weekend (12,614 total tweets). Facebook was the second most popular channel with 6% of online volume (850 total posts). Almost 400 news stories (print, online, radio and television) ran about the festival.
“Thousands of book lovers from around the region flocked to the Mall on Saturday for the National Book Festival, where readers who reveled in books long before they had e’s in front of them mingled happily with those who have come to love the convenience of having an entire electronic library in the palm of one’s hand,” said Washington Post reporter Lori Aratani in describing the scene.
“The future of book publishing may hang in the balance, but the need to cultivate young readers who can become the critical thinkers and book buyers of tomorrow remains constant,” wrote Jamshid Ghazi Askar for the Deseret News. “In that context, then, the kid-friendly National Book Festival occupies a unique place in the public square – different in size but similar in purpose to the thousands of school book fairs and the youth-literacy outreach efforts that take place all over the country every year.”
Children’s author Jeff Kinney of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” books fame told USA Today, “Parents have clearly done their job with the kids here. Reading is fun!”
In other news, Poet Laureate Natasha Tretheway’s first reading at the Library on Sept. 13 inspired another round of stories and interviews with various media.
“If last night’s event at the Library of Congress is anything to go by, Natasha Trethewey’s tenure as U.S. Poet Laureate is going to be extremely popular,” wrote Washingtonian reporter Sophie Gilbert, touting the overflow audience at the event. “As she read from different poems, briefly explaining where they came from, the audience listened intently, audibly murmuring at some points when a line was particularly resonant.”
Speaking to Jeffrey Brown of PBS NewsHour, Trethewey said of her new title, “I’m hoping that my youth, relatively speaking, means I’m also energetic and can bring a lot of service to the role, rather than simply ceremonial or honorific as it certainly is.”
Debbie Siegelbaum of The Hill talked to Trethewey about her new accomplishment. “I have to tell you that when I won the Pulitzer Prize years ago, at the ceremony they said to us, ‘Now you know the first line of your obituary.’ And when I went to the Library of Congress after the call from Dr. Billington, they said to me, ‘Now you know the line that will replace that line,’” said the poet laureate.
“Her poetry is by no means stylistically consistent or even recognizable as hers except by its subjects,” said Gary Tischler of The Georgetowner. “It has the strange quality of being powerful, deceptively and often simple in its use of words and language, diverse in the method and sytle.”
And, a last little tidbit: According to the Washington Post Express in its “Explore DC” feature, the Library of Congress is “where you’ll feel guilty for not being smarter” thanks to its décor “glorifying all things knowledge-related.”
October 17, 2012
A Presidential Fundraiser
“BY THE PRESIDENT…(EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION)” Philadelphia: Leypoldt, 1864. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.
“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.”
In January 1863, as the nation began its third year of a bloody war pitting its very own citizens against each other, Pres. Abraham Lincoln signed an executive order proclaiming the emancipation of slaves in Confederate territory. By issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, he created one of American history’s most iconic documents.
The Library holds a broadside edition of the proclamation – one of only 48 copies printed – signed by Lincoln, Sec. of State William H. Seward and Presidential Secretary John G. Nicolay. The document, never before on public view, will be featured in the upcoming exhibition, “The Civil War in America,” opening Nov. 12. The edition was specifically created to raise funds for the Sanitary Commission at the Great Central Sanitary Fair held in Philadelphia in June of 1864.
The United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) was a private agency that held events around the country to raise money for Union soldiers. These sanitary fairs helped provide medical supplies, establish field hospitals, fund the hiring of nurses and care for wounded soldiers during and after the war. It was, in fact, a mission near and dear to Lincoln’s heart.
“The Sanitary Grand March,” by Edward Mack. Philadelphia, 1864. Music Division, Library of Congress.
President Lincoln, his wife Mary and son Tad visited the Great Central Sanitary Fair held in Philadelphia on June 16, 1864, and the day ended up being a highly lucrative fundraising effort. Admission was doubled, and more than 100,000 people flocked the grounds to see the president. Signed editions of the Emancipation Proclamation could be purchased for $10. Ultimately, the Great Central Fair raised more than $1 million for the USSC through admissions, concessions and the sales of goods and mementos like the proclamation. Of the many Northern cities that hosted major sanitary fairs between 1863 and 1865, Philadelphia was second only to New York City in money raised.
Make sure to check back next Wednesday for another spotlight on other items from “The Civil War in America.” Until then, you can read about them in previous blog posts here, here and here.
October 16, 2012
Inquiring Minds: A Visionary Center
(The Library of Congress is not solely our collections. It’s also our people. Often our blog showcases the treasures. Now we’ll also showcase the minds. The following is a guest post by Jason Steinhauer, a program specialist in the Library’s John W. Kluge Center, to debut a new blog series, “Inquiring Minds.” We start with an introduction to the Kluge Center, an area of the Library that welcomes scholars from across the world to interact with our unique collections. )
Let’s say you want a new car. How do you decide what to buy?
Presumably, you start by doing some research. You check out the latest models available. You analyze your budget, and see what you can afford. You look in consumer magazines and websites: what are the best models selling? How much do they cost? What can I expect to spend on maintenance? You check the insurance rates where you live. You go for test drives. Soon, you have enough information to make a well-informed decision. The better informed you are, the better decision you make.
Every day we draw on information to make decisions in our lives. We become scholars, of a sort, mining the facts, analyzing and assessing the arguments, and asking how it applies to us. We take on the role of scholar to address issues that matter to us.
This notion, on a national level, is at the heart of the Library’s mission in serving Congress and the public. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “There is, in fact, no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer.” (See “Like a Phoenix From the Ashes”) To make good policy, Jefferson reasoned, policy makers need information. They need conversation and thoughtful consideration of the facts. They need time and space to think. They need to draw on the knowledge of the world, and apply it to addressing our most pressing concerns.
This was also the late John Kluge’s vision. In 2000, he envisioned a space within the Library where thinkers and doers could interact. He saw the richest record of human activity and creativity ever collected, and wanted distinguished scholars and promising rising ones the opportunity to think, research, and converse with it. The result is The John W. Kluge Center.
The Kluge Center really starts with the Library’s collections, the depths of which are breathtaking. Any time you think you’ve scraped the bottom, you discover there are miles below the surface you haven’t touched. It’s not just the original printing of the Declaration of Independence or General Patton’s papers—which we have. You want a history of arguments on monogamy v. polygamy going back to the Crusades? It’s here. You want to see how the Spanish brought horses to the New World? We have a book that shows you. The extraordinary collections add to our understanding of our country’s deepest questions.
The Kluge Center provides space to scholars to mine those collections, and ruminate on their meaning. Each year, they come to tackle questions of relevance. Take our newest Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson. From a career in the ministry, he witnessed first-hand an explosion of Christian denominations in the Global South, particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. More than 42,000 Christian denominations now exist. One of out every four Christians now lives in Africa. The typical Christian in the world today is a woman in Kenya. How will this impact the future of the religion?
To finish his inquiry into the impact of this new demography, he’s come to the Library of Congress. Our databases allow him to research patterns of immigration from the Global South to the Global North. Our space offers a serene environment to write and reflect. In his six weeks he will finish his book. Then he will take his research to the field to apply it.
Join the conversation. Attend one of our public events and hear from our scholars. Leave a comment below. Join us in making the The John W. Kluge Center realize its benefactor’s vision.
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