Library of Congress's Blog, page 185

Felix! Who Knew?

Mendelssohn's pen-and-ink of the Amalfi Coast

If Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy – the creator of the much-loved Violin Concerto in E Minor, the “Italian Symphony” and “The Hebrides,” aka “Fingal’s Cave” – hadn’t made it so big as a composer, we might well be remembering him today as an artist.  Who knew?

You can listen to the Wedding March from the incidental music to Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the Library’s online National Jukebox; there also you will find his well-known “Spring Song,” and a choral version of the Christmas carol “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” adapted by William Hayman Cummings from a tune found in Mendelssohn’s cantata “Festgesang.”

In addition to original manuscripts including songs, choral psalms, piano works, a string octet and two “Lieder ohne Worte” (songs without words) by Mendelssohn (1809-1847) in the Library’s collections — along with numerous pieces of correspondence in his own hand — the Library has two pieces of remarkable art by the young Felix.

One is a pen-and-ink sketch of the Amalfi coast of Italy (from the Library’s Rosaleen Moldenhauer Memorial Archive); the other is a watercolor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, where he conducted a program in 1836 that included a singing performance by soprano Henriette Grabau. Scholars believe he may have given her the watercolor, in memory of that event, as a wedding present. The watercolor is in the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Collection in the Library’s Performing Arts Reading Room on Capitol Hill.

Mendelssohn watercolor of the Gewandhaus

So the next time you’re listening to Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony, you can feast your eyes as well as your ears!

To learn more about Mendelssohn collections at the Library of Congress, look here.

Pic of the Week: And the Kluge Prize Goes To …

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, one of the leading scholars and practitioners of political economy in recent Latin American history, received the 2012 John W. Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the study of humanity in a special ceremony Tuesday at the Library of Congress.

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington presents the 2012 John W. Kluge Prize to former Brazil President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. / Abby Brack Lewis

“I feel honored, and humbled, to receive this most prestigious prize. I must confess to you that I also feel a bit nervous, perhaps overwhelmed,” he said in his remarks. “This may sound slightly ridiculous, coming from someone who was the president of Brazil for eight years, and who spent many decades lecturing at universities in the United States, France, Latin America and in my own country. But I insist that it is true.”

Much of Cardoso’s legacy has been one in defiance of conventional wisdom, whether with respect to race relations, the relationship among key structures within the economy, or integration into the world economic system. Under his presidency, he transformed Brazil from a military dictatorship with high inflation into a vibrant, more inclusive democracy with strong economic growth. Perhaps the strongest evidence of his intellectual accomplishment is that his successors have continued so many of his policies and ensured his legacy as one of Brazil’s greatest leaders.

“How did this transformation occur? How did Brazil and other emerging countries overcome many of their problems, and give rise to a new order?” he asked in during his remarks. “How did a sociology professor born in Rio de Janeiro, into an impoverished and overwhelmingly illiterate country in the grip of a Great Depression, come to stand before you tonight – in these hallowed halls of the United States Congress?”

At 17, Cardoso admitted he already wanted to change the world and, more modestly, Brazil. He went on to become a sociologist, researching and working on issues of race in Brazil.

“In ensuing years, the topics of my research would change. But the objectives never did: I wanted to understand what was happening in contemporary Brazil,” said Cardoso. “I wanted to tear down myths and expose truths – on both “left” and “right.”

His political career began as a deputy senator for Sao Paulo, then as senator until his election as president. During his tenure, he confronted inflation by introducing another new currency, called the “real,” implemented compensatory policies to address racial inequalities and progressive policies on AIDS prevention and land distribution that would address the needs of the poorest members of society, broke monopolies and privatized some state companies, and made progress in the areas of universal education and health care.

“Looking at the world today, the challenges and problems facing all of us are in many ways familiar to me,” Cardoso concluded. “Experience has taught me to be optimistic. Brazil’s example shows that even a country deemed ‘hopeless’ can reverse its fortune quickly. I hope that people will look at the Brazilian experience and realize the importance of tolerance and diversity.”

You can read the rest of Cardoso’s remarks here.

 

Library in the News: June Recap Edition

June marked a pretty busy time here at the Library of Congress with some big-ticket announcements. From naming a new Poet Laureate and pivotal books in America’s history to recent collection acquisitions, the institution was making regular headlines.

In announcing Mississippi native and Pulitzer Prize-winning Natasha Trethewey as Poet Laureate, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington told the , “We’re not necessarily on some kick to find a younger poet. The more I read of it, American poetry seems extremely rich in diversity, talent and freedom of expression, and she has a voice that is already original and accomplished. I have an affinity for American individuals who are absolutely unique, and I think that this is one.”

“You know, when you win the Pulitzer, people tell you that you now know what the first line of your obituary will be,” Trethewey told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “When I met with the people at the Library of Congress a few weeks ago, they told me now you know the line that will replace that Pulitzer line.”

Trethewey told the Biloxi Sun Herald that many of her influences have themselves been poets laureate, including Robert Penn Warren, Rita Dove and Philip Levine.

Other major outlets running stories included PBS NewsHour, NPR, the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and Reuters.

In addition to naming Trethewey as the 19th poet laureate, the Library gave a shout out to great literature by naming 88 “Books That Shaped America” (also featured in a current exhibition).

“Happily, the Library of Congress’s latest exhibition, ‘Books That Shaped America,’ ignores the familiar high-culture shibboleths and embraces cook-books (Irma Rombauer’s ‘The Joy of Cooking’) and schoolbooks (McGuffey’s ‘Primer’), mysteries (Dashiell Hammett’s ‘Red Harvest’) and science fiction (Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’), political tracts as well as poetry, both Dr. Seuss and Dr. Spock,” wrote Michael Dirda for The Washington Post.

John Cole, director of the Library’s Center for the Book, told Roll Call, “ We want to start a national conversation about great American books. We hope this list encourages people to read some of the books we have chosen.”

Billington told Bloomberg News that, of the books selected, Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” holds a special place in his heart as he remembered the impact it had on him as a college student.

USA Today, the New York Daily News, the Huffington Post and CBS News also featured the list.

The books announcement was part of the Library’s “Celebration of the Book,” an ongoing series of programs, symposia and other events that explore the important and varied ways that books influence our lives. As part of the celebration, the Library also hosted a conference honoring the enduring legacies of three key events that shaped America’s knowledge-based democracy: passage of the Morrill Act, the founding of the National Academy of Sciences, and the founding of the Carnegie libraries.

Time Magazine’s Elizabeth Dias covered the event, noting the benefits of all, particularly libraries, which she called “vital engines of America’s social mobility from their earliest days.”

The story also made headlines in The Hill, ABC News, the Associated Press and The Washington Post.

Speaking of things that helped shape our country, one of the Library’s new collection acquisitions features candid interviews with some of the most important musicians of the 20th century. Music mogul Joe Smith donated more than 230 hours worth of audio interviews from music’s rock stars, producers, songwriters and more.

Smith said in a statement, “In recent years it dawned on me that, if anything, the significance of recollections from Jerry Lee Lewis, Mick Jagger, Smokey Robinson, Ahmet Ertegun, Herb Alpert, Ruth Brown and all the other notables I was fortunate enough to interview are truly part of the fabric of our cultural history. I wanted to share this treasure-trove with any and all who might be interested.”

Several outlets featured the announcement, including the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, CBS, the New York Times, Time, Rolling Stone and the Associated Press.

In other acquisition news, the Library received the papers of noted astronomer Carl Sagan thanks to a donation from “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane.

“All I did was write a check, but it’s something that was, to me, worth every penny,” MacFarlane told the Associated Press. “He’s a man whose life’s work should be accessible to everybody.”

“In the papers, we see Sagan imagining life not only on Venus and mars but even beneath the surface of the moon. That’s the young Sagan, fresh out of the University of Chicago,” wrote Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach. “We also see the mature Sagan pondering the tendentious issues of God and the relationship of science and religion.”

“The Sagan collection itself has enough appealing personal material to fascinate, well, maybe millions,” said Washington Times reporter Jennifer Harper. “The scientist’s extensive correspondence with colleagues and famous people until his death in 1996, his book drafts, his academic notes as an instructor at Cornell University and even his birth announcement and elementary school writings are part of the cache.”

Running the story were the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Science Magazine and ABC, among others.

 

 

 

 

Today in History: Happy Fourth!

July 4th fireworks, Washington, D.C. Prints and Photographs Division

Happy Fourth of July! Today in 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring freedom of the 13 colonies from Great Britain.

The Library is home to the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. A couple of years ago, thanks to the work of the Library of Congress’ Preservation Research and Testing Division, it was discovered that declaration author Thomas Jefferson had originally written the phrase “our fellow-subjects” in the portion of the document that deals with grievances against King George III, He apparently changed his mind, and over the word “subjects” he inked an alternative, the word “citizens.”

Jefferson, whose papers also reside here at the Library, marked his last Independence Day when he died on July 4, 1826.

You can also read more about the Declaration and other related material here.

Americans all over our nation celebrate with backyard barbecues, parades, fireworks, flag displays and more. I’ll actually be skating in the national Independence Day Parade here in D.C. and hopefully enjoying some fireworks later, although my days of Roman candle wars have come and gone. How will you celebrate?

I also thought it would be fun to give you a few facts and figures courtesy of the United States Census Bureau.

This Independence Day, the nation’s estimated population is more than 313 million, as compared with 2.5 million in 1776.

Last year, America imported more than $223 million worth of fireworks.

It’s likely that the burgers and steaks on your grill today came from Texas, which accounted for about one-sixth of the nation’s total production of cattle and calves in 2011. And if beef isn’t on the menu, it’s possible your hot dogs and pork sausages are coming from Iowa, which reported more than 19 million hogs and pigs as of March 1, 2012.

Want an extra dose of patriotism? Try visiting Eagle Pass, Texas; Independence, Mo., Patriot, Ind.; American Fork, Utah; or Iowa, specifically Libertyville, New Liberty, North Liberty and West Liberty.

Stars and Stripes Forever … Literally

Mr. Sousa -- whose music can (and will) be played again and again

As we all prepare to take off for a midweek Fourth of July celebration that will feature hundreds, if not thousands, of bands around the nation playing John Philip Sousa marches including “Stars and Stripes Forever,” I’d like to thank my Dear Old Dad for his patience.

What’s that got to do with the price of piccolos in Poughkeepsie?

When I was six years old, back in the “Mad Men” era, we had a big Magnavox stereo in our living room and a decent collection of LP records.  One of them featured John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” as played by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops.

As little kids sometimes will, one evening I enjoyed hearing “Stars and Stripes Forever” so much that I asked my father to play it again.  He obliged.

And then I asked him again.

And again.

And again.

And … at this point even I knew I was pushing my luck … again.

Well, after the sixth hearing he politely said we’d probably heard that particular piece enough for one night.  And he left me with a lifetime appreciation of his parental patience … and the ability to whistle “Stars and Stripes Forever” in my sleep.

If you’d like to prep for whistling along with tomorrow’s live playings, here’s a recording of that piece as played by the March King’s own band, courtesy of the Library of Congress National Jukebox, a delightful site that streams vintage recordings from the Victor Records collection.

What’s your favorite patriotic band music?  

Pic of the Week: Hula Hula

When I was a kid, my dad went to Hawaii for work and brought back grass skirts and shell necklaces for me and my sister. I can remember prancing about the house mimicking what I thought at the time was a hula dance, likely influenced by watching too much “Fantasy Island.”

UNUKUPUKUPU / Abby Brack Lewis

According to the International Encyclopedia of Dance, the origins of hula are shrouded in legend. One story describes the adventures of Hi’iaka, who danced to appease her fiery sibling, the volcano goddess Pele. The Hi’iaka epic provides the basis for many present-day dances.

On Tuesday, hula dancer troupe UNUKUPUKUPU took to the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium stage to perform ancient dances and songs, rooted in the sacred `Aiha`a Pele (Ritual Dance of Volcanic Phenomena). The group is from the Hālau Hula (Hula School) of Hawaii Community College, Hilo, Hawaii. To experience the particular fiery style of hula termed `Aiha`a Pele, one is trained to call up the fire within the body and to dance until sweat shines at the temples and forehead.

The performance was featured as part of the popular “Homegrown: The Music of America” concert series presented by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in cooperation with the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. The series, which is free and open to the public, brings the multicultural richness of American folk arts from around the country to the nation’s capital. Here’s a schedule of future performances.

Concerts are recorded and most are later made available on the Library of Congress website. Previous years’ concerts can be viewed here.

 

An Answer for Everything: 10 Years of “Ask a Librarian”

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the Ask a Librarian reference service. Through the service, users from around the world can submit online reference questions to the Library and receive responses from Library staff. On average, the reference staff receives more than 58,000 inquiries per year. In 2011, more than 62,000 inquiries were received through Ask a Librarian. Since its launch in 2002, nearly 580,000 questions have been fielded.

From the Ask a Librarian homepage, users can choose the specific area of the Library to which they’d like to submit their online inquiry. Library reading rooms also provide links to their own Ask a Librarian web forms from their home pages.

Currently three areas of the Library provide live-chat reference service: the Digital Reference Section, the Serial and Government Publications Division and the American Memory collections.

Many questions turn up repeatedly. People seeking electronic books and other electronic materials do not always understand that the Library doesn’t digitize everything – although it has more than 31 million digitized items available on its website. Many researchers want to know if the Library holds copies of every book ever published in the United States, which isn’t the case.

Users also inquire on topics ranging from art history to zoology to various presidents, as well as people seeking congressional materials of various types, such as government documents and information on government services.

Ask a Librarian also receives library and information science and digital library questions from all over America and from many other countries. In fact, in response to the volume of these questions, Library’s staff created a guide to online materials in Library Science, “Library and Information Science: A Guide to Online Resources.”

 

So — What Books Shaped You?

In conjunction with the Monday launch of an exhibition at the Library of Congress titled “Books That Shaped America” as part of its overarching Celebration of the Book, the Library of Congress is making public a list of 88 books by Americans that, it can be argued, shaped the nation over its lifetime.

It’s not being proposed as a definitive list, or a final list; and you are invited to comment on it, or propose alternate selections to it, at this survey link on the National Book Festival website. Variations on the list – different cuts at it — are likely in coming months and years.

There’s a lot to agree on in this list.  When I sat down to ask myself what books I’d put on, I came up with a list of about 30; 26 of my choices are on the Library’s list, too. Books ranging from Paine’s “Common Sense” and Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” to Nader’s “Unsafe at Any Speed” and Heller’s “Catch-22” – I think many of us would find common ground about books that made the ground rumble when they came out, and in some cases still move the seismometer dials.

But since we’re all being invited to name books we think ought to be on the list, but aren’t, here are a few of mine:

 Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”  This book captured a sense many felt, in the mid-20th century, that individuals were being overwhelmed by “the machine.”


The poetry of jazz-age poet

Walker Evans' portrait of Laura Minnie Lee Tengle from "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"

Edna St. Vincent Millay (whose papers are here in the Library of Congress). Millay explored love, lust and other topics not considered suitable for a ‘lady poet,’ and gained a huge following doing it. She also tackled controversial topics, such as the Sacco & Vanzetti trial.


Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ “The Yearling.” In this artful, touching coming-of-age tale, harsh reality overtakes a childhood, but family love softens the blow. Rawlings didn’t just write for kids.

As for a book that shaped me, I’d have to pick James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.” I read it when I was 13 or so.  You probably know the pictures that illustrated this book — stark black-and-white shots of farm sharecroppers and their environment taken by the now-famed photographer Walker Evans.  He and Agee were sent out as a team, on a magazine assignment, to record the lives of these folk during the Depression. Agee’s eye was sharp and his prose was poetic – and his net effect on the reader, emotionally, was like having the wind knocked out of you.

So – What books shaped you?

 

Mr. Morrill Goes to Washington

On Monday (June 25) at the Library of Congress – in a conference anybody can attend, free of charge – the contributions of a congressman you’ve probably never heard of, but really should know about, will be explored.

Justin Morrill of Vermont may never be as well-known as his executive-branch supporter in these endeavors, Abraham Lincoln.  (It’s probably safe to predict that you will never see a movie titled “Justin Morrill: Vampire Hunter.”) But Justin Morrill set a standard that was more than just admirable: he was the central figure in the establishment of the land-grant colleges that made higher education a reality for generations of Americans; he championed the establishment of the National Academy of Sciences; he even helped get the congressional library (yes, the Library of Congress) out of its cramped digs over in the U.S. Capitol and into its own building on Capitol Hill.

When you think about it, that combination of illuminations — higher ed, science, and access to libraries – had a lot to do with making the United States a world power.

The Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, who will speak about Morrill at the conference, says he was a low-key congressman who didn’t hold major leadership positions or call a lot of attention to himself.  His name lives on in his good works.

But what good works!

Also speaking at the conference, “Creating a Dynamic, Knowledge-Based Democracy,” will be U.S Sens. Patrick Leahy and Lamar Alexander; U.S. Rep. Rush Holt; Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corp. of New York (which is sponsoring the event); Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences; M. Peter McPherson, president of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities; Anthony W. Marx, president of the New York Public Library; and Carla D. Hayden, CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.

Information about the conference, which starts at 8:30 am. in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium (10 First St. SE, Washington, DC) and will end at 3:30 p.m. and be followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial at 4 p.m., is here.

Come on down to the Library and indulge in a little significant history!

Legends Unplugged

On Monday, the Library of Congress announced its recent acquisition of audio interviews from of our most celebrated music icons courtesy of retired music executive Joe Smith.

More than 230 hours of recorded interviews feature the likes of Bo Diddley, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and others discussing all manners of things, from their own personal lives to personal stories  about their music.

Currently the interviews are now accessible in the Library’s Capitol Hill Recorded Sound Reference Center. Select recordings will be available on the Library’s website in the next few months.

Until then, here are a couple of snippets for your listening enjoyment from George Harrison, Mick Jagger and Dick Clark.

Mick Jagger

George Harrison

Dick Clark