Library of Congress's Blog, page 45

Library’s Preservation Team Starts Blog

The following guest post is by Jacob Nadal, Director for Preservation. 

Today we are launching a new blog covering preservation at the Library, Guardians of Memory. You will hear from preservation staff on the things we do to make sure the Library’s collections endure. We will explore the ways people have recorded their knowledge and creativity across the centuries.

The Library of Congress’ mission — “engage, inspire, and inform Congress and the American people with a universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity” – has some obvious hooks for preservation. Everyone will guess that we pay attention to the word “enduring,” but in developing our preservation program and developing the goals for this blog, the word “universal” matters just as much.

The people who care for the national collections come from all across the country and around the world. The Preservation Directorate has over 200 staff. The Library’s preservation efforts include over 100 more staff in the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center and the Digital Services Directorate. Hundreds more staff contribute by caring for the collections from the day we bring them to the Library to the moment we present them to you, whether that’s online, in the exhibition galleries or in the reading rooms.

Preservation gives us a special way of looking through the library. The questions we ask while maintaining these works reward us with distinctive answers about the intentions, knowledge, and creativity that they embody. The blog is intended to help you see the collections through our eyes by giving you the literary equivalent of a look over the shoulder of the Library’s preservation staff as they do their work.

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Cicero’s quote in the Jefferson building. Photo: Jake Nadal.

Recently, I took a few minutes to walk up to the northwest corner of the second floor gallery in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson building. I wanted to check in on the panel that gave us the title for this blog:

MEMORY IS THE TREASURER AND GUARDIAN OF ALL THINGS

—Cicero, De Oratore, i., 5

When I had asked the Preservation staff what they wanted to see in a title, the suggestions included the real people who do the work, their know-how and their care. But finding titles is hard, and as I talked it through with some of our writers, we didn’t think we quite had it, and we spent a few days feeling stuck until we saw this line from Cicero.

We liked it — the Librarian often speaks about the Library as the “treasure chest” – and I liked the play of turning the emphasis to the guardians themselves, the individuals who each do their part in caring for the national memory. I felt pretty good about it, myself, but the job of a preservation librarian is basically to worry about things and be perpetually unsure. When I stopped in to take a look this morning, though, and saw the panel was surrounded by scaffolding with conservation work in progress, I decided we had it just right.

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Scaffolding, and our inspiration panel, in the Great Hall. photo: Jake Nadal.

Mystery Photo Contest: Nearing the End!

Cary O’Dell at the Library’s National Recording Registry runs our Mystery Photo Contest. He’s back with a batch of our toughest cold cases.

Regular readers know of our (thankfully shrinking!) collection of mystery photos. With your help over the past few years, we’ve knocked this particular list down from over 800 photographs of unidentified people or groups to fewer than 30. You all have done a fine job. Everyone gets a trophy!

But a few still linger. These are photographs from the entertainment industry that came to us in a huge cache of photos,and they seem so … so … solvable, but still remain unidentified. If you think you might have already seen these, it’s probably because we’ve posted all of them before. But because we don’t give up – and we know you don’t either – we’re giving some of them one final spin. Care to try your luck?

As always, please give us your best guess in the comments. We’ll let you know of any success stories.

This lady with the winsome smile was probably an actress in the silent film era, or maybe in the early talkies. It’s a professional head shot, so she at least got a start in the biz. But she could have been a singer, dancer, model or a regional theater actress who never got very far. Suggestions have included Jeanette Loff, Edwina Booth and Isabel Jewel. Alas, none are correct.

Ah, yes, this one. Everybody thinks they know this one. Except, it turns out, they don’t. It’s something of a record-setter for incorrect guesses, perhaps rivaled only by the “world’s most mysterious woman” photo, which we eventually identified.

This is a punk-ish/New Wave duo for sure. Gotta be the ’80s, right? Maybe the early ’90s? They’ve got that androgyny thing going, as we’re not sure if this is two men, two women or one of each. The vibe is totally musicians with attitude, but for all we know it’s a couple of leads from a TV pilot that never took off.

Here’s the aforementioned list incorrect guesses (we’ve checked with the people named). Take a deep breath: Wendy & Lisa, Joan Jett, Karla Bonoff, T-Rex, Heart, Suicide, The Throbs, The Slits, Scarlet Fantastic, Strawberry Switchblade, Sparks, Tik and Tok, Alannah Myles, The Motels, the New York Dolls, Christian Death, Love and Rockets, the Jacobites, Sisters of Mercy, Haysi Fantayzee, Book of Love, David Johansen, Dogs D’Amore, Dweezil Zappa, Face to Face, The Hangmen, Ian Hunter, Izzy Stradlin,  Kings of the Sun, L.A. Guns, Michael Des Barres, Mickey Thomas, Peaches, Paul Westerberg, Paul Hardcastle,  Richard Hell, Rough Trade, Suicide, Tom Keifer, and, finally, The Waitresses.

PHEW.

Meanwhile, I have inquired of, but not heard back from, the following acts, all of whom readers have suggested: 39 Clocks, Balaam and the Angel, Edn Ozn, Fashion, Faster Pussycat, Lady Wreckless, Main Street Preachers and The Cut.

One free can of hair spray to whoever figures out who these two are!

Oh, yeah. This guy. We’ve been all over the country trying to peg him. The various wall hangings have given us clues that range from New York to Nebraska, but we’re still at nada. The lapel pin and one of the certificates one the wall indicate he’s a member of the Masons, that’s about the only solid lead we’ve gotten. That looks like a contract that he’s pretending to look over. Our cache of stills included several people who worked behind the camera or in the front office of the entertainment industry. We’re guessing he’s one of those.

How can this group remain unknown? This band (we assume) never caught on with the masses, I guess.  But they must have played a few gigs someplace. Does anyone know who they are collectively or individually?  Bear in mind that they might not hail from the U.S.

This earnest-looking gentleman appears to been photographed at a news event of some kind, given the angle of the shot and the fact that he’s not posed. It’s in black and white, but it’s clearly in the modern era. We know he’s NOT the founder of Wendy’s, Dave Thomas (as many people have guessed). He is also neither Henry Kissinger nor William Rehnquist, two other guesses that have come down the pike. An entertainment lawyer announcing a merger? Your guess is as good as, and probably better than, ours.

The man with the camera remains a mystery to us. It’s a staged photo — nice lighting! — but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a famous photographer, cinematographer or director. It could have been part of his publicity kit. He appears young, so maybe he didn’t stay in the business that long. Hard to pin down the era, too, though the watch would be a clue.

Okay, so if the man above was likely behind the camera, it seems equally likely this lady was in front of it. Surely a performer of some type, and the pose suggests the opera or theater. The bouffant suggests a time period between World War II through the early ’70s. But again, a tough one. She might have been a regional performer. This glamour shot might have been for a project that never got off the ground. She’s one of the mystery photos that hasn’t drawn many suggestions.

There were several shots in our original batch of photos that showed this young woman showing off her various looks, as one would include in a portfolio.  That said, we don’t know if that portfolio ever resulted in any work. We know she is NOT Ashley Judd or “Alf” actress Andrea Elson (although that is a very good guess), but that’s about it.

Let us know your best guesses in the comments, we’ll run down any fresh leads and report back. Good luck!

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African American Genealogy: Searching for Yesterday

The author’s family, 1922, in Clarke County, Miss. 

This is a guest post by Ahmed Johnson, a reference librarian in  Researcher and Reference Services. 

When people ask me what sparked my interest in genealogy, I like to tell them about one of my favorite images.

This black and white photo (above), faded and distorted with age, was taken in Clarke County, Mississippi in 1922. Lying along the Alabama border about halfway down the state, it was rural then and is rural now. The picture shows several people in my family, the Peters. Sitting on the porch is my 101-year old grandmother then at the age of two, surrounded by my great-great grandparents, great-great-great grandfather, other relatives and a preacher. They were all posing in their Sunday best on the front porch of the family home.

This picture fascinated me as a six-year old kid, so I asked my grandmother several questions about it. I wanted to know why her house looked like a log cabin and who all the people were. It provided all the curiosity and inspiration needed to begin my genealogical journey.

Even today, the easiest way to learn information about your family is to ask questions. Interview the oldest living relative in your family. Record their answers on your cell phone. Ask them about anything you’re curious to know. You never know what’s important because records get scarcer the further you go back, especially those relating to African Americans. Names, dates, and locations of key events are a good way to get started.

Based on the information you already know and what you collected from your interviews, consider gathering additional information from where they lived. Look in the family home to find photos and other memorabilia. Maybe the family kept a bible where important dates and events were documented. Try searching the local county courthouse, state archives, church records, historical societies, and genealogical societies in the locality where they lived.

But beware! Researching African American genealogy is quite challenging. It is a lifelong journey – not a quick trip. When beginning, start with yourself and work backwards, using vital records, censuses and land ownership. We all have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, and the number keeps growing exponentially the further back you go.

This is the difficult part. In 1860, nearly 4 million enslaved individuals lived in the United States but they didn’t appear on federal census records. Therefore, you have to search for other records to help you locate family names and push your family history back further. Let’s look at some of the resources you can use to research African American genealogy.

The Library offers an array of online records that you can search for things like marriage records, cemetery records, tax records, city directories and more. On our premises, the Library offers more extensive resources– including free access to a subscription-based genealogy site, along with nearly 70,000 self-published family histories and over 100,000 local histories.  You can search these books using our online catalog.

You can also visit your local library to find out what search tools are available there. You can review a selected list of African American family histories and related sources on our website.

If slavery was in your family’s past, records of slave owners are another source of information.  Plantation records provide valuable details about the lives of enslaved people, including genealogical information about their families and everyday activities on the plantation. Many of these records are microfilmed at the Library and other repositories across the country.  Other sources include ProQuest History Vault, which is a subscription database available at the Library and may be available at other libraries across the country.

Additional records relating to former slaves are located via the Freedmen’s Bureau and Freedmen’s Bank records, which cover the years 1865–1874. The Freedmen’s Bureau was created to assist newly emancipated people, and the Bank was one of the first banks used by African Americans. Its records offer a gateway to slavery because free African Americans had to list their last “owner” on the bank account application. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) houses the originals. Others are digitized and available on subscription databases at the Library and still others on freely accessible databases.

Like bank records, military records are quite valuable when conducting genealogical research. These records provide information about individuals who served in the armed forces or were eligible to serve. Over 186,000 African Americans served as part of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) in the Civil War. Some of the records are available via subscription databases at the Library. As with Freedmen’s Bank records, the physical records are available at the National Archives.

Newspapers provide a wealth of information about the people who lived in a specific community. Genealogists use newspapers to locate obituaries and other significant information about their ancestors. These include social events, land ownership and the birth of children. The Library has one of the most comprehensive collections of newspapers for the entire country. Some newspapers are digitized and searchable via Chronicling America. In addition, African American newspapers databases are available at the Library or other large libraries in your area.

Once you have completed your research, you can archive your compiled family history at the Library. Oral histories are archived at the Library through StoryCorps. This is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind and preserved at the American Folklife Center. Personal accounts of American war veterans are preserved in the Veterans History Project.

We hope that’s enough to get you started. As always, you can ask a reference librarian for help through our Ask a Librarian service. Good luck!

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Season Two of “America Works” Podcast Launched

This guest post by John Fenn, head of research and programs at the American Folklife Center, originally appeared on the center’s “Folklife Today” blog.

The Library’s American Folklife Center continues to bring voices of workers throughout the country to listeners with the second season of our “America Works” podcast. Each 10-minute episode of “America Works” introduces listeners to an individual worker whose first-person narrative adds to the wealth of our shared national experience. The first episode is now available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and at loc.gov/podcasts. Subsequent episodes will be released each Thursday through June 3, 2021.

Sarah Fortin works a net loft in New Bedford, MA. Photo by Phil Mello. Working the waterfront, New Bedford, Massachusetts, Archie Green Fellows Project, 2016-2017 AFC 2016/036: 03906. Library of Congress.

This season of “America Works” reflects the occupational and regional diversity that characterize the entirety of the Occupational Folklife Project’s collection. In the season’s first episode, listeners are introduced to Sarah Fortin, a fish net maker in New Bedford, Massachusetts, one of the country’s most important fishing ports. Among other things, Fortin discusses gaining the necessary skillset for her trade and the challenges she faced as a young woman in a largely male-dominated work environment:

There’s been a bit of a struggle here and there with some of the old-timers because they don’t, they’re just not used to seeing a woman that knows as much about the twine and stuff. I’ll get that little, like, ‘Damn, you’re really going for a girl. Like, look at you!’ You know? Stuff like that, but it’s all positive.

Kim Spicer working a job at the Mondrian Hotel in New York City. Illuminating history: union electricians in New York City, Archie Green Fellows Project, 2016-2017 AFC 2016/035: 03721. Library of Congress.

Other featured workers of the season include Kim Spicer, an electrician and journey wire-woman, and a proud member of The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Local #3, in Queens, New York. Jennifer Sgro is a nurse practitioner who provides treatment to residents of Chicago for the nonprofit The Night Ministry’s outreach bus, which travels to different low-income neighborhoods every evening. Mike Peabody of Montpelier, Vermont, is a garbage man who also leads the New England community’s recycling program.

These eight new episodes join those from the first season of “America Works,” which launched in August 2020. The first season is available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and at loc.gov/podcasts.

In addition to producing the podcast, AFC staff have also been active in recent months adding collection materials to the Occupational Folklife Project site. There are now nineteen individual project collections available, including full interviews, transcripts or logs, and photographs or video (when available). Explore these newly uploaded collections (direct links in collection titles)!

The Green Book: Documenting African American Entrepreneurs: In 2018, independent scholar and documentarian Candacy Taylor received an Archie Green Fellowship to document contemporary business owners and employees who work for more than a dozen still-active businesses that were listed in The Green Book, a historically significant travel guide published between 1937 and 1967. The Green Book listed businesses—e.g., restaurants, hotels, barbershops, taverns, drug stores, and garages—that welcomed African American customers. Only 3% of the 9,500 businesses listed in The Green Book are still in operation and Taylor traveled across the United States to interview their current owners and employees. The interviews explore the histories of these ongoing establishments, their strategies for staying in business, and the business’s current relationships with their changing communities. In addition to checking out this collection, listen to a recent episode of AFC’s Folklife Today podcast that featured a conversation with Candacy Taylor about her work with Green Book businesses.

Personal Home Health Care Aides in Michigan: In 2017, Clare Luz, a gerontologist at Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine, conducted fieldwork on the occupational folklore of “Personal Home Health Care Aides in Michigan.” Working with fellow MSU faculty members, including the epidemiologist Khalid Ibrahim as well as folklorist Marsha MacDowell and her colleagues at the MSU Museum and Michigan Traditional Arts Program, Dr. Luz documented occupational histories of 28 dedicated personal home health care aides (PCAs) in central Michigan, whose occupational histories, on-the-job experiences, and significant contributions to their communities have been historically marginalized and under-documented.

Fresh Produce Workers in Arizona: In 2015, folklorist Nicholas Hartmann and the Southwest Folklife Alliance in Tucson, Arizona, interviewed workers involved with the sale, distribution, and transportation of fresh produce that enter the American food supply through the city of Nogales on the United States-Mexico border. For generations, Nogales has been a major commercial hub for the marketing and distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables grown in the southwestern United States, Mexico, and Latin America. Hartman interviewed a wide variety of workers—from produce brokers to truck drivers to customs inspectors to multi-generational business owners—involved in the Nogales’ century-old fresh produce industry. The 22 in-depth oral history interviews in this collection also examine how social, economic, and technical changes are impacting life and work along the Arizona-Sonora borderland.

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Russell Lee’s Look at America

“Secondhand Tires for Sale,” a photograph by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division.

This is a guest post by Leah Knobel, a public affairs specialist in the Office of Communications.

Russell Lee’s photographs are mainstays in popular culture, though you may not be able to match his name to his work.

Stephen Colbert featured Lee’s iconic shot of a young Black man drinking from a water cooler marked “colored” on one of his “Late Show” monologues about racial injustice. Millions of “Cheers” viewers saw his photo of cheerful patrons in a Depression-era Minnesota saloon in the opening credits. Microsoft offered his 1939 photo of a Texas couple as a screensaver in its Windows 98 operating system. Here at the Library, we featured his photo of a homesteading couple as the cover photograph of a book and exhibition, “Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939-1943.”

But while Lee’s work is widely known, his story has remained more elusive. A new  biography, published by Liveright in association with the Library, establishes Lee as one of the most influential documentary photographers in American history.

In “Russell Lee: A Photographer’s Life and Legacy,” historian and archivist Mary Jane Appel examines the paradoxes of Lee’s dual status as an independently wealthy man and the most prolific photographer of the Great Depression. It’s the second book the Library has helped to publish on his work; “The Photographs of Russell Lee,” a paperback, was published in 2008 with an introduction by historian and author Nicholas Lemann.

Russell Lee, ca 1942.  Prints and Photographs Division.

Of the 63,000 prints in the Library’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) Collection, which pictures American life between 1935 and 1942, Lee created 19,000 — more than twice the amount of any other FSA photographer. He was the longest tenured and most widely traveled of all the photographers on the legendary FSA team — which included Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. Living out of his car, Lee photographed life in 29 states between 1936 and 1942.

The more than 100 photos included in the biography demonstrate Lee’s talent for capturing images emblematic of early 20th century concerns, including the ecological catastrophes of dust storms and floods, the population shift from rural to urban areas, discrimination against racial and ethnic groups and life on the home front during World War II.

This first comprehensive biography of Lee reveals a man both compelling and complex, a wealthy white man whose focus on society’s ills, particularly those that targeted the poor and people of color, resulted in a body of work that continues to be recognized for its resonance and relevance.

You can buy the book at any retailer. Hardcovers are available for purchase from the Library  Shop at library-of-congress-shop.myshopify.com/.

One of Lee’s most famous photographs. Oklahoma City, 1939. Prints and Photographs Division.

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Medieval Pandemic Cures That Were…Medieval

Illustration from “Herbarium.” Rome, 1481. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

This intriguing look into the medical practices of Europe some 600 years ago was written by Andrew Gaudio, a reference librarian in the Researcher and Reference Services Division.

As the world grapples with containing the COVID-19 pandemic with a range of vaccines, each with varying rates of effectiveness, it’s worth remembering that cure-alls for deadly pandemics have often proven to be more of a mirage than a reality.

The Library’s collection of medical texts from the ravages of the bubonic plague in 14th -century Europe, known as the Black Death for the color of the swollen lymph glands it caused, are an uneasy reminder of this, showing that the best practices of the era would horrify us today.

Many of these volumes are found in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Also, some medieval medical texts have been edited and reprinted and can be found in the Library’s general collections. They offer a window into an earlier time when even the most sophisticated doctors lacked knowledge of germ theory and microbiology. Medieval physicians had little to work with other than their own observations and past experiences in treating different illnesses; a deadly virus like the plague simply overwhelmed them. Mortality rates for the most virulent forms of the disease were reportedly as high as 95 percent.

Medical reference journals of the time show “cures” that could have helped only a little, and in some cases greatly exacerbated their patients’ suffering. Plasters made of various herbs (including, we must report, excrement) were common as treatment for buboes, as the painfully-swollen sores were called. It was thought that the technique of “bleeding” a patient in a bid to remove excess blood would restore the balance of the humors or bodily fluids of the patient to its normal state. From ancient times up to the 19th century, it was thought that the bodily fluids consisted of four humors (black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood) and that health could only be achieved when all humors were present in the same proportions. Bleeding a patient removed an excess amount of blood and therefore was thought to restore the humors of the body to their proper levels.

The location of bloodletting was thought to be relevant to the ailment. In one reference volume dating to about 1410 — a sort of early almanac — the authors published a rough drawing of a “vein man,” detailing where and how to bleed a patient. Each vein and location on the body was provided with instructions as to how the bleeding should be carried out, depending on the medical problem.

A “vein man” drawing  from about 1410, published in southern Germany. Book and Special Collections Division.

In their quest for a cure, some doctors reported more success than others. French physician Guy de Chauliac, who was personal physician to Pope Clement VI, claimed that he was afflicted with the plague but had cured himself.

De Chauliac’s narrative of this event is found in “Inventarium sive chirurgia magna,” Latin for “The Inventory or the Great Surgery,” published in 1363. A modern printed edition of this text is available in the Library’s general collections.

Here’s his tale. The parentheticals are mine, to help modern readers understand the text.

Regarding a cure, venesection [bloodletting], purging [most likely an emetic or a laxative] and electuaries [medicine mixed with honey] and syrupy cordials were available. The external buboes were softened with figs and cooked onions ground up and mixed with yeast and butter. Afterwards, the buboes would open and were healed. The sores were bled by applying a cupping glass, sliced open, and cauterized.

And I, to avoid defaming my reputation, did not dare to flee. With constant fear I protected myself with the preceding methods as much as I could. Nevertheless, towards the end of this mortality [the plague], I developed a continual fever with a bubo in my groin and I was sick for almost six weeks, and I was in such danger that my friends believed that I was about to die. By softening and treating the sore, as I have said, I escaped death by the command of God.

This comes from the book “Canonical medicine: Gentile da Foligno and scholasticism,” by Roger French which is in the Library’s general collections. A prominent doctor in 14th-century Italy named Gentile da Foligno was famous for treating plague patients. He ultimately died of the plague in 1348 in his quest to help the sick. That is heroic, no doubt, but some of his recommendations will cause a 21st-century reader to raise an eyebrow.

Here’s one of his mixtures for a salve: extract from an umbelliferous plant (the parsley family, including carrots and celery), the root of a lily and human excrement. It could be that of the patient. These ingredients were to be mixed together and rubbed onto the bubo. Da Foligno thought that this concoction would aid in withdrawing fluids from the sores and would therefore reduce swelling. Needless to say, this concoction actually would have worsened the patient’s condition.

The use of plants and herbs for plasters and aroma therapy were common to the era. Guidebooks on medical plants, called herbals, identified and illustrated their uses and properties. These books were prevalent in the medieval period.

In “Herbarium,” a manuscript printed in Rome in 1481, a cure for gout is offered. The text, translated from Latin:  “For gout in the big toe and gout in the knee. The peridcalis plant is boiled in water and with that water you will warm your foot or knee. Next you will place on your feet or knees the crushed plant [mixed] with hog fat in a cloth. You will heal remarkably.”

That last observation, alas, is likely more hope than medical reality.

 

Prince Philip at the Library of Congress

Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh and husband of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, died on Friday at Windsor Castle in England.

Prior to her ascension to the throne, then-Princess Elizabeth and the Duke visited America and made a stop at the Library. Here’s an account of their visit from our Library of Congress Information Bulletin, v.10 n.45, November 5, 1951:

Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh visiting “Shrine” documents at the Library of Congress, November 1951. Library of Congress Archives

Their Royal Highnesses, Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, expressed great pleasure that [the Library of Congress] was included in their tour on Friday, and the Princess was deeply impressed with the fact that so many staff members turned out to greet them. Mr. Clapp conducted the 20-minute tour of [the Library], which included viewing the Main Reading Room from the Gallery and exhibits on the second floor.

In addition to Their Royal Highnesses, the Royal party included the British Ambassador Sir Oliver Franks and Lady Franks, Canadian Ambassador Hume Wrong and Mrs. Wrong, Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester Pearson and Mrs. Pearson, the Princess’ Lady in Waiting, Their Royal Highnesses’ Equerry, the Secretary of the Royal Household, and Mr. John F. Simmons, chief of protocol in the State Department. Official photographers and press representatives also accompanied the party. LC staff members who were presented to the Royal couple were: Messrs. Buck, Mearns, Andreassen, Adkinson, Wagman, Keitt, Fisher, Gilbert, Krould and Webb.

Besides viewing the Main Reading Room and the Shrine documents, the visitors saw the memorabilia of the Presidents, the “Milestones of American Achievement” and other regular LC exhibits, and a special display arranged in their honor, which included: A letter of condolence on the death of President Lincoln from Queen Victoria to Mrs. Lincoln; a letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe calling attention to the importance of friendship with Great Britain; a letter in King George V’s handwriting to President Wilson expressing “deep satisfaction” that the two English-speaking nations were working together; and a sketch of the Battle of Trafalgar between Lord Nelson and the combined fleets of France and Spain, with a letter describing the action.

Both the Princess and the Duke expressed keen interest in the exhibits. They had learned the Gettysburg Address and were pleased to see the original; the Princess was particularly interested in Queen Victoria’s letter, asking how LC happened to have it; the Duke studied the sketch of the Battle of Trafalgar; and both of them asked questions about the Shrine documents and the new preservation processes. It is reported that they were still talking about the LC visit and the fact that so many people were there to see them when they went up into the Capitol after seeing the Supreme Court Building.

Our collections include several more images of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth — including a wedding portrait and a Herblock cartoon.

Thanks to Library of Congress archivist Cheryl Fox for finding this account.

More Jazz, More Mingus? The Library Has It

The following is a guest post by Music Division archivist Dr. Stephanie Akau; it originally appeared on the In the Muse blog. 

Charles Mingus, circa early 1950s. Photo: Not known. Music Division.

The Library was delighted to recently welcome four additional holograph manuscript scores of Charles Mingus, the legendary jazz double bassist, pianist, composer and bandleader, to our existing collection of his life’s work.

They came as a gift from Sue Mingus, his widow. I recently reprocessed them with processing technician Pam Murrell. The scores that comprise this gift are “Alive and Living in Dukeland,” “Three or Four Shades of Blues,” “Cumbia and Jazz Fusion” and “Todo Modo.”

“Alive and Living in Dukeland” is one of many of Mingus’s tributes to Duke Ellington, who had an enormous influence on Mingus and countless other musicians. Mingus performed briefly with Ellington’s band before a physical altercation with trombonist Juan Tizol lead to his dismissal in 1953.

Mingus composed and recorded the other three charts, “Three or Four Shades of Blues,” “Cumbia and Jazz Fusion,” and “Todo Modo” in the mid-1970s, shortly before he died from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). “Three or Four Shades of Blues” was the title track of an album assembled from March 1977 recording sessions under a contract from Atlantic Records.

The other pieces on the LP are “Noddin’ Ya Head Blues” and “Nobody Knows,” along with Paul Jeffrey’s new arrangements of Mingus standards “Better Git Hit in Your Soul,” and “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.” Mingus responded negatively to the “Three or Four Shades of Blues” LP but listeners loved it; the album sold 50,000 copies in just two months. It was a Cadence magazine Editor’s Choice for one of the top albums of 1977, a list that included Cecil Taylor’s “Dark to Themselves,” Gerry Mulligan’s “Idol Gossip,” Dexter Gordon’s “Swiss Nights,” and the reissue of the Red Norvo Trio with [Tal] Farlow and Mingus.

The 1977 Atlantic Records contract allowed Mingus to expand his ensemble for “Cumbia and Jazz Fusion,” which is nearly a half-hour long and takes up the entire side of an LP. The recording features congas and South American percussion, and the ensemble even includes a bassoonist, Gene Scholtes. The score is comprehensive and a listener can follow along with the recording.

“Todo Modo” is on the flipside of the “Cumbia” LP. Mingus had written the music for director Elio Petri’s 1976 film “Todo Modo,” also known as “One Way or Another” in the United States (not to be confused with the Blondie song released a couple years later). However, Petri did not use Mingus’s music or his arrangements for the film. Instead, he asked Ennio Morricone to compose a new soundtrack. Critics enjoyed the Cumbia/Todo Modo album, one writing that Mingus was “a national treasure” and that “ ‘Todo Modo’…swing[s], struts, sings and sighs.”

Charles Mingus. “Todo Modo,” holograph score. Music Division.

The condensed scores are heavily annotated with instrumentation notes, as shown in the photo of “Todo Modo,” and performance directions explaining who is supposed to solo and when, seen in “Cumbia and Fusion.”

Charles Mingus. “Cumbia and Jazz Fusion,” holograph score. Music Division.

The annotations provide a glimpse into Mingus’s compositional process. The collective improvisation, in which more than one person improvised at a time, that characterized his music may sound chaotic at times, but these scores demonstrate how clearly Mingus conceived of a piece’s structure. They are a welcome addition to the collection!

When the Library  is once again open to the public, the Charles Mingus Collection is available for research in the Performing Arts Reading Room. For more In the Muse posts about Mingus, see Pat Padua’s “Meditations on Mingus” and Pam Murrell’s “The Thingus About Mingus”.

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Jason Reynolds: Grab the Mic April Newsletter.

It’s April, which means it’s … NATIONAL POETRY MONTH! Honestly, this might be my favorite month of the year besides February, and July. Oh, and there’s December, which is my birthday month. And there’s something about September, too. Anyway, April is here. Which means poetry is here. Poetry is always here, but during April it’s pushed onto the main stage to shine. So, this newsletter will be a poem. I’ve been hiding out in the woods working on some things, and, well … that’s where my head is.

BREWSTER, NY

it’s cold in the morning.

my bones are late for work

and so am i. and so i am

 

preparing a wood burning stove,

twisting a section of yesterday’s

and today’s times into wick and fuse,

 

tucking it into an iron belly,

lying logs on top and lighting.

learning a new way to warm.

 

it looks like sun blazing through

a small window and bullies the shiver

from the room. my bones crackle.

 

i am thawing and grateful for kindling,

melting awake in the morning,

glad to burn up bad news, first thing.

 

and trying not to think about

what else is up in flames locked

behind that door. because

 

it’s cold here. and i have too much

work to do to think about what’s been axed

for me to feel my fingers.

 

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New Book Draws on the Library’s Bob Hope Collection

Bob Hope and his USO troupe visiting a hospital ward in the South Pacific (from left) Tony Romano, Jerry Colonna, Bob Hope, Patty Thomas, and Frances Langford, 1944.  Bob Hope Collection.

This is a guest post by Becky Brasington Clark, Director of Publishing.

In the spring of 1941, Bob Hope couldn’t understand why his producer was pushing him to broadcast his hit radio show from a California military base instead of the Burbank studio. He was a celebrity, a big star, a comedian who worked on stage, radio and film. And yet his producer, Al Capstaff, wanted Hope to perform in front of an audience of enlisted soldiers at a busy training installation known as March Field.

The comedian reluctantly agreed, taking the stage on a sweltering day in a gym packed with nearly 2,000 soldiers. There was no air conditioning, no cue cards. But the thunderous sound of laughter introduced radio’s hottest star to his most important audience.

After Pearl Harbor was bombed seven months later, thousands of men and women volunteered or were drafted for the war effort. Hope could have enlisted as a lieutenant commander in the Navy, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt had other ideas. Hope could best serve his country by entertaining the troops.

From 1941-1944, Hope and a core group of regulars (Frances Langford, Jerry Colonna, Tony Romano, Patty Thomas and Barney Dean) performed the radio show from a different armed forces base nearly every week during the broadcast season.

They also traveled to the front, enduring long, uncomfortable flights in military aircraft, tropical downpours, giant mosquitoes and incoming bombs to deliver laughs, music and news of home.

They took the show to Britain, North Africa, and Sicily in the summer of 1943 and to the South Pacific and Australia in the summer of 1944. Impromptu performances in remote locales and hospitals supplemented scheduled shows in each area.

These performances inspired thousands of letters and postcards of appreciation from soldiers, nurses, wives and parents. Some were penned on paper bags, coconut shells and toilet paper, others addressed only to “Bob Hope, in care of Paramount Studios,” or “Bob Hope in Hollywood.”

Hope answered as many of them as he could, sending holiday cards, autographs, toiletry kits—even fruitcakes—to the soldiers, and he relayed messages from them to their parents, spouses, and sweethearts.

Hope with secretary Marjorie Hughes. Hope Collection.

Meticulously organized by Hope’s secretary, Marjorie Hughes, this remarkable body of correspondence is among 557,000 items now preserved in the Bob Hope collection at the Library. A new book, “Dear Bob….Bob Hope’s Wartime Correspondence with the GIs of World War II” captures and celebrates the mutual affection and admiration between Hope and the service members he would entertain over the course of five decades.

Hope was a celebrity, but he didn’t act like one when he visited the troops. He mingled with the soldiers, listened to their complaints and ate with them in the mess halls.

Eager to give the “G.I. Joes” the best laughs possible, Hope sent writers to the bases in advance of the performance to learn specifics about the soldiers and their lives, working the information into jokes that seemed tailor-made for the moment.

Written and compiled by Hope’s longtime staff writer Martha Bolton, along with his daughter, Linda Hope, “Dear Bob…” paints a vivid picture of a typical performance. “Whenever a Bob Hope monologue touched on familiar topics such as military food, physical demands, or dealing with superiors, the laughter was deafening” they write. “The soldiers couldn’t figure out how Bob knew them so well. Had he been trailing them around the base, eavesdropping on their bunk-side complaints, listening to them in the chow lines? And how did he know which officers were the most demanding, or that the camp had just had an air raid the night before?”

Some of the letters he received over the years:

Aug. 9, 1944

The jolt in the arm which we so sorely needed was supplied with your humorous hypodermic. I cannot express in adequate English how much your visit meant to all of us. . .

Jan. 22, 1945

There is nothing which makes a man happier than good music from his favorites and a heap of laughs. My morale goes up forty points whenever I hear one of your programs.

Undated

A sailor laughed so during your show at the canteen Thanksgiving afternoon that he split his pants—the back seam from waist to——. I know. I am the girl who sewed it back.

Some of the letters to Hope. David Jackson, Library of Congress.

Hope always made time to visit with the wounded, often proving the adage that laughter is the best medicine. Men who hadn’t spoken or interacted since their injury responded to him immediately.

As Bolton and Linda Hope recall, “The wounded appreciated how he would look beyond their injuries to see the man (or woman) bearing them. Whatever the prognosis, no matter how grim the situation, Bob’s goal was to get a smile or laugh out of each of them, which wasn’t always easy. For some, it was their first laugh in months.”

Oct. 15, 1944

I’m in a hospital and was almost dead. But I started to get well, and last night I saw a short about you and Lana Turner frying steaks, and Betty Hutton and Judy Garland. I laughed myself almost sick again, but you really lifted up my spirits. Thanks a million, Mr. Hope, and God bless you.

May 21, 1946

I had just came from Guam on a stretcher a couple days before you and your troupe arrived and I mean I really appreciated the way you acted.

March 7, 1948

….on the morning of the day that I saw you I had been told that I could take my choice of two things: keeping what legs I had left with the probability of never walking again, or having them amputated with the possibility of walking with artificial limbs. I’ll not lie . . .I was plenty scared . . . I know of no other man whom I have ever encountered who could have so well lifted a lowered man’s spirits than you did that day. .. You stayed within range of my hearing about 20 minutes that day, and if I live to be a million, I will always treasure it as the outstanding day of my life.

Hope knew that many of the young men he entertained wouldn’t make it home alive. While he couldn’t erase the specter of death, he managed time and again to give the soldiers of World War II a brief respite of non-stop jokes amid gales of laughter.

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