Library of Congress's Blog, page 53

Darkness and Light: The European World of 15th-Century Woodcuts

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Detail from Albrecht Dürer’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, from “The Apocalypse” (series) c. 1496/1498 (published 1511). Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

This is a guest post by Stephanie Stillo, curator of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 15th century Europe spawned a rich variety of typefaces that fostered regional differences in woodcut illustrations. These represent one of the most exciting eras in the history of books.

To start, let’s consider the dark gothic typeface employed in Northern Europe at the time. It paired well with the thick and pronounced lines of German and Netherlandish woodcuts. For example, in 1483 printer and publisher Anton Sorg of Augsburg printed the “Concilium zu Constanz” (Council of Konstanz), which documented papal-sponsored meetings and festivals in the city of Konstanz, Germany, between 1414 and 1418. The events in Konstanz aimed to unify the Catholic Church after the election of three separate popes, a remarkable historical episode known as the Great Schism.

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“Concilium zu Constanz,” Augsburg, Anton Sorg, 1483. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

The Konstanz festivities were documented by Ulrich of Richental, who attended the festivities and, quite possibly, church committee meetings. Likely working from Richental’s manuscript copy, Sorg printed an illustrated edition of the events in 1483.  Sorg’s “Concilium zu Constanz” employed a dark gothic type to accompany the heavy subject matter of the woodcuts illustrating everything from jousting tournaments to the execution of Bohemian Catholic dissenters Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague.

A little over a decade later, the great Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius released the “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,” one of the finest, most unusual books of the 15th century. The two works demonstrate the often remarkable difference between Northern and Southern European woodcuts. The light and airy typeface of the “Hypnerotomachia” strikes a perfect balance with the elegant and enigmatic woodcuts that visualize the journey of young Poliphilo through a bizarre, dream-like landscape. The harmony between text and image can be credited most directly to type designer Francesco Griffo of Bologna, who created the crisp Roman-inspired type that paired seamlessly with the thin, delicate lines of 171 woodcuts. Despite the enduring fame of Manutius’ illustrated masterpiece, the identity of both the author and illustrator of the “Hypnerotomachia” is still a subject of intense debate. The list of leading suspects is august. Venetian Dominican priest and poet Francesco Colonna has been widely credited with writing the lyrical (and somewhat impenetrable) prose, while the illustrations have often been ascribed to famed Italian artists Andrea Mantegna and Raphael.

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Detail from “Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.” Printed by Aldus Manutius, 1499. Author and illustrator unknown. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

The graphic differences between Northern and Southern woodcuts fused in painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer. Dürer apprenticed under German woodcut artists Michael Wolgemut and was son-in-law to Nuremburg’s powerhouse publisher Anton Koberger. At the same time, the artist was singularly captivated by the linear perspective of Italian artists such as Mantegna, Gentile Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci.

Throughout his career, Dürer created masterful graphic works that fused the natural, well-proportioned Italian style with the bold, gothic form of his native Northern Europe. For example, immediately upon his return from his first sojourn in Venice, Dürer released what would become one of his most famous woodcut series, “Apocalipsis cum figure” in 1498.

Like much of his work, Dürer’s visionary illustrations for the “Apocalypse” were a product of his Northern roots and Southern exposure. The artist used Koberger’s 1483 illustrated Bible (printed with woodcuts from Heinrich Quentell’s famous 1478 Cologne Bible) as a graphic template for his “Apocalypse” series. Perhaps influenced by his Germanic exemplar, these woodcuts assert an undeniable Northern gothic flavor.

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Albrecht Dürer. Detail from the Apocalypse [Apocalypsis] (series) c. 1496/1498 (published 1511). National Gallery of Art. Rosenwald Collection. 1980. Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

However, the series also reveals Dürer’s fascination with the major tenets of Italian Renaissance art. The flat, fixed image of Koberger’s Bible are replaced by effusive and dimensional figures whose freedom of movement demand deeper inspection and contemplation. Additionally, Dürer crowded both background and foreground with vivid detail, extending the same care and consideration to the Horsemen of the Apocalypse as those being trampled under the harbingers of war, pestilence and death.

Taken together, these divergent woodcut designs demonstrate the profound experimentation in book production during the first 50 years after Gutenberg’s invention. Nowhere was this experimentation more apparent than in the illustrated books of the late 15th century. From the spectacular graphics of early block books to the metal cuts, paste prints, and woodcuts of the same period, experimentation in early printed books is a rich, liminal and exciting moment in the history of the book.

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2020 National Book Festival: Hearing Black Voices

The “Hearing Black Voices” topic thread at the 2020 all-online National Book Festival brings nearly 30 authors to speak about some of the most pressing issues in American life, from police brutality to social injustice to soaring literature about the way we live now.

It’s the second of three threads we’ll be showcasing – the other two are “Fearless Women” and “Democracy in the 21st Century” – and like the others, it ranges from children’s books to complex non-fiction, from poetry to fantasy. The festival, running Sept. 25-27, is entirely online this year due to COVID-19, but you can plop down in front of your screens – instead of at a single stage – and spend each day watching some of the world’s biggest names in publishing. You’ll also get the chance to talk with authors via interactive chats throughout each day. At the close of the festival, the live Q&A sessions will be available if you missed any.

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Colson Whitehead. Photo: Madeline Whitehead

There are 26 presentations in “Black Voices,” headlined by Colson Whitehead, the two-time Pulitzer winner and this year’s Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction honoree. The 50-year-old native of Manhattan will be talking about how his identity – as an American, a Black man, a New Yorker – shapes his literary vision and what he chooses to write about.

Two of his heroes as a teenager, he says, were the musician David Bowie and the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. He approximated their gifts for reinventing new styles and personas from project to project and, so, shaped a unique approach to novel writing, which varies from genre to genre, from voice to voice and from era to era. “The Underground Railroad,” is a surreal slave narrative, “Zone One” is a zombie novel, “Sag Harbor” is a coming of age story and so on.

“You can definitely say something is Philip Roth-esque and you can definitely say ‘I hear Toni Morrison, that must be Toni Morrison,’ ” said Marie Arana, the Library’s literary director, naming two previous PAF winners. “But you cannot really say ‘I hear Colson Whitehead’ because there’s nothing Colson-esque about Colson. He’s the essence of reinvention every time.”

The science fiction and fantasy category is a marvel this year, with N.K. Jemisin discussing her novel “The City We Became,” Marlon James talking about his “Black Leopard, Red Wolf” and YA author Tomi Adeyemi talking about her sensational West African fantasy epics, “Children of Blood and Bone,” and “Children of Virtue and Vengeance.”

National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Jason Reynolds, always a crowd favorite, will talk about “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You,” which he wrote with Ibram X. Kendi. The latter will also be in conversation with Saeed Jones, author of “How We Fight For Our Lives,” discussing their work combating racist beliefs across American society.

Finally, James McBride and Walter Mosley, two long-time masters of the form, will be here to talk about their latest works.

McBride is a chameleon, like Whitehead. He’s a professional musician who’s worked with jazz greats, written (among others) a best-selling memoir, “The Color of Water,” and won the National Book Award for “The Good Lord Bird,” a fanciful retelling of the raid on Harpers Ferry by abolitionist John Brown. He’ll be discussing “Deacon King Kong,” his newest novel, a darkly comic take on Brooklyn in the 1960s.

Mosley, likewise, has written prolifically over the years in multiple genres. He started out with a mystery series set in Los Angeles (“Devil in a Blue Dress” was the first title) but has gone on to write science fiction, erotica, non-fiction essays and screenplays. He won a Grammy for his liner notes to a Richard Pryor collection and has half a dozen credits as a television or film producer. For his crime novels, he was recognized with the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America (also known as the Edgars), and the National Book Foundation will award him the 2020 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters later this year. He’ll be talking about his newest collection of short stories, “The Awkward Black Man.”

Finally, as a reminder, PBS stations will broadcast “The Library of Congress National Book Festival: Celebrating American Ingenuity,” a two-hour program featuring some of the biggest names at the festival, launching on Sunday, Sept. 27, 6-8 p.m. ET/PT (check local listings) and continuing through the fall. It will be hosted by Hoda Kotb of NBC News’ “TODAY” show and the daughter of a long-time Library employee. The program will also be available for on-demand streaming online and through the PBS app.

Follow the festival on Twitter @libraryofcongress with hashtag #NatBookFest, and subscribe to the National Book Festival blog at loc.gov/bookfest.

The Taft Papers and a Titanic Tragedy

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The Titanic, 1912. Photo: Acme Newspictures, Inc. Prints and Photographs Division.

This is a guest post by Margaret McAleer, a historian in the Manuscript Division.

Major Archie Butt, a friend and aide to two presidents, stood on the deck of the sinking RMS Titanic in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912. He and Frank Millet, his close friend and perhaps more, would not survive the next few hours, although exactly how they died has been a source of Titanic conjecture for more than a century.

The story of Butt’s death is one of the most touching moments in the Library’s newly digitized William H. Taft Papers. Taft, a Republican and native of Ohio, was born on this day in 1857. He came of age in the era of American inventions that changed the world — the telegraph, electricity, lights, recordings, film, automobiles, planes and, of course, massive steam-powered ships. His is the largest of the Manuscript Division’s 23 presidential collections, comprising approximately 676,000 documents covering his personal life and public career, including his term as U.S. president, 1909-1913, and his tenure as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1921-1930. As with many of the Library’s presidential collections, the Taft Papers reveal with touching intimacy the humanity of the president, his family and staff.

Few moments are more moving than his devastation at the death of Butt, a man he regarded as a “younger brother.” Taft wept so openly at one of his memorial services that he had to be led from the podium.

“Never did I know how much he was to me until he was dead,” Taft eulogized.

Beginning in the early 1890s, Archibald Willingham Butt succeeded in making Washington, D.C., his own. The affable Georgia native was well-liked in the city from the moment he arrived as a newspaper correspondent. In 1898, Butt signed up with the military when war broke out with Spain. His military uniforms became his signature look, as he was quite the dandy: “A flash of bewild’ring dazzle,” the poet William J. Lampton wrote.

Butt became President Theodore Roosevelt’s friend and military aide in 1908, taking to the White House whirl with “boyish delight,” according to a former aide.

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Archie Butt, at left, and President Taft, right, reviewing a parade. Photo: Bain News Service. Prints and Photographs Division.

In 1909, Taft asked Butt to stay on when he succeeded Roosevelt as president. He had known Butt since he was governor general of the Philippines and Butt was stationed there. The transition was easy, as Roosevelt and Taft were political allies and friends.

Butt purchased a large house in Foggy Bottom, sharing the place with Francis Davis Millet, an esteemed artist who was at least 17 years his senior. Millet also served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. The pair, with another housemate, often entertained, hosting parties that included Taft, Roosevelt and other members of Washington’s elite.

Historians debate the nature of their relationship. Butt was a lifelong bachelor. Millet frequently lived apart from his wife and family as he pursued far-flung commissions. He was known to have same-sex relationships. Their friendship deepened when Millet offered to paint Butt’s portrait in his Georgetown studio, a portrait Butt described as an incredible act of generosity. According to a mutual friend, it was “a labour of love.” Yet another friend commented, after their deaths, that they had “shared a sympathy of mind which is most unusual.”

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Archie Butt in 1909. Photo: Bain News Service. Prints and Photographs Division.

Still, Washington can destroy even those who love it.

The happy Roosevelt-Taft orbit in which Butt flourished became toxic by 1912. The former and current presidents turned against one other in a heated contest for the Republican nomination; Taft felt betrayed and doomed.

Butt was wrecked by this bitter rivalry between two men he adored. Travel and stress caused him to drop nearly 20 pounds. “If I am to go through this frightful summer,” Butt wrote to his sister-in-law, Clara, two days after Roosevelt announced his intention to run, “I must have a rest now.”

Millet was concerned about Butt and insisted that he accompany him to Italy while he attended to business at the American Academy in Rome and then travel elsewhere on the continent for a few weeks. Taft urged him to go, too, and Butt sailed for Europe with Millet on March 1. Once at sea, he wrote to Taft’s secretary, asking him to book return travel for him on the maiden voyage of the most elite liner ever built: “I want to come back by the Titanic.”

Those who saw him in Europe during the next six weeks reported mostly that he was downcast and apprehensive. “He came to us in a depressed and sad state of mind,” reported relatives in England. Marian Longstreth Thayer, the socialite and fellow Titanic passenger, observed that he “did not know how he was going to stand the rushing life he was returning to.”

Butt’s mood reportedly lifted as he left London to meet the Titanic in Southampton. Millet joined the ship in Cherbourg, and they settled into their first-class accommodations.

Disaster struck four days later at 11:40 p.m., Sunday, April 14. Butt and Millett were playing cards with several others when the ship struck the iceberg.

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Butt’s death was deeply felt in Washington, as evidenced by coverage in The Washington Times on April 19, 1912.

Later, survivors told many different stories of Butt’s final hours.

Some said he coolly played cards until nearly the end. Thayer wrote Taft that he rushed unseeing past her on the way to his stateroom. Mostly there was the press’s heroic take that Butt took charge, ushering women and children into lifeboats and threatening to kill any man who tried to take their place. It’s never been clear which, if any or all, are true. One heartbreaking anecdote — which had him helping Marie G. Young into the last spot in the last lifeboat, then gallantly tipping his hat as they were lowered away — was debunked by Young in a letter to Taft, saying she did not see him at all that night. Millet, it was reported, was last seen helping women into lifeboats.

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Excerpt from Taft’s official diary of April 15, 1912.

Meanwhile, in Washington, President Taft waited late into the night on April 15 for updates on the disaster and then into the next day. A telegram at 4:20 p.m. on April 16 said Millet was saved, but there was no word on Butt.

Within days, the bitter truth emerged. Millet’s body was recovered, floating among the wreckage. He was 63. The body of Butt, 46, was never found. Newspapers devoted pages of coverage to Butt’s passing.

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“Oh, Mr. Taft, is there any chance of seeing either my Husband of him [Butt]  here again …” distraught letter from Marian Longstreth Thayer, who dined with Butt on Titanic’s final night. Manuscript Division.

To another, he confessed to seeing Butt in “every place I walk, every man I meet, every woman I meet. . . . The sweet flavor of his presence is with me always.” On May 5, while speaking at Butt’s memorial service in D.C., Taft broke down and could not continue.
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Butt-Millet memorial. Photo: Jacob Dinkelaker, National Park Service

He soon supported the construction of a memorial fountain to Butt and Millet — the only two federal officials lost in the disaster — in President’s Park on the White House Ellipse. Sculpted by the famed Daniel Chester French, it depicts an allegorical male figure (Butt) who holds a shield and sword as symbols of military valor. A female figure (Millet) holds a brush and palette evoking the arts.

Taft’s instincts about his reelection chances were accurate.

In the general election in November, he and Roosevelt split votes, allowing the Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, to claim an overwhelming victory of 435 Electoral College votes. Roosevelt, by then running as a Progressive, had 88 and Taft, the Republican incumbent, won just 8.

Taft was not finished in public life. He would go on to become one of the nation’s most consequential U.S. Supreme Court chief justices. Still, there is little doubt that the Titanic, and the loss of Archie Butt, never truly left his mind.

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The 2020 National Book Festival: Fearless Women

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It’s not every poet who blows a mean sax, but U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo does. She’ll be at the virtual 2020 National Book Festival. We’re hoping she’ll bring the sax. Photo: Shawn Miller.

The 2020 National Book Festival will feature three major threads – “Fearless Women,” “Hearing Black Voices” and “Democracy in the 21st Century” – that will anchor the Library’s 20th festival and its first virtual one. The festival’s theme is “Celebrating American Ingenuity” and, as always, the ideas, inspiration and conversations will flow from an array of some of the nation’s biggest names in publishing.

The Sept. 25-27 festival is all online this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, marking yet another venue for an event that’s been held on the Library’s grounds, the National Mall and the D.C. Convention Center. The all-digital format will mean that you’ll be navigating events on your screen instead of weaving from one conference room to another – or, as many fans like to do, plunk down in one room and devote the day to a single stage of speakers.

But this year’s major themes, the “Timely Topic Threads,” enable viewers to weave from stage to stage, all while following the overarching themes of women’s history, Black perspectives and the changing nature of democracy. Navigating each thread, you’ll be able to follow the topic from fiction to non-fiction to poetry, for example, and through reading levels from children to adult.

“Instead of a traditional book festival setting, where you limit yourself to a genre meant for a certain age group, we wanted to show that you can go from the history/biography stage to the fiction stage to children’s books, all while following themes that reveal what we’re thinking right now,” said Marie Arana, the Library’s literary director.

At the close of the festival, there will be live interactive chats with authors to discuss the insights gleaned from these threads and their very diverse voices.

“These are subjects that are on peoples’ minds right now, no question about it, from the women’s suffrage centennial, to governments the world over re-evaluating where democracies stand, to the very compelling Black voices that are at the forefront of contemporary consciousness,” Arana said. “I’m seeing publishing being transformed by Black women being put in powerful positions. It’s quite a remarkable and wonderful transformation.”

For now, let’s talk about the first thread, “Fearless Women.” (We’ll feature the others in future posts.) This features 23 authors on 19 programs, all sponsored by the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission.

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Madeleine Albright. Photo courtesy of author.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will talk about her new memoir, “Hell and Other Destinations,” a recounting of how she’s thrown herself into several different careers since she left office in 2001. She was asked at the time how she wanted to be remembered; she had, after all, been born in Prague, fled the Nazi occupation as a child, eventually settled in the United States and became the nation’s first female top diplomat. When she left the government, she was 63.

“I don’t want to be remembered,” Albright replied. “I’m still here.”

Since then, she’s written numerous books (seven of them New York Times’ bestsellers), lectured, traveled, started a business, played with her grandchildren and stayed active in political circles. She was awarded the presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

Joy Harjo, the U.S. Poet Laureate and the first Native American to hold that post, will discuss her latest book of poetry, “American Sunrise.” The poems tell the story of the forced removal of Harjo’s ancestors, the Mvskoke people (also called the Muscogee or Creek), from east of the Mississippi to present-day Oklahoma, then called Indian territory. Harjo returns to those lands, fashioning poems from both her personal and tribal histories.

Melinda Gates will talk about “The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World,” her 2019 book about her work developing projects for women and girls around the world. The former Microsoft executive is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropy. She’s also the founder of Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company that works to drive social progress for women and their families in the U.S. and around the world.

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Haben Girma. Photo: Sean Fenn.

And there’s the remarkable memoir “Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law,” the story of the first person with her disabilities to graduate from that prestigious institution. Haben Girma, the 32-year-old author and disability advocate, is often called a modern-day Helen Keller for her spirited innovations and achievements, and she’ll be talking about them all.

Finally, as a reminder, PBS stations will broadcast “The Library of Congress National Book Festival: Celebrating American Ingenuity,” a two-hour program featuring some of the biggest names at the festival, launching on Sunday, Sept. 27, 6-8 p.m. ET/PT (check local listings) and continuing through the fall. The television special will be hosted by Hoda Kotb of NBC News’ “TODAY” show and the daughter of a long-time Library employee. The program will also be available for on-demand streaming online and through the PBS app.

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Navigating the Virtual Book Festival

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The 2020 National Book Festival was always going to be special — it’s the 20th year of the much-loved annual celebration of books and reading, after all. But exactly how unique it would be, no one could have foreseen.

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic makes it impossible to hold the festival in its usual venue, the Washington, D.C., convention center, where 200,000-plus book lovers typically come together. It’s vast, but there is no way a crowd of that size could social distance, even in that space. So, the festival will be entirely virtual this year.

[image error]It will take place Sept. 25–27 and culminate in a national television broadcast on PBS stations.

No doubt, many regular festivalgoers may worry they will miss meeting favorite authors in person or navigating the happy chaos of the convention center. Yet, the virtual version of the festival — titled “Celebrating American Ingenuity” — offers unique advantages.

For one, attendees can see every author they wish to — no hard choices have to be made. For another, no queuing is required. For yet another, links and interactive features will make it possible to engage with Library collections throughout the event — a festival first.

In other ways, the festival experience will approximate what fans have come to expect. There will be book talks across multiple genres — more than 120 writers, poets and illustrators are presenting this year — and audience members will have opportunities to address questions to authors. There will be book buying through Politics and Prose, the festival’s official bookseller. And there will be virtual spaces where attendees can chat with Library staff and festival sponsors and discover an array of fun activities and resources for children and teachers.

Live engagement with the festival will occur through a special National Book Festival platform, accessible on the Library’s website at loc.gov/bookfest/.

“The platform aims to provide the best representation of the amazing content festival attendees are accustomed to,” Jarrod MacNeil of the Center for Learning, Literacy and Engagement said. He directs the Library’s Signature Programs Office, which manages the festival.

Once festivalgoers register on the platform, they can build schedules. All of the authors recorded presentations in advance that can be viewed anytime during the festival and afterward. In addition, dozens will participate in question-and-answer sessions each day of the event. Attendees might want to first add live question-and-answer sessions to their personal calendars — the festival schedule lists times for them — then fill out their calendars with prerecorded on-demand videos. Or, they can forgo a schedule entirely and just follow their interests.

The festival will launch on Sept. 25 with a daylong celebration of children’s and teen literature. The timing — a Friday — coincides with a school day, so teachers and students can listen to author talks together. On-demand videos for children’s and teen stages will be released at 9 a.m., and live sessions with some of the authors will follow — among them Gene Luen Yang, the 2016–17 national ambassador for young people’s literature, and Mike Curato, whose first graphic novel, “Flamer,” was published this month.

Other children’s and teen’s authors will appear live during the festival’s following two days, and videos for all the other festival stages will be released at 9 a.m. on Sept. 26. Live sessions will begin at 10 a.m. that day and continue through Sunday.

All on-demand videos will be made available simultaneously on the platform, the Library’s YouTube page and the National Book Festival site. So, festivalgoers will have options as to where they view prerecorded presentations.

Live interaction will occur exclusively on the platform, however. Live sessions will be recorded as they occur and posted on the platform soon afterward — anywhere from an hour to a few hours later, depending on a session’s length, to ensure quality.

Between author talks, attendees might choose to engage in favorite festival activities in a virtual version of the traditional expo floor.

“We have spaces for communicating as if you were walking the expo floor,” MacNeil said. “You can talk with sponsors. You can talk with Centers for the Book from around the U.S. You can engage with Library staff to talk about specific content areas.”

Significant Library collections materials in an area titled “Explore the Library of Congress” will link to three newsworthy threads that thematically tie together books across the festival’s stages.

“Fearless Women” marks the 100th anniversary this year of women’s suffrage by highlighting books by and about strong women for readers of all ages — from Chelsea Clinton’s new children’s book about American Olympians and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s memoir about leadership to Melinda Gates’ book about women’s empowerment and Erica Armstrong Dunbar’s account of the life and times of Harriet Tubman.
“Hearing Black Voices” showcases Black voices across genres — biography, sci-fi, poetry, memoir. The lineup of more than a dozen writers includes two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead, winner of the Library’s 2020 Prize for American Fiction, in conversation with the festival’s literary director, Marie Arana, and Jason Reynolds, the national ambassador for young people’s literature, who will talk about “Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You,” the young adult title he co-wrote with National Book Award winner Ibram X. Kendi.
A third theme, “Democracy in the 21st Century,” brings together books for all ages focusing on where democracy stands today. Children’s writer Don Tate will present the remarkable, little-known story of William Still, known as the father of the Underground Railroad. Authors Christopher Caldwell and Thomas Frank will discuss “The Road to Populism.” And three of America’s most notable political journalists — Peter Baker (New York Times), Susan Glasser (New Yorker) and George Packer (The Atlantic) — will explore how Washington works and the statesmanship necessary to navigate it.

New to the festival this year is the Family, Food and Field stage. It centers around books about the home, family life and recreation. Jesse Dougherty will present her new book, “Buzz Saw: The Improbable Story of How the Washington Nationals Won the World Series,” while Bill Buford will discuss “Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking.”

An all-time favorite festival activity — book signing — will take place in advance of the festival. Many authors are signing a commemorative 2020 National Book Festival book plate that will be included with book purchases while supplies last. Attendees can buy books through links provided with author videos that will take them to the Politics and Prose online store.

Toward the end of the live segment of the festival, at 5 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, a system-wide notification will invite attendees to view the PBS broadcast special on their local stations. At 6 p.m., interactive functionality will close down.

Unlike in past years, however, attendees can end their days with no regrets: If they missed seeing an author during the festival, all is not lost. They can view all the festival content online right away and for as long as they’d like — certainly one of the best benefits of an all-virtual festival.

The event platform will remain accessible for two months after the festival itself, and videos will be available in perpetuity through the Library’s book festival and YouTube sites.

The 2020 Library of Congress National Book Festival will celebrate its 20th birthday this year. You can get up-to-the-minute news, schedule updates and other important festival information by subscribing to this blog. The festival is made possible by the generosity of sponsors. You can support the festival, too, by making a gift now.

Library Seeks Pictures of Pandemic Experiences

[image error]This is a guest post by Helena Zinkham, chief of the Prints And Photographs Division.

The Library is collaborating with the photo-sharing site Flickr to significantly expand our documentation of American experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether you use a cell phone, a professional camera or graphic design software, we’d like to see your images of how the pandemic has affected your daily life and community.

We invite you to contribute photographic and graphic art images to the Flickr group “COVID-19 American Experiences.” Library curators will review submissions and select images to feature in Flickr galleries and to preserve in our permanent collections.

As the national library of the United States, our ‘rapid response’ collecting has already secured special projects from nationally recognized artists and photographers. Library staff members have also contributed scenes from the D.C. area.

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City Bikes in Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. May 26, 2020. Photo: Tracy Meehleib. 

Now it’s time to represent many more parts of the country and many more aspects of the pandemic. Visual images capture documentary details and creative responses that are not easily conveyed through words. Please help us create a diverse collection that can assist future generations in understanding the impacts of COVID-19. All of the photos added to the COVID-19 group will be viewable worldwide.

What should you photograph? That’s really up to you, keeping in mind that we have a family-friendly Flickr account. You might offer pictures related to masks, online celebrations or street scenes. Photos of caring for others, distance learning, new kinds of jobs and daily routines could also work. Pictures that capture grief, hope, uncertainty, joy. The choices are yours.

To participate:

If you already have a Flickr account, go to COVID-19 American Experiences and ask to join this group. Non-members can set up a free account. Then, go to the group page and click the blue “join” box.

Please contribute only images that you have created. When you add up to 5 images to this group, you are giving the Library permission to add your photograph/graphic artwork to its permanent collections and to display them on its websites.

A few additional considerations are described in the Group Rules. Images selected from this group for the Library’s permanent collection will be shared in Galleries from the Library of Congress Flickr account and ultimately you will be able to view the images selected for acquisition on the Library’s website.

The Library is also documenting the pandemic by acquiring books, magazines, newspapers, harvesting websites and other material. We’re collecting the visual documentation of the pandemic as it unfolds. We’ll continue to gather images in coming years once there’s been time for reflection.

Looking forward to seeing your pictures!

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Jason Reynolds: The 2020 National Book Festival

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This is the September newsletter by Jason Reynolds, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

I have an announcement to make: The 20th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival is coming up!  I repeat, the 20th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival is coming up!

I have another announcement to make: This may very well be the first year the National Book Festival is, in fact, national. At least, in the true sense of the word. And by true sense, I mean the Jason Reynolds definition of it. Let me explain.

The National Book Festival, for as long as I can remember, has been an extraordinary event. Every year there were tons of  authors scattered across the National Mall, with the Washington Monument temporarily and inadvertently becoming a giant pencil for the celebratory weekend. Then it moved—the festival, not the monument—from the unshaded lawn into the air-conditioned convention center, where it became a glorious labyrinth of readers and writers. Elevators and corridors slammed with like-minded people talking and laughing, shoulders and elbows bumping, tote bags swinging, shuffling from one session to the next. But extraordinary, celebratory and glorious aren’t the only adjectives that could be used to describe this festival. Informative, inspiring, organized, communal, life-changing are a few others, and I could go on. However, there’s one word I wouldn’t use to describe it, and that’s national.

National is one of those weird terms often deployed loosely to color something with importance. Like, if you call something national it suddenly means it should be acknowledged or paid attention to. It impresses people at parties and, take it from me, even gets people to overlook your hair, tattoos and dirty sneakers. For instance, the position I hold at the moment—the one affording me the opportunity to write this letter—the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, doesn’t sound nearly as big without that first word, right? National gives it some sauce, lifts it up a bit. But the truth about the word national is that beyond the weight it adds to any title, it has the potential (I’d even go as far as to say the responsibility) to serve as two things. The first is to present and spotlight something as representative of the nation, which basically means I’m currently the country’s mascot as it pertains to young people’s literature (and I’m honored, but where’s my furry book costume?!). And the second thing it does is imply that whatever it’s attached to is accessible to the nation.

representative of, plus 2. accessible to, equals national.

(Again, this is from the Jason Reynolds Dictionary.)

What does this mean?

Well, in my case, one has to do with my voice, and the other has to do with yours. And to really feel like I’m checking the national box, I’m working to find some kind of middle ground where both are true, where I’m representing America’s kid lit world and am also accessible to the young people who read it and need it. But honestly, due to COVID-19 and the quarantine, carrying out my plans has become complicated (but not impossible!)

That being said, when it comes to the National Book Festival, in its 20th year, I actually think the state of our country has made this important festival, which, to its credit, has been representative of the nation’s writers, now far more accessible to the nation’s readers. You know why? Because for the first time, book fans don’t have to travel to Washington, D.C., to take part in it, or be forced to settle for next-day highlights. Everyone with Wi-Fi can bear witness to the word. Anyone with a signal can see the country’s stellar storytellers at the touch of a button. From Muskogee to Memphis, from Winslow to Wilmington, Lindsborg to Lancaster, America’s book people, from the prairie to the projects, can gather around their screens as if they were hearths and finally be engulfed in the warmth of this national celebration, which could actually make it…a NATIONAL celebration.

There’s such beauty in that. Such connection. Such promise. And I, for one, in the midst of this novel time, will take this moment as a silver lining, a hopeful lanyard on which I’ll attach my medal and hang it proudly around my neck.

So be sure to log on to this legendary, national festival, and let’s collectively celebrate stories. Because, after all, to celebrate stories is to celebrate us.

I repeat, to celebrate stories is to celebrate us.

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“America Works” — The Library’s New Podcast!

This is a guest post by Stephen Winick in the American Folklife Center.

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Jeff Hafler, a hairdresser from Wonder Valley, California, appears in the series “America Works.”  He was interviewed and photographed by ethnographer Candacy Taylor. AFC Occupational Folklife Project collection.

Listen and Subscribe to “America Works” at this link!

 

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Sarah Fortin at work in the net loft of Reidar’s Trawl & Scallop Gear & Marine Supply, New Bedford, Massachusetts. Photo: Phillip Mello.  AFC Occupational Folklife Project collection.

The American Folklife Center is bringing the voices of workers throughout the country to listeners with “America Works,” a new podcast series that celebrates the diversity and tenacity of the American workforce during a time of economic crisis and transition.

Each 10-minute episode of “America Works” introduces listeners to a worker whose first-person narrative adds to the wealth of our shared national experience. The first four episodes are now available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and at loc.gov/podcasts. A new episode will be released weekly and featured on the Library’s social media channels beginning Thursday, Sept. 10.

” ‘America Works’ is a testament to the wisdom, wit, knowledge and dedication of today’s working Americans,” said Nancy Groce, host of “America Works” and senior folklife specialist at AFC. “It is inspirational to hear these stories and realize how many committed and optimistic fellow citizens are out there working to improve their communities, support their families and build a better future for us all.”

Each “America Works” episode is based on an interview from the AFC’s ongoing Occupational Folklife Project, a multi-year initiative to document the culture of contemporary American workers during an era of economic and social transition. Over the past 10 years, fieldworkers have compiled almost 1,000 interviews from across the country, documenting the experiences of more than 100 professions. More than 400 of these full-length interviews have been made available online.

Listen and Subscribe to “America Works” at this link.

Given the serious economic challenges everyday Americans are faced with during the COVID-19 pandemic, the stories told in “America Works” are a timely reminder of the spirit of the American workforce. The insights of those featured will be added to the historical record of the nation’s library.

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Lorraine Davis, a homeless shelter worker, working with the women at a family social night where women and girls sew and bead regalia for powwow and the men and boys make drums and drumsticks. Photo: Catherine ten Broeke. AFC Occupational Folklife Project collection.

The first season of “America Works” reflects the occupational and regional diversity that characterize the entirety of the Occupational Folklife Project’s collection. Listeners can dive into the stories of workers who provide some of the most essential services to our society.

Some of the season’s featured workers include Joyce Vegar of Coos County, Oregon, a home healthcare worker who explains the patience and compassion required to provide a certain level of care for another. Chicago ironworker Sharon Sisson shares an unforgettable tale of how she won the respect of a chauvinistic male co-worker who was harassing her on a job site. Jeff Hafler of Wonder Valley, California, describes what he loves about his work as a hairstylist and beauty shop owner, why customers confide in their stylists and the pride he takes in working in the service industry.

“Having a vocation,” Hafler said, “is often a better guarantee of employment than a college degree.”

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Rick Atkinson: The Lasting Impact of World War II on the U.S.

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Rick Atkinson. Photo: Elliot O’Donovan.

This is a guest post by Rick Atkinson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “An Army at Dawn” and many others. He wrote this piece for the July/August issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, which is devoted to World War II. 

World War II, which ended 75 years ago this summer, was simultaneously the greatest self-inflicted catastrophe in human history and the most significant social cataclysm of the 20th century, with consequences that continue to unspool generations later. Novelist John Updike described the war as “a vast imagining of a primal time, when good and evil contended for the planet, a tale of Troy, whose angles are infinite and whose central figures never fail to amaze us with their size, their theatricality, their sweep.”

The conflict lasted 2,193 days, and by the time it ended with Japan’s formal surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, an estimated 60 million people were dead. That’s an average of 27,600 dead every day for six years, a death every three seconds.

The war eventually demolished several empires — including the German, Japanese, British and French — but enhanced others, notably the American and Soviet. The United States emerged from World War II with extraordinary advantages that ensured prosperity for decades: an intact, thriving industrial base; a population relatively unscarred by war; cheap energy; two-thirds of the world’s gold supply; great optimism. As the major power in Western Europe, the Mediterranean and the Pacific, possessing both atomic weapons and a Navy and an Air Force of unequaled might, the U.S. was ready to exploit what historian H.P. Willmott described as “the end of the period of European supremacy in the world that had existed for four centuries.”

World War II was a potent catalyst for social change across the republic. New technologies — jet engines, computers, ballistic missiles, penicillin, the mass production of houses, ships and aircraft — spurred vibrant new industries, which in turn encouraged the migration of Black workers from South to North and of all peoples to the emerging West. The GI Bill put millions of soldiers into college classrooms, spurring unprecedented social mobility.

Our national views on racial and gender equality were very much shaped by the war: Some 19 million American women worked outside the home during the conflict to help build the arsenal of democracy. Hundreds of thousands of blacks served honorably and sometimes heroically in uniform, notwithstanding a deeply segregated military. Many African Americans waged what they called a “Double V” campaign — victory over fascism abroad and racism at home.

The war cost the United States almost $300 billion, roughly $4 trillion in today’s currency. It also cost us 400,000 dead, including some 291,000 killed in action. Each death was as unique as a fingerprint or a snowflake.

Patricia O’Malley was a year old when her father, Maj. Richard James O’Malley, a battalion commander in the 12th Infantry Regiment, was killed by a sniper in Normandy in 1944. After seeing his headstone for the first time in the cemetery above Omaha Beach, she wrote: “I cried for the joy of being there and the sadness of my father’s death. I cried for all the times I needed a father and never had one. I cried for all the words I had wanted to say and wanted to hear, but had not. I cried and cried.”

Australian war correspondent Osmar White, who bore witness both in the Pacific and in Europe, later wrote: “The living have the cause of the dead in trust.” Seventy-five years on, we the living, almost 330 million strong in America today, indeed have their cause in trust.

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Mystery Photos Solved, Bonus Edition!

Cary O’Dell at the Library’s National Recording Registry runs our ever-popular Mystery Photo Contest. He most recently wrote about Florence McFadden. He’s back with a batch of solved mysteries.

Readers! We have a bonanza of solved Mystery Photo Contest entries!

You’ll remember that, with reader help, we recently identified actresses Wendy Phillips and Florence McFadden from our cache of unidentified photos. That stack, originally at more than 800, is now down to under 50.  I’ll be back with more of those puzzlers soon. But for now, I’m happy to report that some additional detective work—some might call it stalking— has revealed a few other identities.

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The mystery photo of actor Bill Cable.

We long ago concluded that the handsome man at left was likely model and actor Bill Cable, but couldn’t confirm it. Along with being a 1970s model, Cable had several mall film roles, including “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure,” but he’s perhaps best remembered for being the man stabbed to death by (spoiler!) Sharon Stone in the opening scene of “Basic Instinct.” He was paralyzed in a 1996 motorcycle accident and died of complications two years later.

Since I couldn’t match our photo to any published picture, the only way to confirm the identity was to touch base with his friends and family.

This was  complicated as Cable left behind no widow or children. But, according to his obituary, he did leave behind a sister, a niece, a fiancé and a life-long friend, Michael Bongiorno. My attempts to locate Cable’s family and fiancé never panned out, but I did track down Bongiorno. When I e-mailed him the image, he took one look and said, “Yeah, that’s Bill.”

One down!

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Joan Vadeboncouer, a longtime entertainment reporter and film reviewer for the Syracuse Post-Standard.

Not everyone is in the film business, of course. One picture that had us stumped was the woman at right. She’s pictured on a snowy slope, eyes hidden by sunglasses against the glare. Most of our mystery photos are glamour shots, but this one is much more informal. It’s more like a vacation snapshot. As it happened, several other pictures I was investigating at the time turned out to be from Syracuse, N.Y., and, on a whim, I wondered if this one was, too.

So I posted it on a couple of Syracuse history Facebook groups. Someone suggested that it looked like a photo of a young Joan Vadeboncouer, a longtime entertainment reporter and film reviewer for the Syracuse Post-Standard. Vadeboncouer died in 2001 at the age of 78, with no immediate family. But when I touched base with the obit writer, he said he had worked with her. He looked at the photograph and  confirmed it was her. Solved!

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The mysterious….Charles Brabin.

Another recent day on Facebook, my friend Steve Rydewski began posting a series of sepia-toned portraits of silent film directors. It dawned on me that perhaps I had been, in trying to ID some of my mysteries, looking on the wrong side of the camera. Perhaps the names that went with these faces weren’t actors but directors, writers or producers.

Inspired, I sent Steve the mystery picture at left. “Do you recognize this guy?” I asked. Steve, quickly: “I think it’s Charles Brabin.”

Brabin was a British-born silent film director, actor and screenwriter who began his career with Edison around 1906. Later, in Hollywood, he directed more than 100 silent or sound pictures (many of them shorts). But today, he is best known for who he married: Theda Bara, the great silent-screen vamp who starred in “Salome,” “Cleopatra” and dozens of others. She and Brabin married in 1921, bought a 900-acre estate in Nova Scotia and, by the mid-1930s, both had retired from the film business. They lived the rest of their lives in comfort on both the East and West Coasts. Bara died in 1955; Brabin died two years later.

The couple had no children, which made verification of the picture difficult. So I reached out to Bara’s biographer, Eve Golden, whose 1998 book, “Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara,” is the definitive work on the mysterious silent star. Golden, too, was convinced that the man in the photo was Brabin. To make sure, she passed it onto Brabin’s grandniece in England who, citing Brabin’s prominent nose among other physical aspects, said it was him for sure.

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The British actor Michael Knowles.

Another one down! I was elated.

Speaking of the U.K, it occurred to me that perhaps one of the reasons I never had any luck identifying some of these head shots was that I had not expanded my search beyond the U.S.

Via Facebook, I joined several U.K.-based fan sites devoted to stars and starlets and began posting away. Two long-unknown photos got quick responses. One suggestion for the photo at right was the English actor Michael Knowles, who has been in everything from “Dad’s Army” to “Vampire’s Kiss.” When I reached out to the agent of the still-working Knowles (he’s 83), she said, “Yes, it’s him. Well spotted!”

It was from some of these same sites that I learned the identity of another photo. The actor Lex van Delden was born in the Netherlands and did most of his work in Europe, with only a few forays into the U.S. market in films such as “A Bridge Too Far.”

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Lex van Delden.

Van Delden died in 2010 in Amsterdam. He was 63 and also left behind no spouse or children. But his father, also named Lex van Delden, was a hero of the Dutch resistance in World War II, an influential composer of classical music and is today the subject of several websites. I reached out to one of them. It is maintained by a long-time student of the senior van Delden, who also happened to have known the junior van Delden for his entire life.  When shown the photo, the friend had no doubts: “That’s him.”

Our final mystery photo was another that didn’t appear to be a celebrity glamour shot.  It was of a woman at work, holding two cans of paint in front of what appeared to be a mural on a brick wall. A production still from a film set under construction, perhaps?

As it turns out, no. In my stash of pictures, I had one that was taken from high in a building, overlooking a city at night. I posted it on one of my social media pages and asked for help identifying it. A reader said they spotted a “Rt. 322” road sign.  That highway goes through Pennsylvania. I tried various cities before I got it narrowed down to Harrisburg. Then, when I was researching Harrisburg, I saw that they had an annual mural festival and a light bulb went on over my head so bright you could see it from space!

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The mystery photo of artist Toni Truesdale.

So I’m happy to introduce you to artist Toni Truesdale. She’s had a successful career as an artist and teacher, with dozens of one-woman shows and her murals hanging in nearly four dozen schools, universities and museums.  Her art, she says on her website, celebrates “women and the natural environment representing the diversity of world … I use beauty to evoke the female side of both history and mythology.”

She works from a studio in Maine these days. When I sent her the image at right, she recognized it right away as a three-story mural she was painting on the side of hotel — “single-handed I must add” — in Harrisburg in either 1974 or 1975.

So! A whopping half dozen mysteries solved.

I still have about 45 unknown photos, though. Some probably will never be solved; I think some of these show biz careers began and ended with the photo. Still, someone must know something, someone must know this face or that face. And, trust me, I plan to find out, so join me when we post the next batch of mystery photos next month.

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