Library of Congress's Blog, page 6

World War I: Two Soldiers’ Stories

—This is a guest post by Nathan Cross, an archivist in the Veterans History Project.

As far as we know, Arthur Singleton and Jessie Lockett did not know each other when they arrived in France with the American Expeditionary Forces in autumn 1918.

Their fates intertwined years later, when their families united through the marriage of Lockett’s son to Singleton’s daughter — and again in 2024, when their mutual granddaughter donated their manuscript collections to the Veterans History Project.

The Singleton and Lockett collections are the Veterans History Project’s first from African American veterans of World War I, and their letters, journals and photographs offer glimpses into the adversity and resilience that characterize the African American experience of that war.

As his journal shows, Singleton, a sergeant in Company E of the 803rd Pioneer Infantry Regiment, was a leader in both military matters and his unit’s social and intellectual life. He joined a literary society, sang in theatrical performances and co-founded a soldiers’ fraternal organization called the Seven Brothers Club. The journal also reveals racist treatment he and his comrades faced: A canteen run by a charitable organization denied them service, and taunts greeted them at another unit’s theatrical performance. His company entered the front lines at 5 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918, and manned the trenches until the war-ending armistice went into effect at 11 a.m.

Jessie Lockett wrote this letter to his wife, Amanda, on April 29, 1919. Veterans History Project.

Lockett served as a stevedore, undoubtedly hazardous and difficult duty. His letters home, however, make clear that his separation from spouse Amanda Lockett was the most difficult aspect of his deployment. The couple ran a small farm in Georgia, and their letters hint at the financial difficulties caused by Jessie’s time away. But it’s the emotional toll that comes through most vividly: Jessie repeatedly reminds Amanda how much he misses her and cherishes her “sweet letters.”

The Lockett and Singleton collections serve as two more examples of how treasured family papers and photographs provide us all with a more personal understanding of the American military experience.

Subscribe  to the blog— it’s free!

Ryan White and Elton John: One Stunning Photo

—This is a guest post by Adam M. Silvia, a curator in the Prints and Photographs Division.

As a photojournalist, Taro Yamasaki photographed at-risk children in the United States and around the world — Nicaragua, Bosnia, Rwanda, the Middle East.

The Prints and Photographs Division recently acquired three collections that document such work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer: “Children in Peril,” “Escaping Human Trafficking” and “Ryan White and the Battle Against AIDS” — the last a chronicle of the American teenager who became an international symbol of the fight against the disease.

People magazine had hired Yamasaki and reporter Bill Shaw to contribute to a special feature on living with AIDS, along with other teams in major cities across the U.S. The pair arrived at White’s home in Cicero, Indiana, in summer 1987 to begin work.

“I hadn’t met or photographed anyone with AIDS, though I was reading everything I could find about it,” Yamasaki recalled in an interview with the Library’s Picture This blog about his influential photographs of White.

White, then 15 years old, was born with hemophilia and contracted AIDS from a tainted blood transfusion. The local school refused to readmit White to classes after other parents objected, incorrectly believing the disease might spread to other students.

Yamasaki describes meeting White for the first time, photographing his struggle and witnessing his miraculous transformation into an ambassador of sorts, inspiring empathy for the victims of AIDS. Upon hearing his story, pop superstar (and future Gershwin Prize winner) Elton John befriended White and his family. White died in 1990, at age 18. Just after he passed, family and friends gathered in a circle for prayer.

“They held hands, and (White’s mother) Jeanne said, ‘You can photograph this or you can join the circle, Taro,’” Yamasaki said. “I put my camera down and joined the circle, knowing full well that my editors would have wanted that picture.”

At the funeral, Yamasaki took one of his greatest photographs, capturing the power of White’s story. With permission, Yamasaki hid behind the piano as John performed “Skyline Pigeon.”

“In the middle of the song, I stood up,” he remembered, “hoping my hands weren’t shaking too much to get a sharp picture.” It was the perfect photograph.

Subscribe  to the blog— it’s free!

The Library Turns 225!

—This is a guest post by April Slayton, a former director of communications at the Library.

How it started: When Congress established the Library of Congress in 1800, it provided $5,000 and purchased a collection of 152 works in 740 volumes and three maps for the use of its members. A joint committee selected the books and organized the volumes themselves when they arrived from London.

How it’s going: 225 years later, the Library has amassed what is widely considered the greatest collection of knowledge ever assembled. And, while Congress remains the Library’s first audience, the Library also reaches millions of people around the world, who now have access to its unparalleled resources.

Along the way, the Library endured two catastrophic fires in its early days that decimated its collections; assumed responsibility for all U.S. copyright administration; acquired vast collections that are the envy of the world; provided evermore sophisticated service to Congress; established itself as a leader in the field of librarianship; and grew its reach in the digital age.

Still, in the beginning, the Library was a modest institution. It wasn’t until 1802 that it had any staff of its own, and then only on a part-time basis. President Thomas Jefferson appointed John James Beckley, who also served as the clerk of the House of Representatives, as the first Librarian of Congress. He was assisted by Josias Wilson King, the engrossing clerk of the House in the effort to “label, arrange and take charge of the (Library’s) books.”

By 1812, that collection had grown to about 3,000 volumes, but all were lost in the fire set by the British at the U.S. Capitol in August 1814. It was after this tragedy that the Library’s acquired its new foundation — the library of Jefferson, by that time a former president. In 1815, Jefferson sold his 6,487-volume collection to the U.S. government for $23,950 to help the Library begin again. As the Library took ownership of Jefferson’s collection, it also assumed his vision that there was “no subject to which a Member of Congress might not have occasion to refer.”

A second fire in the U.S. Capitol on Christmas Eve in 1851 destroyed around 35,000 volumes in the Library, including about two-thirds of Jefferson’s library. As the Library reckoned with this tragedy, Congress authorized a fireproof iron room on the Capitol’s west front to house the Library.

A print showing a busy day in the Congressional Library in the Capitol Building. Illustration by drawing by W. Bengough in Harper’s Weekly, Feb. 27, 1897. Prints and Photographs Division. 

In the years that followed, the centralization of copyright administration at the Library in 1870 led to a flood of new content for the Library’s collections, which soon outstripped its available space in the Capitol. This influx of material, coupled with the haunting experience of two destructive fires, propelled efforts to establish a stand-alone building to house the Library.

And what a building it was. The monumental new “book palace” known today as the Thomas Jefferson Building opened to the public in 1897. It boasted 104 miles of shelves beyond the dazzling public spaces that captivated visitors from the moment it opened.

In 1897 on the occasion of its grand opening, the Washington Post reported, “In construction, in accommodations, in suitability to intended uses, and in artistic luxury of decoration, there is no building that will compare with it in this country and very few in any other country.”

The original keys to the Jefferson Building. Photo: Shawn Miller.

Additional buildings followed: the John Adams Building in 1939, the James Madison Building in 1980 and the  Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation in 2007. Each of these spaces provided more capacity for the burgeoning collections and offered more accommodations for staff and library patrons.

Alongside the growth in its physical presence, the breadth of the Library’s work grew as well.

The Library acquired important works and collections through gifts from other countries and civic-minded donors. Philanthropic donations have enhanced the Library’s collections for much of its history, including Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge’s 1925 gift and endowment that funded the construction of the Coolidge Auditorium in the Jefferson Building and established the Library as a premier destination for the study, composition and enjoyment of music.

In 2007, David Packard’s record-breaking gift of the $155 million Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation provided state-of-the-art facilities for the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of moving images and sound recordings and boosted the Library’s status as a global leader in film and sound preservation and accessibility.

Today, the Kislak Family Foundation and the Library’s Madison Council, led by philanthropist and co-executive chairman of the Carlyle Group David M. Rubenstein, have provided leading gifts that are creating exciting new galleries, experiences and learning spaces for Library visitors.

In the 1960s, the Library established overseas offices to expand its authoritative international collections that began in the Library’s early days with gifts and purchases of works from foreign nations and documents acquired through international exchanges.

Today, a network of six overseas offices collects and catalogs materials around the world, continuing the growth of the Library’s extensive international collections.

The Library faced challenges even in its early days to organize its growing collections. From the development of the Library of Congress Classification System in the early 1900s to the creation of Machine-Readable Cataloging that enabled computerized searches of catalog information, the Library created the systems now used around the world to organize collections.

A hallway in the Jefferson Building on a recent day. Photo: Shawn Miller.

Today, virtual visitors can access millions of items on the Library’s website in dozens of formats and hundreds of languages. Online collections offer the opportunity to explore maps and photographs; read letters, diaries and newspapers; hear personal accounts of events; listen to sound recordings and watch historic films on demand, anytime and anywhere.

This mind-boggling growth — from a catalog of 740 volumes and three maps available only to lawmakers to a collection of more 181 million items available to the world — could not have happened without the dedicated people who have worked for the Library over its 225-year history.

During that time, the Library has developed a cadre of specialists and experts. They have developed the Legislative Reference Service established of 1914 into the Congressional Research Service of today. They have acquired, catalogued, organized and preserved vast collections and provided research assistance to all who ask for help. They have administered the complex laws governing copyright and supported the protection of creative works. They have produced award-winning programs and events that inspire people and bring new works of music, art and literature into the world.

In fiscal year 2023 alone, Library employees responded to more than 680,000 reference requests from Congress, other federal agencies and members of the public. They circulated more than 249,000 items used by patrons, issued more than 63,000 reader cards and offered more than 700 public programs. They responded to more than 76,000 congressional requests, published nearly 1,200 CRS products and updated more than 1,800 existing CRS products.

In the next 225 years, the Library will certainly see prodigious growth in its already vast collections, but even as technology and other conditions change the world, the Library’s place as a global leader in knowledge preservation and access will endure, propelled by the talented public servants who dedicate their talents and efforts to this grand institution.

Subscribe  to the blog— it’s free!

Josephine Baker at the Stork Club: A Night Gone Wrong

The stormy affair of Josephine Baker at New York’s splashy Stork Club in the fall of 1951 was a brief-but-infamous incident and now a fascinating part of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund collection at the Library.

Baker’s angry showdown over an apparent race-based refusal of service at New York’s most exclusive club fills hundreds of pages of documents that show how the tempestuous star whipped up a high-profile protest in an era before segregation was nationally outlawed — only to see it go terribly wrong.

“She had it in her hands, everything she wanted,” Jean-Claude Baker wrote of his legal guardian/mother his 1993 biography, “Josephine: The Hungry Heart,” referring to her career decline that accelerated with the Stork Club incident. As her manager in the last decade of her life, he knew this terrain well. “And she blew it.”

You can see the LDEF’s files on Baker now from any computer anywhere. About 80 percent of the LDEF’s collection recently has been digitized, about 80,000 items from 1915 to 1968. This puts the Baker material alongside the civil rights organization’s nation-changing work in matters such as Brown v. Board of Education, the 1943 Detroit riot, the Emmett Till trial and many more cases of segregation and voting rights.

“The Stork Club,” a 1945 Paramount Pictures film starring actress Betty Hutton, catches the club’s glamorous reputation. Image: Prints and Photographs Division.

Baker’s night at the Stork Club (which did not serve Black customers unless they were celebrities, and not always even then) was on Oct. 16, a Tuesday. She entered the club near midnight after her show at the Roxy Theatre. She was with three socially prominent friends, both Black and white.

She made sure to say hello to Walter Winchell, the nation’s most popular newspaper and radio columnist, on the way to her table. He had fawned in print and on air about Baker’s segregation-busting appearance in Miami Beach’s Copa City Club months earlier. The Stork, owned by his friend Sherman Billingsley, was his night office.

Baker was one of the most famous women in the world that night, and arguably the most famous Black woman. She had overcome childhood poverty in St. Louis to become, at 19, an overnight Parisian sensation in “La Revue nègre” and starred the next year at the Folies-Bergére. She danced wearing little more than a skirt of fake bananas and several beaded necklaces. That risqué image of her became an iconic representation of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties.

It also catapulted her to international stardom as a multilingual singer, dancer, actress and performer. A temperamental diva onstage and off, she settled in France, became a citizen and gained gravitas by serving as a secret agent in World War II, for which she was highly decorated and greatly respected.

That night at the Stork, Baker’s party, leaving Winchell at his famous Table 50, was seated six or seven tables over and served drinks. Baker ordered a meal a few minutes later — steak and crab — but it was not served. Baker’s party was ignored by waiters. An hour passed.

Baker, fuming, left the dining room and called Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP. When she returned, her food was on the table, but she refused to eat it. Angry words were exchanged; Baker’s party stormed out.

Baker was so famous in 1951 that President Harry Truman ordered an investigation of her treatment at the New York nightclub. New York Post, Oct. 24, 1951. Manuscript Division.

The LDEF, led by White, mobilized support. Baker wrote President Harry Truman, who told aides to investigate. New York Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri said he would not “go into the Stork Club or any club that practices discrimination” and his Committee on Unity launched an investigation. Boxer Sugar Ray Robinson, a huge star, entered the fray on Baker’s behalf. The American Jewish Congress asked the city to pull the club’s liquor license. Picket lines showed up outside the Stork.

White telegraphed the influential Actors’ Equity Association in New York: “May we solicit whatever action you deem wise and effective,” he wrote. “… We believe Equity’s connection with Stork Club television program would make action by you exceedingly valuable.”

Telegram from Walter White of the NAACP requesting the Actors’ Equity Association put pressure on the Stork Club. Manuscript Division.

Billingsley shot back in a terse one-pager to White that his club had always excluded “obnoxious” patrons and always would. It left little doubt in this context that “obnoxious” meant “Black.”

If Baker had just gone after the Stork Club, it’s likely she would have carried the day. In a 2000 book, “Stork Club: America’s Most Famous Nightspot and the Lost World of Café Society,” New York Times reporter and author Ralph Blumenthal wrote that the Baker scandal broke club’s charm and made it look like an anachronism. By 1965, it was out of business and broke. A year after that, Billingsley was dead of a heart attack.

Still, in 1951, Baker inexplicably had made a fatal mistake: She said that Winchell, who had often supported liberal causes, witnessed the entire spectacle and did nothing. This was likely not true — even a member of Baker’s party said Winchell had left before the incident’s ugly conclusion — and an escalation of catastrophic proportions.

Winchell took to print and the airwaves, telling his nationwide audience that he admired Baker but had indeed left before the incident. “I am appalled at the agony and embarrassment caused Josephine Baker and her friends at the Stork Club,” he said. “But I am equally appalled at their efforts to involve me in an incident in which I had no part.”

Walter Winchell struck back at Baker with this devastating article, quoting from her memoir. New York Daily Mirror, Nov. 20, 1951. Manuscript Division.

An infamously vicious man when angry, he went after Baker. He dug up her 1949 memoir (published in France) in which she had written derogatively about American Jews. He dug up older clips, showing that she had been a prewar fan of the fascist dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini. He whispered she might actually be a communist — a career-killing charge in the Cold War era.

Baker wasn’t cowed. The next week, in a handwritten letter on hotel stationery, Baker wrote White, saying that if she got her life story published, “all the money would come to the NAACP you must have money to carry on. I will sign the contract in the name of the NAACP.”

By early December, Baker’s attorney, Arthur Garfield Hays, co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, was writing that the case was a symbolic moment for the nation.

The affair involved “issues much bigger than either Miss Baker or Mr. Billingsley,” he wrote. “… The real question is whether laws which provide against discrimination are to be enforced or are to be ignored.”

A promotional poster for Baker’s appearance at the Strand Theater in New York in 1951. Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

He also tried to slip in an apology to Winchell, saying that Baker now “accepted” that he had left the club before the incident, but it was far too little too late.

Baker had overplayed her hand. Winchell had badly damaged her reputation. The Mayor’s Committee on Unity, so eager to jump into the fray in October, dismissed the case in December, saying there was no evidence of a “charge of racial discrimination.”

White, the NAACP leader, was furious in his response: “Evidently your committee failed to probe into the Stork Club’s longstanding policy of excluding Negroes.”

Baker only made it worse, lambasting the U.S. while continuing her tour across the U.S. and Latin America, losing more friends and concert bookings in the process.

She remained undaunted, but her star was diminished. She spoke at the March on Washington in 1963 and in 1975 enjoyed a return to top-tier limelight with a comeback show in Paris. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage during the show’s run. She was 68.

Baker is today widely celebrated on any number of fronts, as her titanic personality far exceeded the world of entertainment. A U.S. stamp was issued in her honor in 2008. In 2021, she was honored with a memorial inside the Pantheon, France’s national mausoleum, the first Black woman to be so recognized.

“France is Josephine,” French President Emmanuel Macron said during the ceremony.

In her short speech at the March on Washington, Baker delivered a line that, over the years, has come to explain much about her career, including that night at the Stork Club.

“I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents, and much more,” she told the crowd of some 250,000. “But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad. And when I get mad, you know that I open my big mouth.”

Subscribe  to the blog— it’s free!

Stylish Posters for the National Cherry Blossom Festival

—This is a guest post by Mari Nakahara and Katherine Blood, librarians in the Prints and Photographs Division. It also appears in the March-April issue of the Library of Congress Magazine.

From saplings to centenarians, the fabled cherry blossom trees of Washington, D.C., entice more than 1.5 million visitors to the capital each spring. The initial 1912 gift of 3,020 cherry trees from the city of Tokyo to Washington launched such treasured and enduring traditions as the National Cherry Blossom Festival (Sakuramatsuri in Japanese), which officially began in 1927 and continues to this day.

The Library has collected and preserved each commissioned festival poster since 1987. These artist-designed images reflect on natural beauty, international friendship between Japan and America and local and global communities coming together. Inspired by the glowing blossoms, pink is almost always involved!

Posters engage viewers quickly through combinations of eye-catching art, thoughtful graphic design and compelling messaging. Also functioning as travel posters, these images often pair cherry blossoms and trees with famous D.C. landmarks — the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, the Washington Monument or the U.S. Capitol.

The 2013 National Cherry Blossom Festival poster. Artist: Erik Abel.

Strong parallels are seen in the Library’s collection of travel posters from Japan, where cherry blossoms are part of cultural life as poignant symbols of beauty and transience. Those posters frequently depict Hanami (blossom-viewing) destinations or show admirers delighting in the beauty of flourishing yet delicate blossoms.

You can enjoy cherry blossoms all year round in the Library’s extensive collections related to sakura (cherry blossoms), including historical and contemporary prints, drawings, photographs, ephemera and more, created from the 19th century forward by Japanese, American and international artists. And all are featured in the Library’s popular 2020 book (going into its second edition in 2025) “Cherry Blossoms: Sakura Collections from the Library of Congress.”

The 2018 National Cherry Blossom Festival poster. Artist: Maggie Elizabeth O’Neill.

Subscribe  to the blog— it’s free!

Checking in with Einstein Fellow Jessica Fries-Gaither

Jessica Fries-Gaither, an elementary school science teacher from Columbus, Ohio, is serving as an Albert Einstein distinguished educator fellow at the Library this year.  

Tell us about your background.

I’ve been a science educator for the past 25 years. During that time, I’ve taught in several states (Tennessee, Alaska and Ohio); in public, private and independent schools; across different grades (first through eighth); and at the graduate level.

I also spent a few years out of the classroom, serving as project manager on National Science Foundation-funded grants dedicated to helping elementary and middle school teachers improve their science teaching and integrate literacy into their classes.

Most recently, I was the Science Department chair and Lower School science specialist at Columbus School for Girls in Columbus, Ohio.

Outside of teaching, I’m also an author. I’ve published three books for science teachers and four science-themed children’s books, and I have many more manuscripts in various stages of the writing and publishing process.

Of course, my time at the Library has greatly increased my list of possible projects!

What inspired you to come to the Library as an Einstein fellow?

I spent a lot of time visiting my public library and reading books as a child, so I suppose there’s always been a natural connection there.

But my real inspiration came from attending the Library’s Teaching with Primary Sources summer workshop in July 2023. Between the thoughtful facilitators (Cheryl Lederle, Michael Apfeldorf and Celia Roskin), the intriguing primary sources and the rich conversations among my cohort members, I was hooked.

I went back to my hotel that first evening and told my husband, “I found my people!”

I knew that the Library hosted Einstein fellows, and so I began the application process shortly after returning home to Columbus. I’m thankful that Lee Ann Potter of the Professional Learning and Outreach Office and Monica Smith of the Informal Learning Office agreed that this would be a great fit for me.

What resources at the Library have captivated you so far?

There have been so many that it’s hard to know where to begin.

Maria Merian’s gorgeously illustrated 1705 book on the insects of Suriname has been one of my favorites.  I’ve worked on a fascinating project with Cindy Connelly Ryan and others in the Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD) about it.

And I’ve taught students about Marie Tharp mapping the ocean floor. So, seeing the Heezen-Tharp world ocean floor map in the Geography and Map Division was incredible.

But I’ve also really loved discovering lesser-known documents and individuals. Josh Levy of the Manuscript Division shared a mock picture book that astronomer Vera Rubin created in the hopes of selling (but never did). And, together, we combed through the papers of Mira Lloyd Dock, an important Progressive Era forester I had never heard of until my time at the Library.

As an author, I really enjoyed meeting with Jackie Coleburn of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and seeing creative and innovative historical children’s books.

Ultimately, though, while the collections in the Library are fascinating, the truly remarkable resources are the people who have generously shared their time and expertise to make this fellowship experience so rich.

How will your Library residency affect your approach to education?

My time at the Library has strengthened my research skills and reminded me just how joyful the research process can be.

Too often, research is presented to students as a prescriptive and mundane task, leading kids to check off the boxes instead of pursuing a question with curiosity and determination. I’d like to think about (and try out) different approaches to helping kids build the skills they need to be successful researchers while also preserving the wonder and satisfaction that comes from a completed project.

What would you like science educators to know about the Library?

Above all, I’d like my fellow science educators to have a sense of the breadth and depth of the relevant resources in the Library’s collections and understand how collection items can complement and enhance the great work they are already doing. I’ve tried to write blog posts in a way that connect the Library’s sources to the framework that science teachers use in their classrooms, and my upcoming presentations at the National Science Teaching Association will share the same message.

Through my work with PRTD, I’ve also learned so much about the ways in which scientific techniques and analysis contribute to cultural heritage science. This was entirely new for me, and I know that educators and their students would benefit from learning about these applications and careers.

Who knew X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, one of the techniques PRTD uses to analyze materials, would be a useful tool at a library?

Subscribe  to the blog— it’s free!

Thomas Jefferson’s Library…

In September 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote one of the more important letters in American history to his friend Samuel H. Smith, a longtime friend and prominent academic and newspaper publisher. Jefferson, furious that British troops had burned the U.S. Capitol a few weeks earlier, asked Smith to act as an intermediary and offer his immense book collection to Congress to replace the in-house library that had been torched.

Smith did so and Jefferson sold Congress 4,931 titles (encompassing 6,487 volumes) for $23,950 the next year, forming the DNA of today’s Library of Congress, now the largest library in the world. Jefferson’s books were seen as working copies at the time, quickly added to and moved about and soon, tracking where his actual books were become difficult to assess. Then, after an 1851 Christmas Eve fire in the Congressional Reading Room destroyed 3,000 or so of Jefferson’s original volumes, all hope of preserving or recreating his original library seemed lost.

Ever since, reconstructing Jefferson’s “catalogue at this moment” has been a quest, a fascination and an obsession for scholars. Jefferson had written out his own bibliographies of his collections, as have later experts such, as E. Millicent Sowerby’s magnificent one compiled in the mid-20th century.

Today, at the Library’s 225th anniversary, after 27 years of international work anchored by a million-dollar grant from Jerry and Gene Jones and carried out by some of the Library’s most accomplished experts, the fire-damaged collection is still slightly “garbled” but almost entirely complete. Two hundred or so minor volumes and pamphlets now may be lost to time, such as an Italian pamphlet on pomegranate growing that the ever-curious Jefferson had tucked away.

Jefferson’s library contained books, maps and pamphlets in several languages. Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Photo: Shawn Miller.

The Library’s staff on the project has examined its own collections, other libraries, rare book dealers and antiquarians from multiple countries to replace the burned and missing volumes with exact copies — the same edition, publisher and so on — to replicate the world view that led the author of the Declaration of Independence to pen such a world-changing set of ideas.

“The project is not so much about finding an individual book,” said Mark Dimunation, the former chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division who spearheaded the effort. “It’s the collection itself, because it really is the universe of his creative knowledge. All of the books are atoms in that larger universal structure. And they all had weight with him.”

Jefferson was fluent in several languages and he let his curiosity go where it might. He later wrote a friend, describing the books that would become the foundation of the Library of Congress.

Thomas Jefferson. Photo detail from a Gilbert Stuart portrait at Bowdin College-Brunswick, Maine.

“While residing in Paris I devoted every afternoon I was disengaged, for a summer or two, in examining all the principal bookstores, turning over every book with my own hands, and putting by every thing which related to America, and indeed whatever was rare & valuable in every science,” he wrote. “besides (sic) this, I had standing orders, during the whole time I was in Europe, in it’s (sic) principal book-marts, particularly Amsterdam, Frankfort, Madrid and London, for such works relating to America as could be found in Paris.”

So while his was an American collection, it was composed mostly of European parts, brought together from many places at many different times, purchased by many different people.

There were some glorious copies Jefferson owned – he had more than 40 volumes by Marcus Tullius Cicero, his favorite classical philosopher; his annotated copies of The Federalist; George Sale’s translation of the Koran, as he was always exploring religion; and of course he had Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England” – but he often preferred workaday reading copies of later editions, to save costs (he was always in debt) and to have access to the latest information.

Since these later editions were never very remarkable, few antiquarians ever saw the need to hold onto them, and most are just gone.

“One aspect of Jefferson’s collecting was to pick up things that weren’t common – things mistakenly described as ‘pamphlets’ that were really just tearaway chapters from books,” Diminution says. “There’s just a whole variety of scarce materials that can’t be located in matching copies today. And there are few titles that we can find no bibliographic evidence of whatsoever.”

But a few times a year, a matching book is discovered. In 2024, donor Marianne Spain came across the sixth edition of “Elémens de l’histoire de France, depuis Clovis jusqu’à Louis XV” by abbé Claude François Xavier Millot. It’s a three-volume set, published in Paris in 1787. She recognized it as a Jefferson match and donated it to the Library. It’s now in the Jefferson Library exhibit – just another small moment of serendipity and philanthropy bringing Jefferson’s completed library one step closer to reality.

Subscribe  to the blog— it’s free!

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Live at the Library

At times laughing and tossing back her long sisterlocks, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson engaged in a lively discussion with U.S. District Court Judge Carlton W. Reeves in the Coolidge Auditorium last week.

The packed event offered a window into the dynamic legal career of the first African American woman appointed to the Supreme Court in its history — her competitive drive, experiences in an interracial marriage and passionate dedication to helping aspiring law students.

As the featured guest of the 2025 Supreme Court Fellows Program Annual Lecture, Jackson held the audience with poignant and often humorous stories about her upbringing, the mentors who guided her and the “angels” who helped shape her unlikely journey to the nation’s highest court.

“The takeaway from my story is that anything is possible. If you believe in your ability to succeed and you put in the work … nothing worth having comes easy,” Jackson said. “I’m hoping that I’m inspiring people because if I can do it, really, anyone can.”

Her message of grit and grace, perseverance and the breaking of barriers is at the heart of her memoir, “Lovely One.” The title is inspired by her given name, Ketanji Onyika, which has roots in West Africa and her family translates as “lovely one.”

As Reeves noted, the book is a love story about the people who shaped her life.

Her parents wanted her to grow up with pride “in a society that, at least for them, had been closed off and unwelcoming to African Americans,” she shared.

Spanning nearly 400 pages, the book intertwines her personal and professional trek with the broader history of African Americans and civil rights.

She writes of her grandparents, who attended only grade school, and her parents, who grew up in the segregated South of the 1950s and 1960s. They earned degrees from historically Black colleges, and her father went on to law school, ultimately inspiring Jackson to follow in his footsteps.

A prolific writer and seasoned public speaker, Jackson said she felt compelled to write her memoir after enduring an “arduous” Senate confirmation process in 2022 and facing rising national curiosity about her journey.

“My success was not mine alone; there were so many people that had contributed, who had invested in me, and I wanted to pay tribute to them,” said Jackson, nominated by President Joe Biden to succeed Justice Stephen G. Breyer, for whom she had clerked in the 1999–2000 term.

She credited many mentors and role models along her journey, including her “flamboyant” and “larger-than-life” high school debate coach, Fran Berger.

She applied to Harvard University for college, recounting how she told the admissions committee: “I need to go to Harvard because it will help me fulfill my dream of being the first African American Supreme Court Justice to appear on a Broadway stage.”

(Last December, she checked off that box, stepping onto the stage at Broadway’s Stephen Sondheim Theatre for a walk-on role in the musical “& Juliet.”)

Once at Harvard, she excelled in debate, winning many tournaments. And she wasn’t kidding about her interest in theater. She told of once partnering in drama class with future Academy Award-winner Matt Damon, outshining him in their performance of a scene from “Waiting for Godot,” despite his community theater experience.

“When it was over, the professor said, ‘Ketanji, you were very good. Matt, we’ll talk,’” she said with a smile. “I remember thinking, ‘I was better than Matt Damon.’ ”

She earned both her undergraduate and law degrees with honors from Harvard, then moved to the professional world.

She interned with a public defender program in Harlem, clerked for three federal judges and served as both a staff attorney and vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

She then worked at various corporate law firms, where she was often the only Black lawyer in the room — and overlooked or mistaken for a secretary.

Jackson and U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves in conversation in the Coolidge Auditorium. Photo: Shawn Miller.

She met her future husband Patrick, now a prominent surgeon, while still in college. Reeves, the moderator, asked about the moment Patrick visited her parents in Miami to ask for her hand in marriage. Her father reminded him of the realities of interracial unions, which were still relatively rare in the 1990s.

“Patrick was willing to acknowledge that and accepted it, and what that meant for us, teaching and raising our daughters to be proud of who they are,” Jackson emphasized.

After Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing in 2016, Jackson’s youngest daughter, Leila, then 11, encouraged her mother to “apply” for the Supreme Court. When Jackson explained that presidents nominate justices, Leila sent a letter to President Barack Obama, signing off with, “Thank you for listening!”

At the time, Jackson said she thought that if her daughter “was not afraid to speak her mind even to the president of the United States, I must be doing something right.”

Jackson also reflected on the personal sacrifices of her legal career, including cutting her hair short during her Supreme Court clerkship to avoid time-consuming haircare routines. Sixteen years ago, with the help of her stylist, she returned to her sisterlocks as an affirmation of her heritage, she said.

In an interview following Jackson’s appearance, Sylvia Randolph, a longtime volunteer at the Library, said she appreciated Jackson’s openness about her family life.

“She didn’t have time for distractions or [to] give time to anything other than her work — not even her hair,” Randolph said. “I’ve gone through that journey. Sometimes, the little things that mean a lot have to go.”

Subscribe  to the blog— it’s free!

Big Pat Bane, Tallest Soldier in the Civil War?

-This is a guest post by Candice Buchanan, a reference librarian in the History and Genealogy Section.

— Editor’s note: Due to an editing error, the original headline on this story omitted the question mark. This story has been updated to reflect reports of the Confederate soldier Martin Van Buren Bates and others. We’re writing another post about Bates, so be sure to check back on the blog.

William Patterson Bane, the Greene County Giant, one of the tallest soldiers in the Civil War, earned an almost mythical place in popular culture of late 19th-century America. He fought for the Union.

Martin Van Buren Bates, aka the Kentucky Giant, who fought for the Confederacy, was equally legendary and may have been even taller.

At a well-documented 6 feet, 9 inches (but sometimes reported as 7 feet 4 inches or “over 8 feet,”) Bane was a cheerful, blue-eyed Pennsylvania native appeared otherworldly. Clothes never fit Big Pat. His feet came out of his shoes. Crowds swarmed. Children ran and laughed and gaped. He led parades. Fellow soldiers, particularly at reunions, gawped and guffawed.

“A continuous shout ran along the line as the giant of Pennsylvania moved by,” wrote the Daily Public Ledger in Maysville, Kentucky, in September of 1893, recounting Bane’s progress during a parade of Union Army veterans.

“…groups of children and their elders, too, gathered about him to gaze up into his face and ask him strange questions of how it felt to be a giant,” reported the Montpelier Examiner of Idaho, picking up a story from across the country.

I learned a good bit about Pat — a modest farmer and shingle maker by trade — in my work as a genealogist, as he hailed from the same southwestern Pennsylvania counties of Washington and Greene that my ancestors called home.

He was born in Washington County but lived much of his life in Greene. He served during the Civil War in the Company A, 22nd Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment (Ringgold Battalion), apparently not seeing close conflict and being mustered out after the conflict ended. He’s buried beneath a simple marker in the veterans section of Washington Cemetery.

But by no means was he just a local hero. He was a newspaper darling, inspiring headlines nationwide for decades. No one knows for sure if he was, to a degree of scientific certainty, actually the tallest soldier in the Civil War. In the hunt for the title, you’ll come across names like Bates, Henry Clay Thurston, Thomas Marshal Jones, Mahlon Shaaber and several others. Since they never all lined up side by side, or had apples-to-apples measurements, there’s little way of documenting who was actually the tallest.

Bates, meanwhile, fought for both Kentucky and Virginia during the Civil War, ending the conflict at the rank of Captain. He later toured as a circus act sideshow and was popular as such in Europe. He doesn’t seem to have the same medical documentation as Bane, perhaps in part because as a Confederate, he was not eligible for a military pension after the war. But as an adult he was most often reported being anywhere from 7 feet 2 inches to 7 feet 11 inches. The Guinness Book of World Records lists him at both 7 feet 9 inches and 7 feet 11 inches  and as being the half of  the “Tallest Married Couple Ever.” Anna Haining Swan, his wife, was listed as 7 feet 11 inches. They toured as a circus act, both together and apart.

The complication?

While reports of Bane, Bates and others were often clearly exaggerated, Bane’s pension records document his height at several times by different doctors. Once Bates entered the circus world, reports of height were more likely to be overstated for commercial purposes. Guinness does not list their source for his height; we’ve reached out to them for documentation.

So, how tall was Big Pat exactly? It depends on who was doing the telling, and this gives us a glimpse into how unreliable all such reports were during the era. One way to explore this issue is through the Library’s Chronicling America historical newspaper database, which, among other Library collections, enables modern researchers to peek into the life of this lofty cavalryman.

Most consistent are the medically detailed surgeon’s certificates that accompanied his postwar pension claims. These put him at the aforementioned 6 feet, 9 inches. His earlier enlistment and military records, though, put him at a mere 6 feet, 5 inches. (This may have been intentional, to get around Army medical regulations regarding height, or perhaps he just grew later. He was 20 when he enlisted.) The National Tribune in Washington, D.C, reported that he stood “exactly 7 feet.” The man himself listed that as his height in an ad seeking a spouse. Still, a widely reprinted news report of his death pegged him at 7 feet, 4 inches. Not to be outdone, The Day Book, a Chicago newspaper, authoritatively stated “He was over 8 feet in height.”

The one thing everyone agreed on was that his personality matched his size.

He liked to draw attention through his wardrobe, props and poses. A widely reprinted story about the Union Army parade in Pittsburgh in November 1894 noted (as in The National Tribune) that Bane “… is very slender, and always on dress occasions wears a high silk hat, which adds greatly to his elongated appearance.”

Pat Bane in an 1898 newspaper sketch. The Freeland Tribune. Chronicling America.

A longer version of the same story, reprinted in Wyoming in the Rawlins Republican, noted that as Pat led his veterans unit “… cheers greeted him everywhere. In fact, Pat received a genuine ovation, which he returned with a smile.” And: “His manners are affable, and in his nature there is a large vein of humor. He considers it quite a joke to stand beside as small a specimen of manhood as he can find and make him look as diminutive as possible.”

The Montpelier Examiner in Idaho later recounted his joy as he once was swarmed at a circus, and the Baltimore County Union remarked on his status as the tallest spectator at the inauguration of President Theodore Roosevelt, the fourth such event Bane traveled to witness.

One thing that eluded such a good-natured man, however, was a spouse. On Jan. 19, 1893, Bane advertised in the National Tribune for a wife. His request appeared alongside 11 others who “desire[d] correspondence with a view to matrimony.” Each of these hopefuls provided a name and address. The only one to include any particulars was Bane, whose line read, “William P. Bane, Nineveh, Pa., (lady must be six feet six inches in h[e]ight, no less).”

It did not get the results he wanted. Not only did he run a second ad on Nov. 9, 1893, but he also repeated his height stipulation and required a photograph. Most notably — perhaps revealing something about the responses he received to his first ad — he included a closing statement: “No foolishness.”

Entertained by these specifications, the New Dominion in Morgantown, West Virginia, chortled “Pat seems to have high notions.”

Though there are several allusions to Bane’s matrimonial aspirations in the media, as well as in his military pension correspondence and depositions, there is no evidence that he ever married.

He also had health issues. Late in life, he reported problems with bronchitis, first contracted while on picket duty during the Civil War. On March 17, 1898, a headline on the front page of the Freeland Tribune in Pennsylvania read, “Wants More Pension. Giant Pat, the Tallest Man in the Civil War. Alleges Disabilities Due to the Poor Fit of His Uniforms.”

The article diminished Pat’s military service as “not especially noteworthy” and questioned his eligibility for support, claiming his disabilities “do not prevent him from plying his trade of shinglemaker … or from traveling about the country as extensively as possible on the spending money paid him by Uncle Sam.” They summed him up as “a very tall and healthy man … whose only troubles appear to come from his tailor and his shoemaker.”

At the time, Pat was receiving a veteran’s pension of $12 per month. He tried to convince pension boards that should be upped to the maximum of $30, arguing that his disability was “contracted in the service,” but was not successful. It was later increased to $17, but this seemed more related to inflation than to any particular ailment.

On March 16, 1912, the ever-cheerful Pat Bane passed away in Washington County, Pennsylvania. He was 68. His death made news across the nation, as headlines from Connecticut’s  Bridgeport Evening Farmer to South Dakota’s the Lemmon Herald declared that the Union’s tallest soldier had led his last parade.

In the county where he would be laid to rest, his height remained his defining characteristic — even if no one ever knew quite what it was. A local newspaper, the Charleroi Mail, wrote that “the coffin in which Pat will be buried … with full military honors will be the largest ever ordered from Washington, measuring seven and one half feet.”

Subscribe  to the blog— it’s free!

Big Pat Bane, The Tallest Soldier in the Civil War

-This is a guest post by Candice Buchanan, a reference librarian in the History and Genealogy Section.

William Patterson Bane, the Greene County Giant, was almost certainly the tallest soldier in the Civil War, earning an almost mythical place in popular culture of late 19th-century America.

At a towering 6 feet, 9 inches, the cheerful, blue-eyed Pennsylvania native appeared otherworldly. Clothes never fit Big Pat. His feet came out of his shoes. Crowds swarmed. Children ran and laughed and gaped. He led parades. Fellow soldiers, particularly at reunions, gawped and guffawed.

“A continuous shout ran along the line as the giant of Pennsylvania moved by,” wrote the Daily Public Ledger in Maysville, Kentucky, in September of 1893, recounting Bane’s progress during a parade of Union Army veterans.

“…groups of children and their elders, too, gathered about him to gaze up into his face and ask him strange questions of how it felt to be a giant,” reported the Montpelier Examiner of Idaho, picking up a story from across the country.

I learned a good bit about Pat — a modest farmer and shingle maker by trade — in my work as a genealogist, as he hailed from the same southwestern Pennsylvania counties of Washington and Greene that my ancestors called home.

He was born in Washington County but lived much of his life in Greene. He served during the Civil War in the Company A, 22nd Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment (Ringgold Battalion), apparently not seeing close conflict and being mustered out after the conflict ended. He’s buried beneath a simple marker in the veterans section of Washington Cemetery.

But by no means was he just a local hero. He was a newspaper darling, inspiring headlines nationwide for decades. No one knows for sure if he was, to a degree of scientific certainty, actually the tallest soldier in the Civil War. But the fact that he was assserted as such for decades, without contradiction, makes a compelling case.

Many of these accounts are preserved through the Library’s Chronicling America historical newspaper database, which, among other Library collections, enables modern researchers to peek into the life of this lofty cavalryman.

How tall was Big Pat exactly? It depends on who was doing the telling.

Most consistent are the medically detailed surgeon’s certificates that accompanied his postwar pension claims. These put him at the aforementioned 6 feet, 9 inches. His earlier enlistment and military records, though, put him at a mere 6 feet, 5 inches. (This may have been intentional, to get around Army medical regulations regarding height, or perhaps he just grew later. He was 20 when he enlisted.) The National Tribune in Washington, D.C, reported that he stood “exactly 7 feet.” The man himself listed that as his height in an ad seeking a spouse. Still, a widely reprinted news report of his death pegged him at 7 feet, 4 inches. Not to be outdone, The Day Book, a Chicago newspaper, authoritatively stated “He was over 8 feet in height.”

The one thing everyone agreed on was that his personality matched his size.

He liked to draw attention through his wardrobe, props and poses. A widely reprinted story about the Union Army parade in Pittsburgh in November 1894 noted (as in The National Tribune) that Bane “… is very slender, and always on dress occasions wears a high silk hat, which adds greatly to his elongated appearance.”

Pat Bane in an 1898 newspaper sketch. The Freeland Tribune. Chronicling America.

A longer version of the same story, reprinted in Wyoming in the Rawlins Republican, noted that as Pat led his veterans unit “… cheers greeted him everywhere. In fact, Pat received a genuine ovation, which he returned with a smile.” And: “His manners are affable, and in his nature there is a large vein of humor. He considers it quite a joke to stand beside as small a specimen of manhood as he can find and make him look as diminutive as possible.”

The Montpelier Examiner in Idaho later recounted his joy as he once was swarmed at a circus, and the Baltimore County Union remarked on his status as the tallest spectator at the inauguration of President Theodore Roosevelt, the fourth such event Bane traveled to witness.

One thing that eluded such a good-natured man, however, was a spouse. On Jan. 19, 1893, Bane advertised in the National Tribune for a wife. His request appeared alongside 11 others who “desire[d] correspondence with a view to matrimony.” Each of these hopefuls provided a name and address. The only one to include any particulars was Bane, whose line read, “William P. Bane, Nineveh, Pa., (lady must be six feet six inches in h[e]ight, no less).”

It did not get the results he wanted. Not only did he run a second ad on Nov. 9, 1893, but he also repeated his height stipulation and required a photograph. Most notably — perhaps revealing something about the responses he received to his first ad — he included a closing statement: “No foolishness.”

Entertained by these specifications, the New Dominion in Morgantown, West Virginia, chortled “Pat seems to have high notions.”

Though there are several allusions to Bane’s matrimonial aspirations in the media, as well as in his military pension correspondence and depositions, there is no evidence that he ever married.

He also had health issues. Late in life, he reported problems with bronchitis, first contracted while on picket duty during the Civil War. On March 17, 1898, a headline on the front page of the Freeland Tribune in Pennsylvania read, “Wants More Pension. Giant Pat, the Tallest Man in the Civil War. Alleges Disabilities Due to the Poor Fit of His Uniforms.”

The article diminished Pat’s military service as “not especially noteworthy” and questioned his eligibility for support, claiming his disabilities “do not prevent him from plying his trade of shinglemaker … or from traveling about the country as extensively as possible on the spending money paid him by Uncle Sam.” They summed him up as “a very tall and healthy man … whose only troubles appear to come from his tailor and his shoemaker.”

At the time, Pat was receiving a veteran’s pension of $12 per month. He tried to convince pension boards that should be upped to the maximum of $30, arguing that his disability was “contracted in the service,” but was not successful. It was later increased to $17, but this seemed more related to inflation than to any particular ailment.

On March 16, 1912, the ever-cheerful Pat Bane passed away in Washington County, Pennsylvania. He was 68. His death made news across the nation, as headlines from Connecticut’s  Bridgeport Evening Farmer to South Dakota’s the Lemmon Herald declared that the Union’s tallest soldier had led his last parade.

In the county where he would be laid to rest, his height remained his defining characteristic — even if no one ever knew quite what it was. A local newspaper, the Charleroi Mail, wrote that “the coffin in which Pat will be buried … with full military honors will be the largest ever ordered from Washington, measuring seven and one half feet.”

Subscribe  to the blog— it’s free!