Library of Congress's Blog, page 65

Rosa Parks, In Her Own Words: A Short Documentary

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Rosa Parks was one of the major figures of the American 20th Century, which the Library’s new exhibit demonstrates. But she’s really not the “quiet seamstress” of popular myth. From childhood, when she sat up nights with her shotgun-toting grandfather who was ready to defend his family from KKK attackers, she was an intense, committed activist with a deep sense of social justice.

In this six-minute documentary, Condoleezza Rice, Bryan Stevenson, Ken Burns, Jacqueline Woodson, Sharon Robinson and Parks biographer Jeanne Theoharis read from her private writings and talk of the woman behind the icon. As Burns says, “It’s imporant that we liberate Rosa Parks, and liberate ourselves, from the tyranny of superficial history.”

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Thomas Jefferson: A Man of the Pasta

This post is adapted from an article in the Library of Congress Magazine’s November/December issue.

“The best pasta in Italy,” Thomas Jefferson opined around 1787, “is made with a particular sort of flour, called Semola, in Naples.”

It was the beginning of a short treatise on how to create a “maccaroni” maker, of which he would eventually have a similar one at Monticello. The man’s personal library formed the basis of what would become the modern Library of Congress, and his papers today reside in the Manuscript Division. They contain, among thousands of perhaps more significant things, this sketch for his proposed pasta machine.

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Jefferson’s diagram for a pasta machine.

Throughout his life, Jefferson possessed an insatiable curiosity about technology and a compulsion to figure out how things work and to make them work better.

Jefferson designed, among many other things, a swiveling Windsor chair, a folding campstool, an improved plow, a revolving clothes rack, a folding ladder, an encryption apparatus and the great clock and mechanized double doors that still grace his home at Monticello. He even designed the portable lap desk on which he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

This rendering of a macaroni maker reveals a future president with an inquiring mind, an aptitude for mechanical things, a knack for technical drawing — and a foodie’s interest in the kitchen.

As U.S. minister to France from 1785 to 1789, Jefferson acquired a taste for continental cooking and, back in America, had his own cooks trained in the French culinary arts.

At home and in the White House, he liked to serve the best European wines and to dazzle guests with delicacies such as macaroons, ice cream and peach flambé — the delectable fruits of an inquisitive spirit and practical mind.

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Jefferson’s notes on how to design a pasta machine.

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Inquiring Minds: Writing Stories of Trailblazing Women

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Louisa Treger

Louisa Treger has worked as classical violinist, and she has a Ph.D. in English from University College London. But she is neither a musician now, nor an academic. Instead, she will soon publish her third novel. Like its predecessors, it will tell the story of a trailblazing woman from history — in this case the American journalist Nellie Bly. Here Treger answers questions about the evolution of her career and her research in the Library’s collections.

Tell us a little about your background.

I trained as a classical violinist, working as a freelance orchestral player and teacher. This stage of my life came to an abrupt and traumatic end when I was in my early ‘20s: I caught a virus, which turned into chronic fatigue syndrome, and I had to take a year out. However, something incredibly positive came out of it because I realized that I wanted to work with words, not music.

I went back to studying, earning a Ph.D. in English at University College London, where I focused on the writing of Dorothy Richardson, whom Virginia Woolf considered an innovator of modernism. Soon afterward, I gave birth to twins. I would use the thick volumes of my thesis to prop up the babies’ cribs when they had colds and were more comfortable sleeping upright. I remember thinking, “Well, at least I’m using my Ph.D. for something!” But all the while, I was musing about Richardson, about what a fascinating and boundary-breaking woman she was, and about the fact that someone should tell her story. My babies grew up and went to school, and I sat down to write. This is how my first novel, “The Lodger,” based on Richardson’s life, was born.

What inspires you to write about historical women?

I seem to stumble across the subjects of my books by chance. I discovered Richardson while searching for an angle on Woolf for my Ph.D. thesis that hadn’t been written about before.

My second novel, “The Dragon Lady,” was inspired by the life of Lady Virginia Courtauld, whom I discovered through being told about a collection of paintings that she and her husband had donated to the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Courtauld was beautiful and rebellious with a scandalous past and a snake tattoo running the length of one leg, which sealed her reputation as a trailblazer. After a brief marriage to an Italian count, she wed Stephen Courtauld, a war hero, mountaineer, orchid collector and heir to a textile fortune. Ostracized for being a divorcee at the time of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, Virginia and Stephen moved to Rhodesia, where their philanthropic attempts to improve the lives of all the colony’s inhabitants, black and white, led to misunderstandings, anonymous death threats and a shooting.

The more novels I write, the more it becomes apparent that a pattern is emerging. I am drawn to writing about strong women who have been forgotten by history, women who refused to conform and who struggled to find their place in the world — groundbreakers and pioneers. So maybe my accidental discoveries are not actually accidental? Maybe some inner drive is compelling me toward these women?

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Nellie Bly, circa 1890

How did you decide to write about Nellie Bly?

I discovered Bly by chance. A friend in London asked me if I’d heard of her and suggested that I look her up — “She’s the sort of woman you write about,” she added. I began to research Bly on the web and was instantly hooked.

The Library of Congress was the starting point for my research for this novel. My son is currently a student at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. (the same child whose cot I used to prop up with my Ph.D. thesis), and I combined a trip to see him with book research.

Which collections did you use at the Library?

I spent a fruitful couple of days looking at historical newspapers online. I also found a wide range of articles in the Library’s online materials, as well as every book that had been written by and about Bly. This was a huge amount of valuable material and an incredibly rich starting point.

How does your background in music influence your writing?

Music was fantastic training for being a writer, not least because it taught me the discipline to glue my bottom to a chair and spend hours alone, honing my craft. There are numerous parallels between music and writing, such as rhythm, tone, color and mood; alliteration, onomatopoeia and refrains. Also dialogue: The give-and-take between instruments in a Mozart string quartet is a perfect example of the kind of musical conversation I take inspiration from. Above all, music training is about precision. It sharpens the perception of minute acoustic differences that distinguish sounds, and this heightens one’s attention to the nuances of language.

Can you comment on your experience of the Library?

The British Library has been my favorite library ever since I can remember, but once I saw the Library of Congress, I have to say that my allegiance started to shift. I was blown away by the beauty and scale of the buildings and by the amazing research resources — it was like being able to dip into an enormous treasure trove. It was also a little bewildering to a newcomer, and I owe librarian Amber Paranick huge thanks for helping me navigate it with such patience and grace.

 

The Mystery of Lincoln’s First Inauguration Photograph

This is a guest post by Adrienne M. Lundgren, senior photograph conservator in the Conservation Division. 

Abraham Lincoln’s first inauguration on March 4, 1861, marked a pivotal moment in the nation’s history. A country on the brink of a civil war had all eyes looking to the new president as either the preserver of the nation or as an enemy of the South. Threats of assassination loomed; a plot had been discovered and narrowly averted a month earlier.

The photo taken of that moment has become an icon of U.S. history: Lincoln, a tiny dot in front of the unfinished Capitol Building; the faint slant of sunshine; the crowds crammed into every available vantage spot, including two men perched in a leafless tree. Here’s the New-York Tribune describing it: “The avenue in front of the portico was thronged with people, the crowd extending to a great distance on either side and reaching far into the Capitol grounds, and every available spot was black with human beings, boys and men clinging to the rails, mounting on fences, and climbing trees until they bent beneath their weight.”

Only three prints of this negative are known to survive. One is at the Library, a salted paper print kept in the Benjamin B. French album in the Prints and Photographs Division. (French headed the inauguration preparations.)

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Iconic photo of Lincoln’s first inauguration, now believed to be taken by government photographer John Wood.

Alexander Gardner, then employed at Mathew Brady’s Washington gallery, is most often credited as the man behind the lens, though he never actually said that he was. Over time, it became attributed to him, which seemed reasonable. He took Lincoln’s portrait many times, he recorded some of the most lasting images of the Civil War and he photographed Lincoln’s second inauguration.

However, my recent research in the Library’s collections has shown that he did not take the historic image of the first inauguration. That photographer, instead, was the unheralded John Wood.

If you’ve never heard the name, don’t worry. He’s virtually unknown in American photography. If five of his images did not appear in “Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War,” he might not be mentioned at all.

But Wood was the government’s first official photographer. Montgomery C. Meigs, chief engineer for the capitol extension, hired him on May 14, 1856, to document major building projects in and around D.C. I first came across his work in 2016, while researching Civil War photographers who used their craft to make maps. After seeing Wood’s pictures of the Capitol construction, I was shocked that he had not earned a more prominent position in the annals of American photography. His work on architectural subjects was magnificent. His use of large formats, as large as 11 x 14 inches, also made him noteworthy.

Perhaps he isn’t widely known because he was a government photographer, a faceless bureaucrat of sorts. And while his views are captivating, they certainly were not profitable in a 19th century photographic marketplace focused largely on portraiture.

In any event, when I saw his photograph of the 1857 inauguration of James Buchanan, I was struck.  It was taken from an elevated platform to the right of the president — just like the Lincoln inauguration photo. Further, I was able to identify Wood as the photographer of several other images in the French album.

Next, there’s the very paper it’s printed on — salted paper. This technique of printing was common in 1857, but by the time 1861 rolled around, Gardner and most other photographers had transitioned to albumen papers. Wood, however, was still using it. It was here that I began to think that the Lincoln photo might be by Wood, but I wasn’t at all sure.

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Illustrated Times Weekly, April 6, 1861, from photo by “Mr. J. Wood.” Manuscript Division.  

The proof came after a year of searching. In the April 6, 1861, edition of the Illustrated Times, a British weekly, I located a woodcut engraving that was almost an exact match of the famous photograph. The caption: “Inauguration of the Hon. Abraham Lincoln, as President of the United States, at Washington, on March 4, 1861 — (From a photograph by Mr. J. Wood.)” The woodcut took a few artistic liberties, such as making Lincoln prominent and filling in the blurred American flag, but the rest is exact. Remember the newspaper story describing men climbing trees to get a better view? Compare the two in the lower left corner. As with so many other details, it’s a precise match.

Lastly, this photograph was clearly taken from an elevated platform, meaning the photographer had privileged access. It makes sense that this honor would be given to the Capitol’s official photographer, who had worked the previous inauguration from much the same vantage point. The New-York Tribune story confirms there was such a platform: “A small camera was directly in front of Mr. Lincoln, another at a distance of a hundred yards, a third of huge dimensions on his right, raised on a platform built especially for the purpose.”

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News reports mention a camera about 100 yards away from the portico; this is likely it. From the Montgomery C. Meigs papers. Manuscript Division.

Wood did indeed work with a large camera. And so it’s my conviction that it was him on the platform that day, opening the shutter for two or three seconds, the light streaming onto a collodion glass plate negative, preserving the image of a man, and a nation, poised on the precipice of a new world order.

These early photographers deserve our consideration, and it gives me great pleasure to bring another one of them who was lost in the shadows back into the light.

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“The Crown” At the Library

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Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip disembark from the ship “Susan Constant” at Jamestown, Virginia, 1957. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. Prints and Photographs Division.

This is a guest post by Ryan Reft of the Library’s Manuscript Division.

“On days like today you ask yourself, ‘In the time I’ve been on the throne, what have I actually achieved?’ ” queries the middle-aged Queen Elizabeth II in the trailer for Season 3 of the popular Netflix series “The Crown.”

In that unsettling trailer, over a dirge-like version of the Bob Dylan classic “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” disembodied voices opine about the state of the United Kingdom. “The country is bankrupt. Our national security is in tatters,” notes one grizzled voice, which may or may not be that of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Miners are on strike. The royal household is filled with strife. “This country was still great when I came to the throne,” the queen intones. “All that’s happened on my watch is the place has fallen apart.”

“The Crown,” which opened its third season last night, follows the long reign of Elizabeth II, which began in 1952 and is still ongoing. Season 3 tracks a period of decline from the mid-1960s into the mid-1970s, a decline that engulfed the government as well as the royal family. For those looking for some of the historical detail, it is well documented in the Anthony Lewis and the Lawrence E. Spivak papers in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. Lewis was the New York Times London bureau chief from 1966 to 1972; Spivak was the co-founder, panelist and co-host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” from 1947 to 1975. Both interviewed key British leaders of the day.

In the immediate post-World War II period, behind the leadership of a Labour government helmed by Clement Attlee, the U.K. provided citizens with a generous welfare state. However, by the mid-1960s, it could no longer be sustained. The British economy “simply would not grow fast enough to keep pace with the ever increasing needs of the welfare state,” noted historian William Hitchcock.

Lewis detected trouble as soon as he took up his London posting. Writing in June 1966 that the atmosphere in London seemed “eerie in its relentless frivolousness,” Lewis noted: “What is bound to worry some who love this country is the feeling of unconcern about the problems that are Britain’s to solve.”

Months later, during an interview with Wilson at 10 Downing Street, his notes reveal the PM’s own, almost willful obliviousness. The interview started in fine high-era English fashion: “Offered drink, scotch and water, and cigar, Jamaican, before conversation began,” Lewis typed in his notes. Yet, the interview ended with a bit of skepticism. “There is no real malaise in Britain and no weakening of British character,” Wilson had asserted again and again. Lewis did not buy it, typing in a personal aside, “He repeated this so often I thought he was trying to reassure himself.”

Lewis’ papers show that he sometimes took to recording interview notes on the menus of London restaurants, such as those located in august hotels like the Dorchester and Claridge’s. These neatly bookend Wilson’s tenure. Lewis wrote in late October 1966 that the prime minister “shows intensely his delight of political triumph.” But three years later, in early December 1969, he wrote that Wilson was “good at jokes, bad when he gets pompous on actual issues.”

Devaluation, a weakening economy, militant labor unions and other forces would help to undo Wilson, as his party lost control of the government. Tory leader Edward Heath ascended to prime minister in 1970, only to be punted out four years later, as Wilson returned to power. Wilson lasted two years before being replaced by James Callaghan. He, of course, was succeeded by Margaret Thatcher, arguably the U.K.’s most famous leader since Churchill.

The queen and the royal family did not emerge unscathed during this period. Spivak’s papers show that in a November 1969 interview on the Meet the Press, Prince Philip acknowledged — evidently humorously — that the Crown too struggled mightily with finances. The joke did not travel well. Lewis Chester and John Whale of the Sunday Times wrote that his attempt at humor transformed what had been an “also ran story” into the front-page variety. “It is difficult to get a smile into print,” the two journalists observed, indicating that his jest had fallen flat when printed.

Still, to some U.K. citizens, the Crown’s cultural cache remained intact.

“I feel infuriated at the question put” to Prince Philip, wrote one North Leeds resident to Meet the Press. “I belong to the British middle class and like thousands of other British people, love our Royal Family and all they stand for. All I can conclude from the interview is envy on the part of countries, who do not have a monarchy,” she argued, adding, “and I have relatives who live in Cleveland.”

The late 1960s and 1970s proved to be challenging times for the West more broadly. Western Europe and America both struggled with widespread student unrest, economic uncertainty and political dissent. In the United States, one could add the travails of deindustrialization, the Vietnam War and the political scandal of Watergate.

Season 3 will no doubt offer fireworks. For historians and others looking for key background insights into the era, few resources provide clearer insights into the dilemmas faced by Britain and the United States than the Lewis and Spivak papers.

New! A Gorgeous Guide to the Kislak Collection

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Olmec figurine, Mexico. 2,600-3,100 years old. Kislak Collection. Photo: Lee Ewing.

This is a guest blog by Tamia Williams, a junior at Washington College. She was an intern in the Library’s publishing office this summer.

Everything has a history, a story that it can tell across the ages, if one knows how to listen for it. John Hessler, curator of the Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Archaeology & History of the Early Americas, spends his days evaluating the history behind artifacts that are hundreds, if not more than a thousand, years old. He searches to discover their origins, weaving together each piece of information to create full stories.

His new book, “Collecting for a New World: Treasures of the Early Americas,” published by the Library in association with D Giles Limited, is out this week. Filled with short essays and brilliant color photographs, it invites readers to become explorers, time-travelers and investigators—to discover what’s in the blank space between an artifact’s origin and its arrival at the Library.

I went on my own trip to find the motivation behind “Collecting.” I headed to the basement of the Madison Building, past the giant globe outside the Geography and Map Division reading room and into the vaults of the collection. This is Hessler’s turf, home to the Kislak Collection, with over 4,000 books, manuscripts and materials that span early history from pre-Columbian times to the 18th century in vaults or on shelves. Hessler has written and edited several books on maps and the history of the Americas – “The Naming of America,” “A Renaissance Globemaker’s Toolbox,” “Map: Exploring the World” – and his enthusiasm is infectious. We talked in a plain conference room, sitting at a table that held a strikingly large Mayan incense burner, adorned with masks and mica inlays. It was made between 500 and 700 years ago, and seemed to bring  the history of the era to life.

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Sculpture of Xipe Totec priest wearing flayed human skin. Central Mexican highlands, circa 1450. Kislak Collection. Photo: Lee Ewing.

“Jay Kislak was one of the premiere collectors of materials related to the early Americas,” Hessler is saying. His job, as curator, is to “throw the doors open and say, ‘Listen, this is an amazing collection. There are these issues with the collection, but scholars should come. People should come. We can learn a lot about the history of the Americas from these objects and manuscripts.’”

Hessler writes as the tour guide through the collection. Here, Mayan jade carvings from 600 to 900 A.D., made in modern-day Guatemala; there, Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, showing, for the first time in history, the separate continents of Asia and the Americas. Hessler’s point is to help readers understand the provenance behind these and other artifacts, from their culture to their significance.

The pivotal moment in the narrative, of course, is the 1492 contact between European explorers and the people of the Americas. Nothing would ever be the same for either.

“On the European side, the before is a tale of exploration, bravery, greed, the possibility of vast riches and a high-stakes treasure-seeking gambit played out on the high seas,” he writes. “The before, for the indigenous peoples of the Americas, consisted of large populations living in settlements and city-states across vast geographical sweeps of Mexico, and Central, North and South America.”

For these peoples – the Taino, Nahua, Maya, Wari, Inca – their cultures, cities, art and architecture, which had endured for thousands of years, were about to come to a vicious end: “Disease, enslavement, forced conversion to the Christian faith, torture, mass execution and the loss of their languages and rituals.”

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“The Conquest of Tenochtitlan,” unknown artist. 1650-1700. Kislak Collection.

Hessler is a traveler and mountain climber, ranging from Guatemalan jungles to the 120-degree heat of Joshua Tree National Park. This travel becomes paramount to his historical knowledge and emotional appreciation for each object.

“It’s not just purely an intellectual exercise,” he says. “There is definitely a deep connection to the stuff I study. I think that is because of the travel and what it feels like to be where it came from. When I talk to people about the objects, I try to give that passion back. I try to talk about [the artifacts] in a way that doesn’t disconnect them from where they came from.”

It works. “Collecting” tells the story of civilizations and peoples long vanished. They can still speak to us, across the centuries.

Hessler’s self-imposed mandate: “Tell the story of the objects. Tell the story of the collection. Tell the story of what we can learn from how they got here. And those stories are really, extremely compelling.”

“The Exquisite Corpse” Turns 10!

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Ten years ago, the Library of Congress’s read.gov website embarked on an adventure in collaboration with the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance.

The project was called “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure,” and over the course of 27 weekly episodes, many of the nation’s top writers and illustrators for young people  contributed words and pictures to this madcap story written and illustrated in sequential format. It was the like the Exquisite Corpse game devised by Surrealist artists, in which one artist would draw of part of person and then another artist would add to it, and then another artist …

More than 400,000 readers around the world eagerly awaited the posting of a new episode. The success of the online version resulted in a print version being published by Candlewick and an audio version from Brilliance Audio. You can also listen to an audio version from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, a free service provided by the Library of Congress.

To maximize the reading, writing and artistic opportunities of the story, the NCBLA has created an updated comprehensive Education Resource Center, available free to all adults who live and work with young people. These online materials include direct links to the story game on Read.gov, as well as supplemental articles to inspire progressive storytelling and games, complementary reading lists and classroom activities. The NCBLA is grateful to its colleagues at the Butler Children’s Literature Center at Dominican University for their work in developing many of these education materials. Additional writing exercises are available on the website of our literacy partner Reading Rockets.

The authors and illustrators who contributed to “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure” are M.T. Anderson, Natalie Babbitt, Calef Brown, Susan Cooper, Kate DiCamillo, Timothy Basil Ering, Jack Gantos, Nikki Grimes, Shannon Hale, Steven Kellogg, Gregory Maguire, Megan McDonald, Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, Linda Sue Park, Katherine Paterson, James Ransome, Jon Scieszka, Lemony Snicket, and Chris Van Dusen.

The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization founded by award-winning young people’s authors and illustrators. Acting as an independent creative agent or in partnership with interested parties, the NCBLA develops original projects, programs and educational outreach that advocate for and educate about literacy, literature, libraries, the arts and humanities.

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Some of the “Corpse” contributers, pictured here at the 2011 National Book Festival (left to right): Jack Gantos, NCBLA Executive Director Mary Brigid Barrett, Fredrick McKissack, Patricia McKissack, Calef Brown, Katherine Paterson, Gregory Maguire, Susan Cooper and Chris Van Dusen.

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Inquiring Minds: Family Surprised to Discover Civil War Veteran’s Ordeal on LOC Blog

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Peggy Lundeen Johnson

Peggy Lundeen Johnson is the great-great-granddaughter of Samuel J. Gibson. He fought for the Union during the Civil War and was incarcerated in the Confederate military prison in Andersonville, Georgia, in 1864. While there, he kept a daily log of his experience. Johnson was unaware of the diary until she encountered it on the Library’s blog . In this post, she reflects on what the discovery has meant to her and her family.

To coincide with publication of this interview, and in honor of Veterans Day, the Library is inviting the public to transcribe Gibson’s diary through By the People, the Library’s crowdsourced transcription project. Try your hand at transcribing the diary, another Civil War collection or one of the many other original manuscripts included in the project. Help us make these important documents more accessible!   

How did you find out about Gibson’s diary?

I was visiting Illinois last summer and had dinner one evening with my cousin and his wife. He said that he had a book about Andersonville and in it was a quote from Samuel Gibson’s diary. Up until that moment, I had no idea that there was a diary. When I got home to Southern California, where I live, I typed in Samuel Gibson’s name on the Library of Congress site and found the diary and a letter from Samuel to his wife, Rachel. I also found the blog post about the diary and commented on my reaction to reading it, explaining that Samuel was my great-great-grandfather.

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Samuel Gibson’s diary

What did you know beforehand about Gibson’s life?

What little I know about Samuel’s life, I learned from doing a little genealogy over the last few years and reading his wife, Rachel’s, obituary from 1916. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned of Samuel’s service and that he had been a prisoner at Andersonville. I know that Samuel was a teacher and had some college education before enlisting in the Army in 1861. For some reason, my mother’s family never talked about it — Samuel is my great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side of the family. Mother did mention one time that Samuel and his family were buried in the Galva, Illinois, cemetery, so I found their grave sites one time when I was visiting her. I was raised in Galva, the same town where Samuel and Rachel lived after he was discharged from the Army.

What was your reaction upon reading the diary? 

It was very emotional reading the diary for the first time. I was struck by how strong a man he was in the face of such adversity. He kept his mind sharp by doing algebra and writing down his observations each day. He had great compassion for his fellow soldiers and did what he could to relieve some of their suffering, even while he was suffering. His reference to President Lincoln being elected to his second term was very interesting to me. He told of the horrors at Andersonville and the cruelty of the soldiers holding them captive. I’m very proud of Samuel Gibson.

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Andersonville Prison, Aug. 17, 1864.

Do you know what happened to Gibson after his release from prison? 

After he was released, Samuel, Rachel and their daughter, Ella, left their home in Pennsylvania and moved to a farm near Galva, where I believe Rachel had family. They went on to have three more daughters, two of whom died young, and they are buried in Galva — they are the family members whose graves I found. Samuel was ill much of the rest of his life due to disease he had contracted at Andersonville. He lived only 14 more years and died at age 45 in 1879. Rachel lived to be 80 years old and died in 1916. Her obituary says she reread all of Samuel’s letters to her in the last few months of her life. As far as I know, only one letter has been preserved, and that is the one at the Library of Congress.

What is the value of the diary to your family? 

The diary adds another layer to our family’s history. I have children and grandchildren, and I am encouraging all of them to take the time to read the diary from cover to cover. They need to see and hear what a patriot their ancestor was and how strong he stood in adversity. I don’t know how the Library obtained the diary and letter to Rachel, but I am so glad that they are being preserved so that future generations can read them. I’m very proud to be Samuel Gibson’s great-great-granddaughter, and I will continue to tell his story.

The Gandhara Buddha Scroll: A Delicate Treasure

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Preservationists at work on the Gandhara scroll.

The ancient scroll arrived at the Library of Congress in a decidedly unassuming way: encased in a Parker Pen box. Inside lay one of the oldest Buddhist manuscripts known to the world, radiocarbon dated to between the first century B.C to the first century A.D.

For years, the scroll resided in the Library’s climate-controlled “top treasures” vault, rarely viewed because of its fragility. This year, the Library redigitized the piece and placed it online, offering scholars and Buddhist communities worldwide access to a little-known part of Buddhist history.

The scroll originates from Gandhara, an early Buddhist center located in what is now the northern border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. A group of materials buried high in the arid mountains was unearthed there in the 1990s, and the Library acquired this birch-bark scroll from the collection in 2003. It is the oldest holding in the Library’s Asian Division.

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The pen box that held the scroll during shipping.

“This is a rare, unique item because it is very old, No. 1, and, No. 2, it does bring us, historically speaking, relatively close to the lifetime of the Buddha,” said Jonathan Loar, the division’s South Asia specialist. “It’s also one of the oldest among the couple hundred other Gandharan manuscripts known to scholars, so even within its own unique collection it stands out.”

The scroll tells the story of buddhas who came before and after Siddhartha Gautama — the sage who reached enlightenment under a Bodhi tree in eastern India in the sixth or fifth century B.C. and who became known as the Buddha. The narrative is in the first person: A scribe recounts the direct teaching of the Buddha regarding his divine lineage.

The scroll presented the Library a serious conservation challenge, even for its expert staff. “It was the most fragile thing I’ve ever worked on,” said Holly Krueger, who recently retired as head of paper conservation. “It was completely unique, unlike anything I’ve ever encountered.”

To assist with the delicate work of unrolling the scroll, the Library obtained the assistance of the British Library and its chief conservator, Mark Barnard, which had successfully unrolled some 30 related scrolls. To prepare, Krueger practiced unrolling a dessicated cigar — the closest material Barnard had found to the Gandhara scrolls, though not nearly as fragile. Her team crafted special tools, including bamboo implements and glass weights to keep the scroll down. Then, for three days in advance, it was gently humidified.

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Piecing the scroll together.

Krueger and Barnard worked in an area of the conservation lab with the fewest air currents — the slightest movement could cause pieces to dislodge. The process took four hours of painstaking, but ultimately successful, work. Afterward, the scroll was encapsulated between two pieces of glass, and their edges sealed. Individual fragments were placed between separate pieces of glass, and the scroll was then imaged. Earlier this year, the Conservation Division redigitized the scroll and its fragments using advanced ultraviolet and infrared imaging.

The scroll today is considered one of the world’s best-preserved examples of a Gandharan scroll. It lacks a title, a beginning and an end but retains about 75 to 80 percent of the original text — much better, experts say, than the average Gandharan scroll.

In the scholarly and Buddhist communities, Loar said, the availability of Gandharan scrolls for study sheds new light on the earliest Buddhist literature and “deepens and diversifies what we currently know about the religion’s formative history.”

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The scroll, unrolled and preserved.

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The (Cursed?) Original Book of Witchcraft

 

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And so it begins…the title page of Reginald Scot’s 1584 edition of “The Discoverie of Witchcraft.” Rare Book & Special Collections Division.

This article was co-researched and co-written by digital library specialist Elizabeth Gettins, who also had the brilliant idea for the piece.

An ancient tome delving into the dark arts of witchcraft and magic…a book of doom…yet it lives…at the Library of Congress.

You’re forgiven if you think we’re talking about H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional book of magic, “Necronomicon,” the basis for the plot device in “The Evil Dead” films, or something Harry Potter might have found in the Dark Arts class at Hogwarts.

But, as the darkness of Halloween descends, we’re not kidding. A first edition of “The Discouerie of Witchcraft,” Reginald Scot’s 1584 shocker that outraged King James I, survives at your favorite national library in the Rare Book and Special Collections Reading Room. (The Library has a copy of the original edition, as well as a 1651 edition.)

It is believed to be the first book published on witchcraft in English and extremely influential on the practice of stage magic. Shakespeare likely researched it for the witches scene in “Macbeth.” It was consulted and plagiarized by stage magicians for hundreds of years. Today, you can peruse its dark secrets online. How could your wicked little fingers resist? Scot promises to reveal “lewde dealings of witches and witchmongers”! The “pestilent practices of Pythonists”!  The “vertue and power of natural magike”!

Also, juggling.

It is one of the  foundational examples of grimoire, a textbook on magic, groundbreaking for its time and nearly encyclopedic in its information. Scot’s research included consulting dozens of previous thinkers on various topics such as occult, science and magic, including Agrippa von Nettesheim’s “De Occulta Philosophia,” in 1531 and John Dee’s “Monas Hieroglyphica” in 1564. The result is a most impressive compendium.

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The heavens, as used in witchcraft. “The Discoverie of Witchcraft,” P. 283. Rare Book & Special Collections.

But Scot wasn’t lurking about in a hooded cape, looking for eyes of newts and toes of frogs to bewitch mortals. A skeptic, he wrote to make it plain that “witches” were not evil, but instead were resourceful and capable women who practiced the art of folk healing as well as sleight of hand. Their apparently miraculous feats were in no way wicked. He wrote, “At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, ‘she is a witch’ or ‘she is a wise woman.’ ”

Born in 1538 in Kent under the rule of Henry VIII, Scot was landed gentry. He was educated and a member of Parliament. He admired, and may have joined, the Family of Love, a small sect comprised of elites who dismissed major Christian religions in favor of arriving at spiritual enlightenment through love for all. By publishing “Witchcraft,” he meant to expose it as superstition, hoping to better England by forwarding knowledge. Since most people who were accused – and often hanged – for it were impoverished women on the margins of society, he hoped to garner social empathy for them and other scapegoats.

He also hoped to dispel the common belief in magic tricks performed on stage before gasping audiences. To do this, he researched and explained how magicians carried out their illusions. Beheadings? See the diagrams!

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Detail from “To cut off ones head, and to laie it in a a platter, which the jugglers call the decollation of John Baptist.” P. 282, “The Discoverie of Witchcraft,” Rare Book & Special Collections Division.

How to appear to “thrust a bodkin (needle) into your head” and survive? See page 280!

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Detail on how to use a false bodkin. P. 280, “The Discoverie of Witchcraft.” Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

This noble effort, as the kids say, went left.

The book was blasted by the religious faithful, according to “The Reception of Reginald Scot’s Discovery of Witchcraft: Witchcraft, Magic and Radical Religion,” a study by S.F. Davies in the Journal of the History of Ideas, published in 2013. The King of Scotland, James VI, was outraged. Like many of his subjects, he was convinced that witches worked in concert with the devil. He thought a coven of witches was trying to kill him. He published “Daemonologie” in 1597, in part to refute Scot’s work. He also became King James I of England in 1603. There’s a legend that he ordered all copies of Scot’s book burned, but the historical record is silent on the subject. Still, it’s clear James I loathed the book. There was growing concern at the time that women’s use of so-called magic was counter to the aims of the state and church. Thus, James sought to instill fear in female communities and spoke out directly against witches and their perceived occultisms.

“Almost every English author who subsequently wrote on the subject of witchcraft mentioned Scot disparagingly,” Davies writes of the period. Scot died in 1599; the book was not republished during his lifetime. There was an abridged Dutch translation published in 1609, Davies notes, but was not republished in England until 1651, nearly three quarters of a century after its initial publication.

Still, the book survived, “mined as a source on witchcraft and folklore,” and his material on practical magic and sleight of hand “found a large audience,” Davies writes. For Scot’s original aims, that wasn’t good. Rather than debunking stage magic for the masses as he’d hoped, “Discoverie” became a handbook for magicians in Europe and America, well into the 17th and 18th centuries. Famous works such as “Hocus Pocus ” and the “The Juggler’s Oracle“ drew heavily on “Witchcraft,” thus spreading the very mysteries that Scot had hoped to quell. Davies: “[I]t travelled in directions Scot himself may never have imagined.”

Today, 435 years after it was published, the book sits on the shelf, silent, patient, having done the work its author did not want it to do. It’s almost as if…the thing had a hex on it.

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