Library of Congress's Blog, page 67

Free to Use and Reuse: Geneaology

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“Six Generations,” R.W. Harrison, Selma, Alabama. 1893. Prints and Photographs Division.

It’s time once again to dip into our Free to Use and Reuse sets of pictures, culled from the Library’s millions of copyright-free photographs, prints, maps and so on. This month, we’re featuring things that relate to ever-popular genealogy searches, as people look to uncover the secrets of their past by identifying their ancestors and the lives they led. The Library is great for this, offering ways to identify your ancestors, and then help document how and where they lived.

First up is this remarkable photograph of five women and a toddler, taken in Selma, Alabama, in 1893, in the studios of R.W. Harrison. It’s titled “Six Generations,” but there are no names or other identifying information. This prompts a number of questions. Namely, what is the order of birth, and is this all one family? Let’s presume the latter is true. Certainly in that era, when photographs were formal occasions, a family portrait was more likely than not; and, besides, the women certainly appear to be related.

As to order of birth: The toddler is the youngest; it’s reasonable to think that the matriarch is the seated woman in the middle, just to the left of the child. I’d venture that second oldest is the woman seated on the right, in the patterned dress, followed by the woman seated at the far left, in the white dress. In turn, her daughter would be standing, in the black dress at right. The child’s mother, then, would be in the white dress, center. In sum, that’s everyone from the baby of the family to her great-great-great grandmother!

If we assume 20 years between each generation, that would make the eldest somewhere around 100, but it’s certainly possible she could be in her late 80s. Now, putting a historical filter over the image: In 1893, the Civil War was just 28 years in the past. That almost certainly means the oldest four women in the picture were born into slavery, with the eldest born no later than the administration of Thomas Jefferson.

If the toddler remains in Selma (not at all assured, given that the Great Migration began drawing African Americans to northern cities when she will be a teenager), she will be in her mid 60s when Rosa Parks electrifies the nation by refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man in Montgomery, setting off the bus boycott that launched the civil rights movement. A decade later, when she is in her mid 70s, the Selma-to-Montgomery Marches will jolt her hometown into history and will lead to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Of such photographs, books are written.

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Topographical map of Atlantic County, New Jersey, 1872. Beers, Comstock & Cline, New York. Geography and Map Division.

Perhaps your roots are in Atlantic City, New Jersey, or thereabouts? This 1872 topographical map of Atlantic County is detailed down to the block, with property owners names listed in most places. Atlantic City had a population of 1,043. Not only would this show you where your ancestor lived, it would let you know who lived next door and down the street.

And, finally, an urbane photo from D.C. in 1907. It’s titled “Mr. Chow and Family in Auto,” and pictures a family out for what looks to be a Sunday drive — one child is seated next to Mr. Chow, another in the back with two women. The picture was donated — and possibly taken by— one Barnett McFee Clindist. It is included in a set of 21 small prints that “Includes portraits of government officials and socialites; photo montage of President Wilson and his family… group portrait of automobile manufacturers in automobiles at the White House … montage portrait of the U.S. Supreme Court justices” according the cataloguing data.

It would seem, then, that Mr. Chow is a socialite of some note, possibly, given the political nature of other photos in the set, a diplomat. He’s wearing a spiffy bowler, the car top is down and the dirt road is dry, so it looks like a fine day for a jaunt. Perhaps this is Rock Creek Park? Has one of the children asked, “Are we there yet?” Was that a thing, then? The automobile was such a newfangled invention that the destination may have been immaterial; the point of the afternoon was just the grand experience of your dad puttering you about in his grand motorcar. You could wave to the lesser mortals as you passed. That would likely do just fine.

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“Mr. Chow and His Family in Auto.” 1907. Washington, D.C.  Donated by Barnett McFee Clinedinst. Prints and Photographs Divison.

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RUNAWAY! How George Washington, Other Slave Owners Used Newspapers to Hunt Escaped Slaves

Enslaved people ran away from bondage so often that slave owners placed some 200,000 “runaway slave” ads in newspapers across the country in the decades before slavery ended following the Civil War. One of these slave owners was George Washington, who conducted one of the era’s most well-documented hunts for a runaway slave, while he was still in office. Arlene Balkansky, reference librarian in the Serial and Government Publications Division, goes through the Library’s newspaper holdings to document Washington’s search for a young woman who defied the father of the country, and then documents the long history of such ads.  Balkansky recently published this piece on the Headlines and Heroes blog and we are pleased to post a slightly longer version here. 

Fugitive slave ads abounded in American newspapers until the end of the Civil War. These abhorrent descriptions – penned by slave-owners who viewed people as property – still bear witness to the bravery and unique characteristics of the people who escaped slavery, albeit sometimes temporarily, and defied a massively powerful system allied against them.

An important part of that system was the Fugitive Slave Act passed by Congress and signed by President George Washington, who owned more than 100 slaves himself, in February 1793. The act made it a federal crime to assist those who had escaped slavery or to interfere with their capture. It allowed the pursuit of “persons escaping from…their masters” everywhere in the United States, North and South.

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“Thursday, Feb. 14,” Gazette of the United-States (New York), Feb. 16, 1793, p. 298 [p. 2]

Three years later, in the spring of 1796, George and Martha Washington were living in Philadelphia, the temporary capital of the young nation. The president – then 64 and in his next to last year in office – and his wife kept a number of slaves with them, rotating their captives back to their Mount Vernon plantation in Virginia every few months so that they would maintain their slave status under the laws of the day. One of these enslaved people was Ona “Oney” Judge, a slender young woman of about  20, who was a skilled seamstress and served as Martha Washington’s “lady’s maid.” Judge was the property of the Custis family from Martha Washington’s first husband.

When Judge learned that Martha Washington intended, upon her death, to make a wedding present of her to the Washington granddaughter Elizabeth Park Custis Law, she took matters into her own hands. On the evening of May 21, 1796, she waited until the Washingtons sat down to dinner, then walked out of the President’s House in Philadelphia. She was gone.

Washington set out to recover his wife’s property. He had ads placed and rewards posted, leading to this remarkable sentence in The Philadelphia Gazette & Universal Daily Advertiser on May 24: “Absconded from the household of the President of the United States, ONEY JUDGE, a light mulatto girl, much freckled, with very black eyes and bushy black hair.” The First Family was caught completely off guard. According to the ad: “there was no suspicion of her going off, nor no provocation to do so, it is not easy to conjecture whither she has gone, or fully, what her design is.” Shortly after, another Philadelphia newspaper ran a similar ad.

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“Ten Dollars Reward,” Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia, PA), May 27, 1796, p. 2.

We know where Judge went and the ways in which she was pursued largely through newspaper interviews she gave in the 1840s, when she was in her 70s and technically still a “runaway slave.” She had sailed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire to escape. One of Washington’s aides found her there and tried to convince her to return to Mount Vernon. After she rejected his offers, the aide left, but eventually returned to bring her and her infant daughter back by force. That attempt was thwarted, however, and no further attempts followed. While George Washington made provisions to free his slaves in his will, this did not free those enslaved by the Custis family, including Judge. She remained free through her own actions, living until 1848.

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“Washington’s Runaway Slave,” Anti-Slavery Bugle (New-Lisbon, Ohio), August 22, 1845, p. 4.

“She wanted to be free,” reported the Anti-Slavery Bugle in 1845, citing an interview with Judge herself. The story appears on the same page as a review of Frederick Douglass’s memoir, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Quickly becoming a bestseller, the memoir is an early example of the famous abolitionist’s eloquent and effective writing, in this case documenting his time enslaved and his escape.

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“Frederick Douglass—Horrors of Slavery,” Anti-Slavery Bugle (New-Lisbon, Ohio), August 22, 1845, p. 4.

The vast majority of those who escaped or attempted to escape enslavement in America were never well-known, though. The only record we have for many are fugitive slave ads, some 200,000 of which were published. Chronicling America provides this Topics Page and a window to finding thousands more ads.

One of the most detailed, humanizing and chilling runaway slave ads that I found in a search of Chronicling America is for Peter (as was common, no last name given). Humanizing in its favorable description of Peter’s appearance and intelligence. Chilling in its reference to his being “easily frightened by the whip.” Peter’s description also makes reference to a scar, as do many of the descriptions in the ads.

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 ”TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD. RAN AWAY,” Southern Telegraph (Rodney, MS), August 9, 1836, p. 6. 

The same ad ran in the Southern Telegraph, a newspaper in Rodney, Miss. It ran from May 27 to September 27, 1836, sometimes twice within an issue. It also ran in the Natchez Courier, according to the ad.

Another type of fugitive slave ad was for runaways who had been captured and jailed. I cannot claim a thorough search, but I did not find an ad for Peter “in Jail,” so we have some reason to hope that Peter eluded capture and was able to remain free, although it is possible he was returned directly to the owner. Tragically, many of those who escaped were captured. If they were not claimed, they were sold at auction.

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 Southern Sentinel (Plaquemine, LA), December 19, 1849, p. 1.

 

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Southern Planter (Woodville, MS), August 11, 1832, p. 4.

On Sept. 18, 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, as amended and strengthened by Congress, was signed by President Millard Fillmore, as part of the controversial Compromise of 1850.

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“The New Slave-Catching Law,” The Anti-Slavery Bugle (Salem, OH), Oct. 5, 1850, p. 1.

Runaway slave ads continued to be published in newspapers during the Civil War, but they no longer had the full power of the federal government behind them with the passage of the Confiscation Acts and with President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, both applying only to those enslaved within the Confederacy. Slavery as an institution in the United States finally ended with the ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.

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“Slavery Forever Dead,” The New York Herald, Dec. 7, 1865, p. 1.

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Inquiring Minds: Alan Gephardt, Garfield Expert

Alan Gephardt is a ranger at the James A. Garfield National Historic Site of the U.S. National Park Service in Mentor, Ohio. He has drawn extensively on the James A. Garfield papers at the Library to interpret the 20th U.S. president’s legacy. 

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Alan Gephardt holds a reproduction of one of President Garfield’s scapbooks. Photo courtesy of the Garfield National Historic Site.

What does your job entail?

My principal duty is to explain the life and career of James A. Garfield to the public. This involves giving tours of the Garfield home, giving talks at the local library and other nearby venues and writing blog articles relating to Garfield and his times. These duties require reading and research.

What is your background?

I have always been interested in U.S. history and presidential history in particular, so working at the Garfield site has been very gratifying. I am a native of Maryland and have a bachelor’s degree from Towson University and a master’s degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. I have worked in the museum field since 1990, mostly in Baltimore. In 2007, I became an employee of the National Park Service. I have worked at the Hampton National Historic Site in Towson and the Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine in Baltimore. I started at the Garfield National Historic Site in 2009.

Tell us about your research at the Library.

My most recent Library project was creating facsimiles of the leather-bound volumes of the president’s papers, now held in the Library’s Manuscript Division. They originally resided in a fireproof vault in the memorial library at the Garfield home in Mentor, Ohio. Mrs. Garfield built the library onto the house in 1885 and called the vault the Memory Room. She had the papers organized topically and chronologically and bound in red, green, black and brown leather with gilded lettering and designs. The collection consisted of more than 200 volumes of letters, scrapbooks, bound newspapers, diaries, plus military and academic records. In 1931, the Garfield children began to donate the collection to the Library.

Recently, I started a project to re-create the bindings for display at the Garfield site. Facsimiles of the originals, I thought, would give visitors a better sense of the extent of Mrs. Garfield’s effort to lovingly preserve her husband’s papers.

I contacted Michelle Krowl of the Manuscript Division for permission to measure a selection of 70 of the volumes, making notations on the wording and designs on each spine. Initially, I had the privilege of performing this task in the Manuscript Reading Room over several visits, but then Michelle and I worked together one day and knocked out the task of measuring and transcribing. With all of this information in hand, I worked with the Cleveland-based Esper Bindery to make the facsimiles that now fill two full shelves in the Memory Room, with a little spillover onto another shelf. Everyone who has seen them has been well pleased with the result.

How else have you used the Garfield papers?

I first began visiting the Library in 2014 to use of the papers of Lucretia Garfield, President Garfield’s wife. I was particularly interested in the many condolence letters that she received in the wake of her husband’s death by assassination — hundreds from people from all walks of life in the U.S. and overseas. I drew on the letters and Mrs. Garfield’s papers for public presentations. But the papers also led me to an unexpected discovery. About two years ago, I stumbled on correspondence with the Wooton Desk Company of Indianapolis that revealed the origins of the secretary desk in the memorial library of the Garfield home. The correspondence made it clear that Mrs. Garfield had the desk made in 1882. Nothing much had been known about it before then. Without the opportunity to consult Mrs. Garfield’s papers, this intriguing, though admittedly minor, bit of the Garfield story would not be known.

How would you describe the value of the Garfield papers generally?

Obviously, the papers of President Garfield, and those of his wife and children, also preserved at the Library, are a resource of immense value to those of us who work at the Garfield National Historic Site and, by extension, to our visitors. They provide so many insights into Garfield’s personal and professional relationships, the issues with which he contended, the cultural currents of his day and the lives of his wife and children after his tragic death. Since the Library made the papers available online this summer, I have looked at reminiscences of Garfield’s older brother, Thomas, about Garfield; the correspondence of one of Garfield’s secretaries, George Rose; and some of the diaries of Garfield’s mother. In every case, something has been revealed that adds context to my understanding of Garfield’s life. The entirety of the Garfield papers is an invaluable asset to the National Historic Site and to the American public.

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Library’s Service for the Blind: New Name, New Look

 

The Library’s National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) is changing its name as of today, Oct. 1, to the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, but all of its services are staying the same.

The newly-minted NLS will still provide free books, magazines, and music materials in braille and audio formats for people who are blind, visually impaired, or unable to use printed work. In conjunction with the name change, NLS is introducing a new logo, in keeping with the Library’s new identity system implemented in 2018.

NLS and the Library made the change after consulting with a number of interested groups, in keeping with the Library’s plan to be more user friendly.

“We are very pleased to share our new name and graphic identity with the public,” NLS Director Karen Keninger said. “We’ve been considering a change for some time, so we’re happy to see this day arrive. The new name, as with all of NLS’s work, puts the emphasis on the people we serve.”

You can find out more about the NLS at their website or  the NLS Facebook page.

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Jessye Norman, Opera Legend, Dies at 74; Her Papers at Library of Congress

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Jessye Norman, announcing the donation of her papers to the Library, on May 16, 2019. Photo: Shawn Miller.

This article was co-written by Sheryl Cannady.

Jessye Norman, the operatic soprano whose presence and voice helped define the art form for half a century, died in a New York hospital Monday. She was 74.

The cause, her family said in a statement released to the Associated Press, was septic stock and organ failure. Both stemmed from a 2015 spinal injury. In May, Norman came to the Library to announce – in an onstage conversation with Librarian Carla Hayden in the Coolidge Auditorium — that she was donating her papers to the Library’s vast performing arts collection. She was scheduled to appear in her native Augusta, Ga., next week for a ceremony renaming a downtown street for her, according to the Jessye Norman School of the Arts website.

“I’m saddened by the news about legendary opera singer Jessye Norman,” Hayden said in a statement. “The Library is the home of her papers, where they will be preserved to inspire future generations. Tonight heaven has a new angel whose voice will echo through the clouds.”

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Norman on stage with Librarian Carla Hayden. Photo: Shawn Miller.

Norman, one of the most iconic figures in the international world of music from the time she burst onto the scene in the late 1960s, received five Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. She also was presented with the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, the Glenn Gould Prize for Music, and more than 40 honorary doctorates. Born into harsh racial oppression in the Deep South in 1945 at a time when segregationist laws blocked black people from participation in most areas of life, she nonetheless became a blazing American icon of talent, personal will and a majestic stage presence. She performed at all of the world’s premiere opera houses, but was perhaps most identified with New York’s Metropolitan Opera. She sang the leads in any number of major operatic and classical works, as well those by Duke Ellington – the latter fitting, perhaps, for a young woman who studied at Howard University, not far from Ellington’s D.C. birthplace.

“When a freshman at Howard University, having found my way to the Library of Congress and the vast, wonderfully welcoming reading room where it was possible to study in peace,” she said in her May 16 appearance at the Coolidge, “I could never have imagined that years later this august building would store papers from my professional life — which at that time, was not imaginable either.  I am honored beyond words to express my depth of feeling, so I will simply thank you.”

Her collection, which is being processed for proper cataloguing and research, consists of about 29,000 items. It includes musical arrangements written specifically for her, including orchestrations of songs by George and Ira Gershwin and the sacred music of Ellington. There are recordings, professional and amateur photographs, mockups of album art work, and business papers related to her opera and concert performances.

The collection also contains correspondence, schedules and itineraries dating from Norman’s early career in Europe, through her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, to her unforgettable performance at the 1996 Olympic Summer Games and recent advocacy work with young people. Rarely seen materials include correspondence regarding projects that were never fully developed.

The papers add to the Library’s collections of legendary classical artists, including Leonard Bernstein, Jascha Heifetz and Beverly Sills. The collection will be available to researchers, scholars and opera enthusiasts in the Library’s Performing Arts Reading Room.

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Jessye Norman. Photo: Shawn Miller.

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“Who Am I?” New Mystery Photo Contest!

Cary O’Dell at the Library’s National Recording Registry is the maestro of our ever-popular Mystery Photo Contest. He’s back with another round, featuring some of Hollywood’s not-so-famous faces. 

Hello fellow photo sleuths!

For your frustration, we submit to you nine more super-hard, super-obscure publicity stills that the Library is trying to identify.

This new batch, like others in the previous MPC series, came to the Library’s Moving Image section as part of a much larger collection of film, TV and music stills. Most were properly identified, but these are among those that stumped us.

So we need your help. Do any of the people, places or things below look familiar?

A few words of caution:

We’ve tried web-based reverse-image searches; they don’t work.
We have no information beyond what is listed below. There are no dates, locations or titles. They may not be from the United States.
Standards of proof: We’d most like to see the same photo, with the person’s name, in a newspaper, magazine or somesuch. Failing that, another image from the same photo shoot, but with the person named

Good luck to one and all!

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#1 This might be vaudeville star Stella Mayhew but we haven’t been able to confirm.
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#2 Another of our distinguished mystery gents.
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#3 This lady reminds many of an opera star…but who knows?


 

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#4 No, this is not your high school history teacher, at least so far as we know.  We assume he’s an actor but don’t know his name.
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#5 This photo has been severely cropped as the rest of it is NSFW (!).  Hopefully someone can identify her by her face.
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#6 Though, in the face, she looks a bit like Louise Fletcher, it’s not. So who is the lady in the wild hat?


[image error]#7 We have several stills, in different “looks,” for this young lady. Perhaps she was a budding actress?
[image error]#8 Another cropped photo of another actress/singer/performer whose name eludes us.
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#9 This is not Ben Maddow (though that’s a good guess).  We are still attempting to identify this mystery man with camera.

 

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Edwidge Danticat: The Making of a Novelist

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Edwidge Danticat speaks with Marie Arana during a “National Book Festival Presents” event in the Coolidge Auditorium, September 24, 2019. Photo: Shawn Miller.

Edwidge Danticat, the Haitian-born novelist who has become one of America’s most honored authors, told a crowd at the Coolidge Auditorium this week that she first felt the magic of storytelling as a child in Port-au-Prince.

The author of 21 books, Danticat was in conversation on stage with Marie Arana, the literary director of the National Book Festival – who immigrated from Peru to the U.S. as a teen — for the third event in the Library’s new series, “The National Book Festival Presents.” Danticat was discussing her new collection of short stories, “Everything Inside,” when the talk turned to how early her narrative talents were woven into her everyday life.

“My first writing teachers were the storytellers of my childhood,” she said. “They were often people who, in their daily lives, were not celebrated much. They were really hardworking…really poor people. When they’d go into a public place, they’d have to bow their heads. But when they were in that space — when they were telling a story — they were laughing. They were free.”

That era – the early 1970s – was a difficult time, both for Danticat and her native land. The brutal dictatorship of Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier ruled by terror. Danticat’s father fled to the U.S. when she was two and her mother followed two years later. She and her brother stayed behind with an aunt and uncle. The couple took in other children whose parents had left the country as well. The money their parents sent home allowed the cadre of children to attend good schools, but it also left them in the care of stern, church-going adults who did not have time for silliness.

Danticat — a quiet child who preferred observation to conversation – noticed that adults usually spoke to children in a firm, instructive voices, filled with directives. But when the talk shifted to stories, the mood lifted as well.

“People were happy, it was lively, and there was singing, there was songs in the stories, there was suspense, there was really a connection with young people, and I was bewildered by it,” she said. “What was the thing that was transforming the mood of these usually stern women in my life?”

Danticat’s first novel, “Breath, Eyes, Memory,” published shortly after she graduated from Barnard College, relived part of that life, turning on the relationships of women in difficult circumstances in Haiti. Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club in 1998, marking Danticat’s career in bright letters. Her books and short stories since then have hewed to themes of Haitian history, family relationships – particularly among women – and the experiences of immigrants. Her memoir, “Brother, I’m Dying,” won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She was awarded a MacArthur Grant the following year, and, in 2018, was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In making the award, the Neustadt committee assessed her work as both political and personal, writing that “Danticat addresses how the specter of history haunts the unresolved present and undermines the future; how nationalism and national identity can be sources of both pride and corruption; and how parent-child bonds, no matter how damaged, can be redemptive.”

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Danticat signs books for fans after the event. Photo: Shawn Miller.

At the Coolidge, she said that history had always drawn her into its web of unfolding events.

“I was always interested in the lacunae of history, in the gaps of history that people don’t talk about,” she said. “Fiction is great for that, because you can invent a person and put them in that gap.”

Recognizing that interest, Suzanne Schadl, chief of the Library’s Hispanic Division, came on stage to present Danticat with a print from “Las Antillas Letrades,” a 2014 work by Puerto Rican graphic artist Antonio Martorell. The print features one of Danticat’s inspirations, fellow Haitian novelist Marie Vieux-Chauvet. Her most famous book, “Love, Anger and Madness,” is composed of three novellas that present a take on a thinly disguised Duvalier regime. She had to flee the country for her safety, and the book was out of print for decades. Danticat wrote the introduction to the English translation, published in 2010 by Modern Library.

She had, after all, her own experiences with living abroad. In the early 1980s, when she was reunited with her parents in New York, she was 12. Her father wasted no time in taking her to the Brooklyn Library. She was amazed that the library let her take books home, but slightly disappointed that she could “only borrow 10 at a time.”

“Libraries felt like church to me,” she said. “It felt like a religious experience.”

Though she was in the United States, the family remained deeply involved in Haiti, with her parents repeatedly telling the children that, although they had left home, home had not left them. This balancing of cultures led to a sense of being in two nations at once, a sense heightened after she became fluent in English. Her parents relied on her to accompany them on doctor’s office visits, where she would have to translate the most personal of conversations. At home, adults would often ask her to write letters for them, including love letters, which led to more insight into the strange world of adults.

“For a writer, what’s better than being allowed into intimate spaces in people’s lives? Afterward, they would act like it didn’t happen, and I would go back to being a small child.”

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Freud’s Last Days in Vienna as Nazis Approached

The personal papers of Sigmund Freud at the Library of Congress have been digitized and are available online  Included on the Library’s website for streaming are 11 home movies of Freud made between 1928 and 1939. Margaret McAleer, a historical specialist of modern America in the Library’s Manuscript Division, oversees the Library’s more than 100 collections documenting the history of psychoanalysis. Here, she writes about Freud’s last days in Vienna as the Nazis approached.

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“Anna at Gestapo.”

Sigmund Freud wrote these emotionally freighted words in his diary on March 22, 1938, as he waited anxiously in his Vienna home. His daughter Anna Freud had been arrested that morning and taken to Gestapo headquarters. She was released later in the day, but her arrest added urgency to a decision Freud made only days before – his family would try to leave Vienna. But had they waited too long?

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Portrait by Wilhelm Viktor Krausz, 1936. Sigmund Freud collection, Manuscript Division.

Freud died 80 years ago today, on September 23, 1939, debilitated by an oral cancer first diagnosed in 1923. Freud lived another 16 years, witnessing the rise of fascism in Europe and an impending war.  As the founder of psychoanalysis, Freud’s ideas of the unconscious and theories on sex, repression, transference and religion had a profound influence on 20th-century Western thought. His papers are

In 1923, when diagnosed, all Freud asked of his physician was help to “disappear from this world with decency,” according to Peter Gay’s 1988 biography, “Freud: A Life for Our Time.” He was determined to be in Vienna when that time came. The intensity of his resolve matched the urgency with which colleagues and friends begged him to leave as the Nazi threat began to grow. In March 1933, Hitler assumed broad dictatorial powers as chancellor of Germany. That same month, Austria was in political turmoil, following the suspension of its parliament. In May, Nazis burned Freud’s books in Berlin. Freud’s sons, Oliver and Ernst, decided it was time to leave Berlin where they had established careers and settled their families. Oliver relocated to France and Ernst to England.

Yet their father remained rooted in Vienna.

“The only thing I can say,” Freud wrote to his nephew Sam in July 1933, “is that we are determined to stick it out here to the last. Perhaps it may not come out too bad.”

Freud’s cancer returned in 1936, and he remained in continual pain from the disease and the oral prosthesis, a sort of elaborate denture, he wore. His health was failing while the world spun out of control. Still, he stayed in Vienna.

“Vienna has been in panicky spirits,” Anna Freud wrote to British psychoanalyst Ernest Jones in February 1938, also quoted in Gay’s biography. “We are not going along with the panic.”

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Freud’s diary, March 1933. Line near top. “Finis Austraie.” Middle line “Hitler in Vienna.” Last line, “Anna at Gestapo.”

All that changed in the next weeks. With chilling minimalism, Freud recorded in his diary the end of Austria (“Finis Austriae”) in March: Sunday “13/3 Anschluss with Germany”; Monday, “14/3 Hitler in Vienna.”

The next day, Freud’s home and publishing house were searched, and his passport was confiscated. John Cooper Wiley, an American diplomat in Vienna, cabled: “Fear Freud, despite age and illness, in danger.”

Then Anna was arrested by the Gestapo. She carried with her a lethal dosage of Veronal. It had been given to her secretly by her father’s physician, Max Schur, as an optional way out if she was tortured.

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Freud walking with his daughter, Anna, 1913. Prints and Photographs Division. 

Freud had finally agreed to leave Austria a few days before. He chose England as their place of exile. Even with Freud’s fame, however, it was far from certain that the Nazis would let the family depart. They almost didn’t. Considerable diplomatic and international pressure on his behalf were required in order for them to depart on June 4, 1938. Freud was accompanied by his wife, Martha; his daughter, Anna; his housekeeper, Paula Fichtl; and a young physician, Josephine Stross, who monitored his health. Stross was included at the last minute when Schur, Freud’s usual doctor, developed appendicitis. Other Freud family members for whom exit visas had been granted, including his son Martin, daughter Mathilde Freud Hollitscher, brother Alexander, and sister-in-law Minna Bernays, had already left.

Freud settled in London with his wife, sister-in-law, and Anna. Nearly a year later, family and friends celebrated what would be his last birthday at his home in Hampstead, at 20 Maresfield Gardens. Captured in a home movie, the gathering looks remarkably carefree. Not far from the minds of those who attended, however, was a war that seemed increasingly inevitable and family members who were absent. Among those not present were four of Freud’s sisters, Adolfine Freud, Pauline Freud Winternitz, Marie Freud, and Rosa Freud Graf.

War was declared by summer’s end, on September 1, 1939. Freud died three weeks later, at the age of not knowing the eventual fate of his sisters. Unable to secure exit visas, they remained in Vienna, with as much financial assistance as the Freuds could arrange. In 1942, they were transported to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where Adolfine soon died. In the fall, Rosa, Marie, and Pauline were transported from Theresienstadt to the Treblinka extermination camp, where they were executed in its gas chambers. The family learned of their deaths in early 1946.

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Cokie Roberts, a Legend at the Library, Dies at 75

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Roberts signing books at the 2015 National Book Festival. Photo: Shawn Miller.

Cokie Roberts, the broadcaster, journalist and best-selling author whose multimedia work was a vital part of Washington reporting, died this morning from complications of breast cancer. She was 75.

Her political commentary work for ABC News, NPR and PBS, along with her numerous books about women in history, were part of the firmament of Capitol Hill for a generation. The Library named her a Living Legend in 2008, and her work with the Library, particularly her frequent appearances at the National Book Festival, made her one of the Library’s most ardent supporters.

“On behalf of the Library of Congress staff, we want to send our condolences to the family and friends of Cokie Roberts,” said Librarian Carla Hayden. “Cokie had a passion for storytelling and this nation and it reflected on the stories she told and the books she wrote. As a historian and a journalist, she was a frequent patron of the Library who relished using the collection and sharing it with her audience. She will be deeply missed.”

Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs was born in 1943 into a political family — her father was Thomas Hale Boggs, the former Democratic House majority leader and representative from New Orleans.

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Roberts, speaking at a Library event in 2016. Photo: Shawn Miller.

In 1972, he was campaigning for a colleague in Alaska when the pair’s small plane went missing in foul weather. A massive 39-day search turned up nothing, and no wreckage has ever been found. Hale’s wife, Lindy, was elected to fill his seat, and served until she retired in 1991.

Roberts, nicknamed “Cokie” as a child, got a degree in political science from Wellesley College, but chose broadcasting instead of politics as a career. She married fellow journalist Steve Roberts in 1966 — he worked for years at The New York Times — and the couple was married in Bethesda. More than 1,000 people attended the ceremony, including then President Lyndon Baines Johnson. They had two children.

“We will miss Cokie beyond measure, both for her contributions and for her love and kindness,” her family said in a prepared statement.

Her 50-year career encompassed everything from local outlets to national network broadcasts. She began covering Capitol Hill for NPR in 1978, before gravitating to television in 1988. With Sam Donaldson, she co-anchored ABC’s “This Week” from 1996 to 2002, going on to a long career as a political correspondent and commentator. The Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame placed her in its ranks, and American Women in Radio and Television named her as one of the 50 greatest women in the history of broadcasting.

Her love of reading and writing led to her long affiliation with the Library. Most of her books dealt with women in U.S. history, and included bestsellers such as “Capital Dames,” “Founding Mothers” and “Ladies of Liberty.” She appeared often at the National Book Festival and at other Library events, a bright, engaging presence onstage and off.

“She was a stalwart supporter of the festival since its inception,” said Marie Arana, literary director of the festival, “both as a featured author and a champion of the fundamental values of a reading culture.”

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Cokie Roberts and Carla Hayden discussing the children’s edition of “Ladies of Liberty” with a rapt audience at the Library in 2017. Photo: Shawn Miller.

The 2008 lineup of Living Legends attested to her national reputation — her fellow inductees included musician Herbie Hancock, car racing’s Mario Andretti, baseball’s Frank Robinson and civil rights activist Julian Bond.

“The (Library) is one of the fundamental institutions of American society,” she said in an interview after the ceremony, “and the group of poeple with whom I was being honored are such stalwart people in their fields, it was incredible to me that I was on the same platform with them.”

Her work never stopped. The National Archives Foundation announced her as its 2019 Records of Achievement Award recipient, the highest honor that the agency bestows. She was to accept the award at a November gala.

Civil War General McClellan: Calligrams Hiding in Plain Sight

This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division, who always writes so well about her specialty, the Civil War and Reconstruction era.

Researchers discover all kinds of materials in the George Brinton McClellan Papers that suit their varied research interests, and this collection is now available online through the Library of Congress.

Those interested in the Civil War, for example, can pore over the sections of the collection containing records from General McClellan’s 1861-1862 service in the field during the Civil War, particularly his correspondence, telegrams, and military papers. Others who are keen on engineering may appreciate McClellan’s sketches and observations of fortifications in his journals and field notebooks. The McClellan Papers also document General McClellan’s forays into politics, including his 1864 run for the presidency on the Democratic ticket, and his term as governor of New Jersey (1878-1881).

One unusual item related to McClellan’s presidential campaign caught my eye and sparked my curiosity. At first glance it appeared just to be the words “Letter of the Committee to Major General George B McClellan The General’s Reply Accepting the Nomination” written in an interesting style of cursive handwriting. Given that no document containing either the committee’s letter or McClellan’s response followed this cover page, the item seemed a bit odd.

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Calligrams of the letter from the Democratic Party nominating George Brinton McClellan for its presidential nomination in 1864, and McClellan’s reply.

A closer look at the individual letters on the page, however, revealed that they were actually formed with the text of the committee’s letter and General McClellan’s reply, written in microscopic handwriting!

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As published in national newspapers, such as the New York Herald, the committee’s letter began, “New York, Sept. 8, 1864. Major General George B. McClellan: Sir: The undersigned were appointed a committee by the National Democratic Convention, which met at Chicago on the 29th of August, to advise you of your unanimous nomination by that body as the candidate of the democratic party for President of the United States….” Sure enough, starting with the loop in the capital letter “L,” the committee’s notification letter flows until the name of the last signer of the letter (W. T. Galloway of Wisconsin) completes the crossing of the “T” in “to,” as seen below.

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McClellan’s longer reply begins with the “M” in “Major” and winds through the rest of the document before appropriately ending with the artist’s addition of “the end” on the tail end of “Nomination.”

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This item in the McClellan Papers is called a calligram. In this case, the words of the text are written to form the words that describe the content. More often calligrams consist of text arranged to form a representative image, such as the text of a poem about a tree forming the shape of a tree. The McClellan Papers offers at least one additional calligram, which reproduces McClellan’s June 15, 1864, oration at a monument dedication ceremony at West Point, New York. The longer text of this address resulted in an even more elaborate calligram bordered by additional explanatory text. The creator of this calligram, David Davidson of New York, signed and dated this work, and the similarities in format and style between the two calligrams suggests he produced both. Davidson seems to have been a calligrapher of some note by the 1860s, having completed calligrams of other political speeches, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Lord’s Prayer.

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David Davidson’s signature as the creator of a July 5, 1864, calligram reproducing General George Brinton McClellan’s June 15, 1864, oration at West Point, New York.

But a central question still remains: WHY? Why did Davidson spend so much time creating these calligrams? Was Davidson an admirer of McClellan? Did he hope they might curry favor with the general, or attract the attention or patronage of those around him? If explanatory letters ever accompanied the calligrams when McClellan received them, they do not seem to be part of the McClellan Papers at the Library of Congress. So in the absence of evidence about Davidson’s motives, we are left simply to admire his skill in turning George Brinton McClellan’s words into works of art.

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