Library of Congress's Blog, page 94

New Online: High-Resolution Color Images of James Madison’s Notes from the Constitutional Convention

This is a guest post by Julie Miller, a historian in the Manuscript Division.

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Shelly Smith, head of the Library’s Book Conservation Section, prepares a page of James Madison’s notes on the 1787 Constitutional Convention for scanning. Photo by Shawn Miller.

When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787, James Madison, then a delegate from Virginia, later fourth president of the United States, took it upon himself to take notes. Later, as documented in the introduction to “Records of the Federal Convention,” Madison remembered how he “chose a seat in front of the presiding member, with the other members, on my right and left hand. In this favorable position for hearing all that passed I noted in terms legible and in abbreviations and marks intelligible to myself what was read from the Chair or spoken by the members; and losing not a moment unnecessarily between the adjournment and reassembling of the Convention I was enabled to write out my daily notes during the session or within a few finishing days after its close.”

Those notes—more than 600 pages in Madison’s tiny, neat handwriting—are in the James Madison Papers in the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. The Library has long made them available to scholars and the public, first on microfilm, and then online. Now, for the first time, the Library is making available online high-resolution color images of the notes that reflect modern standards for publication.

To see a published edition of the notes, consult “Records of the Federal Convention,” cited above, which was edited by Max Farrand and published in 1911. Part of the Library of Congress Law Library’s “Century of Lawmaking” website, “Records” includes Madison’s notes.

African-American History Month: Making a Way Out of No Way

This is a guest post by Beverly W. Brannan, curator of photography in the Prints and Photographs Division.

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George Henry Woodson in 1912, as a candidate running to represent Iowa’s Monroe County in the state legislature.

When the Prints and Photographs Division acquired the collection of Howard University law professor William Henry Richards in 2013, a 1912 campaign flyer included in the collection aroused my curiosity. It promoted the candidacy of George Henry Woodson for the Iowa House of Representatives. How did he fit into the politics of the times, I wondered?

I discovered extensive biographical and contextual information in the Library’s holdings and subscription databases, some of which I’m pleased to share with you here in honor of African-American History Month.

African-Americans born shortly after the Civil War faced the immediate challenge of supporting themselves when there were almost no institutions to help them begin. Yet George Woodson—Buffalo soldier, Howard University lawyer and Iowa Republican—rose to the challenge and, in doing so, championed some of the goals of the modern civil rights movement.

Woodson’s parents, George Woodson and Sena Sawyer, were enslaved in Wytheville, Va., where George was born in 1865. He attended the Wytheville Freedmen’s School, opened in 1867.

In 1883, at 18, he enlisted in the military in Louisville, Ky. He joined Company I, 25th Infantry, as a “Buffalo soldier,” a term referring to African-Americans who served from 1866 until 1951, when the military became racially integrated.

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Buffalo soldiers of the 25th Infantry, some wearing buffalo robes, at Fort Keogh, Mt. Photo by Chr. Barthelmess, 1890.

In 1890, Woodson received a B.A. from Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (now Virginia State University); in 1895, he earned a law degree from Howard University. Woodson then opened a law office in Iowa, where the Consolidated Coal Company employed many African-Americans. In 1898, he ran unsuccessfully for county attorney but went on to become a leader in the Iowa Republican Party.

With others, he founded the Iowa Afro-American Council, opened a law partnership that would last 20 years and helped organize the Iowa Negro Bar Association. Woodson operated on national scale. He attended meetings throughout the country and delivered talks that received favorable coverage in both the general and the black press. In 1905, he was one of the 29 founders of the Niagara Movement, advocating full civil rights for African-Americans.

In 1912, Woodson ran for the Iowa State House as a Republican candidate but again was unsuccessful. A contemporary African-American Iowan, Reuben Gaines, Jr., commented in his memoir, “It was too early to elect a black man to that position.”

The newspaper The Chicago Defender, in articles from 1918, offered insight into inequitable practices of the time. When Woodson was passing through Waterloo, Ia., he was refused restaurant service because of his race even though there were no black-owned restaurants in the town. When he asked a policeman to arrest the restaurant owner, the police refused. The white newspaper in Waterloo condemned the restaurant owner, citing Woodson’s peaceful behavior and his honorable military service record.

In 1921, as demand for coal declined, Woodson moved to Des Moines as deputy collector of customs and married Mary Montague, in her mid-50s and marrying for the first time, like Woodson.

In 1924, at the request of President Calvin Coolidge, Woodson led a commission to the Virgin Islands, which the U.S. had acquired in 1916. The commission studied unemployment and poverty, and elements of its report were incorporated into the 1924 Republican presidential platform.

In 1925, Woodson was a founder of the National Bar Association (NBA) in Des Moines and served as its first president. Harvard graduate Charles Hamilton Houston, future dean of Howard University Law School, numbered among its 120 lawyers. The NBA gave voice to black attorneys who were excluded from every nationally organized bar association at that time.

Woodson continued attending bar association meetings and worked at the customs office until 10 days before he died on July 7, 1933. Several of his outgoing letters are included in the papers of W.E.B. Dubois at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The first generation of African-Americans born after slavery lived through the nadir of race relations in the United States. One of Woodson’s most important accomplishments was to help create an intellectual community for people to achieve full citizenship. Woodson is not a household name today. But through his example as a student, citizen and founder of participatory organizations, he helped make it possible for people like Thurgood Marshall and Rosa Parks to rise to international prominence.

On a drugstore bag found in the collection of Rosa Parks at the Library of Congress, Parks, who died in 2005, wrote over and over the phrase “the struggle continues.” Although her struggle lasted a lifetime, she continued the work that others, including George Woodson, had begun before her.

Stay Fresh, Poetry 180: 15 New Poems Added

This is a guest post by Anne Holmes. It was first published on “ From the Catbird Seat ,” the blog of the Library’s Poetry and Literature Center.

[image error]This month, high schools across the country are now about halfway through the academic year. At the Poetry and Literature Center, we are marking this milestone with help from former poet laureate Billy Collins, who has added 15 new poems to Poetry 180 for the second half of the school year.

To help propel us into the spring and summer, Billy Collins has this to say:

I started the Poetry 180 program after I was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate back in 2001, and I am thrilled that the people at the Library of Congress have kept the program going strong over all these years. One way we keep the program active is by replacing some poems every now and then with new poems, so the big list always stays fresh.

I’m excited about this new set of poems we just added. They include a bittersweet poem by Mark Halliday about a teacher leaving his office for the last time; a funny poem by Thomas Lux about a Christmas family photograph; a poem by Mary Oliver that is inspirational in its defiance of death; and “Aunties,” a Kevin Young poem about aunts who refuse to let go of their purses. In choosing new poems, I look for ones that reflect the rich diversity of today’s poetry scene, but one thing they all have in common is that each one arises out of common everyday experience. That’s the soil where poems like to grow.

If the element of surprise is not your style, here are the new poems we’ve added to the mix:

“Slumnight” by Colette Inez
“The Halls” by Mark Halliday
“Second Estrangement” by Aracelis Girmay
“Exotic Treats” by Laura McKee
“When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver
“Decades” by Gerald Stern
“The Courtesy of the Blind” by Wislawa Szymborska
“Ode to Dirt” by Sharon Olds
“Tinnitus” by Robert Wrigley
“The secretary chant” by Marge Piercy
“Family Photo Around Xmas Tree” by Thomas Lux
“Proof of Life” by Tony Hoagland
“Dress Rehearsal” by Brandon Kreitler
“Aunties” by Kevin Young
“Gone” by Eamon Grennan

Spring and summer may seem worlds away, but you’ll get there. Just let poetry be your guide.

Make sure to keep up with Poetry 180 by subscribing to our RSS feed or daily e-mail blast. To learn more about the project, visit the Poetry 180 website.

World War I: African-American Soldiers Battle More Than Enemy Forces

This is a guest post by Ryan Reft, a historian in the Manuscript Division.

“Interpreters were brought from everywhere to instruct our men in the French methods of warfare because be it known that everything American was taken from us except our uniform.”

—Noble Sissle, 369th “Harlem Hell Fighters” Regiment

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Recruits for what would become the 369th Regiment, also known as the “Harlem Hell Fighters.”

The Library of Congress exhibition Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I explores the role of African-American soldiers in the war and ways in which the international conflict contributed to a growing racial consciousness among black veterans.

Over 350,000 African-Americans served overseas for the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) during the war. Most toiled away in important but menial positions—as stevedores, camp laborers, clerks. But between about 40,000 and 50,000 black American troops served under French commanders in the war, largely in the 93rd Division of the AEF, consisting of the 369th through the 372nd regiments. No black troops experienced as much combat as those assigned to the French military.

As historians like Jennifer Keane, Chad Williams and Adriane Lentz-Smith have demonstrated, racism was deeply embedded in the segregated World War I military. Among officers and the rank and file, white soldiers felt no compunction in demeaning their black counterparts. In France, “U.S. troops were busy spreading rumors among the civilian population that blacks were rapists, thieves, and had tails,” Keane points out.

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Although the soldier pictured here is unidentified, his uniform indicates that he served with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Its three-towered castle appears on his collar insignia and is echoed in artist Dan Smith’s commemorative certificate.

Although the government organized its first officer’s training camp for black troops during World War I, the camp was segregated. Located in Des Moines, Ia., it trained only enlistees for the infantry. White officers eschewed imparting artillery and engineering skills to camp enlistees even though such skills proved crucial at the front, where many soldiers found themselves assigned to artillery and engineering units. And even in its limited focus on infantry, the camp’s military leaders failed to adequately train their charges for the challenges ahead. The division that emerged from the camp experienced combat, but under white officers who took every opportunity to denigrate the division’s efforts while obscuring their own failures of leadership.

What to do with black soldiers generally once they were trained bedeviled leadership. AEF commander General John J. Pershing and others refused to integrate the armed services, and military leaders struggled with how to assign the 93rd Division. By assigning it to the French army, Pershing fulfilled a pledge to supply combat regiments to the French, while also freeing “himself from the dilemma of how to use the African-American fighting regiments of the provisional 93rd,” writes Williams.

Doing so came with a cost, however. “They now became France’s problem, an act that cast African-American troops as outside the U.S. Army, and in a symbolic sense, outside the nation itself,” Williams states. W.E.B DuBois summed up the treatment endured by black soldiers from their white American counterparts: “[T]he American Negro soldier in France was treated with the same contempt and undemocratic spirit as the American Negro citizen is treated in the U.S.”

The 369th was the first black regiment to reach European shores in late December 1917; it was also the first to gain notoriety for its fighting skills when Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts successfully defeated a German assault, earning the French military’s highest honor, the Croix de Guerre. “The first heroes of the American Army came from that regiment,” wrote Noble Sissle.

He described relations between the French and their African-American counterparts as generally good. French officers befriended African-American troops and officers, while the noncommissioned officers “treated our boys with all the courtesy and comradeship that could be expected.”

Most African-American soldiers, whether fighting for the AEF or the French military, experienced a great deal more freedom in France than they did in the U.S. Though the French had their own racial issues, black Americans found the country devoid of Jim Crow segregation. Many dated French women, which infuriated their white AEF counterparts.

When the 369th returned from the front in 1919, it enjoyed a boisterous parade in New York City to celebrate its contributions. But many other black veterans experienced hostility, finding themselves subject to verbal abuse, assault and even lynching.

“The disillusion of wartime encounters would feed the transformation of black soldiers’ political consciousness,” notes Lentz-Smith of African-Americans in the AEF.

Even before the war concluded, thousands joined civil rights organizations to push for racial equality—from 1917 to 1919, the NAACP expanded its ranks sixfold. More militant veterans allied with the League for Democracy, organized by and for black veterans as a means to promote racial equality and democracy. The government took a dim view of the organization, including it in a 1919 report entitled “Negro Subversion.”

In the end, DuBois captured the attitude of black World War I veterans best in his 1919 poem, “Returning Soldiers”:

We return

We return from fighting

We return fighting

World War I Centennial, 2017–18 . With the most comprehensive collection of multiformat World War I holdings in the nation, the Library is a unique resource for primary source materials, education plans, public programs and on-site visitor experiences about the Great War including exhibits, symposia and book talks.

New Online: William A. Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection

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This photograph is featured in the Gladstone Collection with documents from 1869 related to Gilbert Montgomery of the 4th United States Cavalry.

The Library of Congress is delighted to launch online in time for African-American History Month the William A. Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection, consisting of about 500 items. Gladstone was a historian and author of books about black Civil War troops.

The collection spans the years 1773 to 1987, with the bulk of the material dating from the Civil War period, 1861–65. The collection consists of correspondence, pay vouchers, orders, muster rolls, enlistment and discharge papers, receipts, contracts, affidavits, tax records, miscellaneous military documents and printed matter.

Most items document African-Americans in military service, especially the United States Corps d’Afrique and the United States Colored Troops, which were organized during the Civil War. Also included are many documents concerning slavery and various other Civil War documents that mention African-Americans.

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A Civil War-era broadside featuring the song “The Colored Volunteers.”

Revolutionary War items are primarily pay vouchers to Connecticut blacks who served in the Continental Army. World War I is represented by the papers of Lieutenant Edward L. Goodlett of the 370th Infantry, 93rd Division.

Printed matter includes government orders, broadsides, 19th-century speeches and writings on slavery and 20th-century booklets and journal articles for scholars or collectors.

The Library of Congress purchased the collection from Gladstone in 1995. It has been kept in the numerical order established by him, which is neither topical nor chronological.

The Gladstone Collection of African-American Photographs in the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division complements and enhances this collection of manuscripts.

For a chronology of key events in African-American military service, click on the screen shot below!

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New Online: James Buchanan and Harriet Lane Johnston Papers

This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division.

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Harriet Lane, c. 1855–65.

“There is no wish nearer my heart than that you should become an amiable & intelligent woman,” Senator James Buchanan of Pennsylvania wrote to his niece and ward, Harriet Lane, on February 16, 1842. “You can render yourself very dear to me by your conduct.”

Buchanan’s words to Harriet took on added significance as the bachelor Buchanan rose in Democratic political and diplomatic circles, and Harriet shouldered the responsibility of serving as her uncle’s official hostess when he became president of the United States in 1857. Buchanan wrote to his niece frequently when the two were apart, and more than 100 of his letters to Harriet are included in the James Buchanan and Harriet Lane Johnston Papers at the Library of Congress, which are now available online. (Transcriptions of many of these letters can be found in “The Works of James Buchanan.”)

Buchanan’s letters to Harriet show him to be an affectionate uncle, but one with a steady stream of advice intended to rein in her natural exuberance and encourage good conduct. He advised her during a visit to Washington, D.C. in 1851, (January 17) to “keep your eyes about you in the gay scenes through which you are destined to pass; & take care to do nothing & say nothing of which you may have cause to repent.” Later that same year (November 4) he reminded her to “be prudent & discreet among strangers,” and to not squander the “favorable impression” she had made. He counseled Harriet to conduct herself in such a way when visiting that her hosts would not be “twice glad, once on your arrival & still more so on your departure” (July 3, 1846). While Buchanan’s warnings could have applied to any young woman moving in polite society, his political aspirations and her role in his official life no doubt increased his concern that her behavior should be above reproach. Harriet seems to have at least tolerated his guidance, writing “I am always happier, and better satisfied with myself, when my actions are fully sanctioned by your wishes” (February 6, 1853).

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James Buchanan, 1857

When Harriet failed to live up to his standards, he offered gentle, and sometimes not so gentle, correctives. He critiqued her letter-writing skills as to her spelling (July 3, 1846) and the style in which she wrote (March 15, 1853). He celebrated her good fortune at receiving eight Christmas presents, and then inquired how many presents she had given to others (January 11, 1856).

When Harriet’s only sister, Mary Lane Baker, died in 1855, Buchanan rebuked Harriet severely for her excessive display of grief. While Buchanan understood “the first natural overflowings of sorrow” (December 21, 1855), he disapproved of Harriet’s prolonged mourning, remarking that her grief “exceeds all reasonable limits; & I am truly sorry that you have not more self command” (January 4, 1856).

Buchanan displayed his own lack of self-control with regard to her letters, however, and repeatedly apologized for “accidentally” opening her mail. On April 7, 1851, he forwarded a letter “inadvertently opened by me; but the moment I saw it was addressed to ‘my dear Harriette’, it was closed. It may contain love or treason for aught I know.”

Buchanan sometimes justified opening her letters to read news from Washington or other important subjects, but his biographer Philip Klein suggests that Buchanan’s nosy tendencies reached such heights during his presidency that Harriet had to find creative means to send private letters unopened from the White House to a friend in Philadelphia.

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James Buchanan to Harriet Lane, January 4, 1856, regarding her excessive grief.

Correctives and opened mail notwithstanding, James Buchanan displayed genuine affection for Harriet and concern for her future. Buchanan encouraged Harriet to marry a man with good morals and financial security, but with whom she was also emotionally compatible. “The first wish of my heart is to see you comfortably & respectably settled in life,” he wrote her on February 21, 1854. “[B]ut as ardently as I desire this, you ought never to marry any person for whom you think you would not have a proper degree of affection.”

Harriet did not marry until she was 35, but offered to remain with him if he wished her to (October 21, 1865).

Although their correspondence became less frequent after his political career ended and she moved to Baltimore with her husband, Buchanan assured his niece (July 18, 1866) that “my house is ever open to you & you shall always receive a cordial welcome.”

Harriet Lane Johnston returned to live at Buchanan’s Wheatland estate after his death in 1868, and tried to safeguard her uncle’s legacy until her own death in 1903.

Composition the Library Commissioned Wins a Grammy Award!

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Composer Jennifer Higdon (standing, right) with Curtis Chamber Orchestra conductor Robert Spano (center) and soloist Roberto Díaz following the March 7, 2015, premiere of Higdon’s “Viola Concerto” in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium. The debut recording of the composition won a 2018 Grammy Award. Photo by Shawn Miller.

The Library of Congress is delighted to report that a composition it co-commissioned won a 2018 Grammy Award: Jennifer Higdon, acclaimed composer of contemporary classical music, accepted the award in Madison Square Garden in New York on January 28 for “Viola Concerto.” The Library co-commissioned the work from Higdon with the Curtis Institute of Music, the Aspen Music Festival and the Nashville Symphony for the 90th anniversary season of Concerts from the Library of Congress.

Commissioned in honor of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, “Viola Concerto” premiered in the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium on March 7, 2015. Robert Spano conducted the Curtis Chamber Orchestra, and Roberto Díaz performed on the Tuscan-Medici viola, made by Antonio Stradivari in 1690. It is on long-term loan to the Library. The debut recording of “Viola Concerto,” performed by Díaz with the Nasvhille Symphony conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero, won the Grammy for the Best Contemporary Classical Composition.

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Roberto Díaz warms up on the Tuscan-Medici viola backstage at the Coolidge Auditorium before the premiere of “Viola Concerto.” Photo by Shawn Miller.

“This project was a wonderful way to honor the Library’s impressive nine decades as a concert presenter, and also to spotlight the 325th birthday of the Tuscan-Medici. It’s a truly magnificent instrument, made for the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando de’ Medici,” says Anne McLean, senior producer for concerts and special projects and the Library.

The commission was made possible thanks to generous support from the family of Jane and Cameron Baird and from John J. Medveckis of the Library’s James Madison Council. The Musical Fund Society supported the participation of the Curtis Institute.

This was not Higdon’s first Grammy Award. Her “Percussion Concerto” won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in January 2010. Higdon also received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her “Violin Concerto.”

The Washington Post has described Higdon as a “savvy, sensitive composer with a keen ear, an innate sense of form and a generous dash of pure esprit.” Her music has been performed throughout the world, and she has more than 60 CDs to her name. Her orchestral work, “blue cathedral,” is one of the most performed contemporary orchestral compositions by a living American.

Higdon’s Grammy win was not a first for the Library of Congress, either. The Recording Academy presented the Library with a special Grammy Award in 2013 in recognition of its work in preserving historic audio recordings.

Earlier, in 2006, “Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax” won Grammys for best historical album and best liner notes; the Library’s American Folklife Center houses the original Jelly Roll Morton discs.

Over the years, the center’s archives have inspired multiple Grammy nominations and wins, among them Bruce Springsteen’s 2007 Grammy for best traditional folk album for “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.” Springsteen interpreted folk music songs made popular by famed folk musician Pete Seeger, who learned many of the songs as an intern at the folk archive in the 1930s.

Scroll down to view the webcast of the 2015 premiere of “Viola Concerto” in the Coolidge Auditorium and a preconcert interview of Higdon.

The Performing Arts Reading Room holds Higdon’s score with hand-written revisions, available to researchers today and preserved for future generations of scholars to study.

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New Acquisition: Leo Matiz, History and Fiction through Photography

The following is a guest post by Catalina Gomez, a reference librarian in the Hispanic Division, and Adam Silvia, an assistant curator of photography in the Prints and Photographs Division.

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President Rómulo Betancourt of Venezuela and First Lady Carmen Valverde de Betancourt (left) greet President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy at the airport in Caracas, 1961. Photo by Leo Matiz. Published with permission.

This past year, photography enthusiasts celebrated the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Leo Matiz (1917–98), one of the best photographers in Latin America in the 20th century. We are thus pleased to announce the recent acquisition of 10 of his photographs, available for research in the Prints and Photographs Division.

Leonet Matiz Espinoza was born on April 1, 1917, in Aracataca, Colombia. In his 81 years, he worked as a photographer, caricaturist, newspaper publisher, painter and gallery owner, living not only in Colombia but also in Mexico, Venezuela and the United States. Employed by esteemed publications, including Life and Reader’s Digest, Matiz photographed everything from urban architecture to rural folklife. He also photographed important political and cultural leaders, including Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Luis Buñuel. Led by an innate curiosity, an exquisite eye and diverse interests, he captured the highs and the lows of the 20th century in unique and fascinating ways.

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“Zona bananera,” 1939. Photo by Leo Matiz. Published with permission.

In April 2017, the Library acquired four photographs by Matiz showing his native Colombia. The images picture the Magdalena region, including his hometown of Aracataca, which was also the birthplace of Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez. Aracataca inspired Macondo, the town in the García Márquez’s beloved novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

While viewing the photographs by Matiz, we were struck by how they call to mind Macondo, bringing García Márquez’s story to life. Among these were Matiz’s famous “La red/pavo real del mar,” which shows a fisherman casting his net; the “Zona bananera,” picturing a man beside his bananas; and “Palafitos,” which shows a girl crossing a bridge in a nearby town along the Caribbean coast. Each is magical and haunting.

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“Vendedor de periódico” shows a newspaper and magazine stand on a sidewalk in Bogotá, 1962. Photo by Leo Matiz. Published with permission.

We acquired these three photographs along with “Vendedor de peridóco,” which pictures a newsstand in central Bogotá, Colombia’s capital city. Less well known than other images by Matiz, this last one was the most surprising. You can almost feel the city’s heartbeat and imagine the smells, the noise and the weather by looking at the image. Initially, we believed Matiz took the photograph in the late 1950s. But then we spotted a copy of Time magazine peeking out of the newsstand. So sharp is the photograph that we could identify the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko on the cover of the magazine, which suggests the photo was taken some time in 1962.

In awe, the Library acquired an additional six photographs by Matiz in August. This new acquisition pictures Venezuela, where Matiz arrived in 1949. Recruited by Dr. Plinio Mendoza Neira to work as a journalist alongside Gabriel García Márquez in Caracas, Matiz photographed the insurrection that ousted Venezuelan strongman Marcos Pérez Jiménez on January 23, 1958. Upset by President Dwight Eisenhower’s decision to give Jiménez asylum in the United States, many Venezuelans protested Vice President Richard Nixon’s visit later that year. Camera in hand, Matiz photographed youths holding a banner that read, “Nixon go home.”

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Venezuelans protest the visit of U.S. vice president Richard Nixon in Caracas, 1958. Photo by Leo Matiz. Published with permission.

Matiz also documented Venezuela’s transition to democracy under President Rómulo Betancourt and photographed the dizzying growth of Caracas—partly thanks to rising oil revenue and Venezuela’s participation in the new Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. His photos were commonly published in promotional books.

While serving Betancourt, Matiz photographed President John F. Kennedy’s trip to Venezuela on December 16, 1961. Following the visit in January 1959 of communist Fidel Castro, Kennedy wished to cement Venezuela’s place in the Alliance for Progress, his initiative to promote democracy and market economies in the western hemisphere.

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First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy visiting the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, 1961. Photo by Leo Matiz. Published with permission.

Camera at the ready, Matiz shot Betancourt and Kennedy shaking hands at La Carlota airport. He then photographed American first lady Jacqueline Kennedy surrounded by Venezuela’s women dignitaries. Perhaps amused by the stark contrast in how President Kennedy was received compared with Vice President Nixon, Matiz photographed a sign at the airport that declared, “We love you Kennedy!”

In 1949, Leo Matiz was named one of the 10 best photographers in the world. He passed away on October 24, 1998, in Bogotá.

Rare Book of the Month: Valentines of Days Gone By

This is a guest post by digital library specialist Elizabeth Gettins.

Thomas W. Strong was a New York City publisher of popular lithographs and the self-proclaimed “oldest manufacturer of valentines in America.” It seems only fitting that he manufactured countless valentines as St. Valentinus, for whom the holiday is named, since “valens” means “strong” in Latin. This month, I’m featuring a broadside (a large sheet of paper used primarily for announcements or advertisements) and two additional supporting ephemeral items that are both likely from Strong’s printing press. All three of these items reside in the Rare Book and Special Collection Division’s Printed Ephemera Collection.

[image error][image error]The 1869 broadside shown at left is a quaint and informative representation of what the printer might offer and, in turn, how Valentine’s Day might have been observed and expressed in the mid to late 19th century in the United States. This particular advertisement appears to be intended for wholesalers as the broadside addresses “the trade” and encourages dealers to “send in their orders at once to secure an early supply” with valentines available in bulk lots ranging in price from $10 to $20 with “fresh stock made up for the season.”

A wide array of valentines were offered ranging from comic to sentimental, juvenile or adult and plain or fancy. Decorated valentines were available adorned with lace, gilt or embossing. Fancy boxes were also an option.

One such specimen of a Strong valentine appears in the online Printed Ephemera Collection with the date of 1840.

This valentine, shown above right, features a young couple seated under a tree, while the young male suitor professes his genteel and heartfelt sentiments:

Sweetly by thy side reclining— All of joy and peace are mine, Hand in hand—so gently twining Thou art mine and I am thine.

Where the bending branches shading, From the rays of summer heat—This true heart with love unfading Vows of love—shall oft repeat.

The lucky recipient of this Valentine’s Day card would be assured of her suitor’s steadfast dedication and love.

Although the next item is not identified as a Strong valentine, it bears a remarkable similarity to the item above and shares the same printing date. This particular valentine expresses a more passionate sentiment, somewhat reminiscent of the ardor in the Song of Solomon:

[image error] The honey dew is on thy lip, Fain would I thee entwine, And draughts of love in gladness sip—My heart’s own Valentine.

Ah, no, by all that’s good and fair, Your love shall be my chiefest care, And heav’n and earth shall witness be, That mortal never lov’d like me.

We can only hope that the sentiments expressed were well received by the recipient!

The valentines and advertising broadsides found in our online Printed Ephemera Collection date from the 17th century through the present day. The term “ephemera” includes all printed items meant for short-term use: posters, playbills, song sheets, notices, invitations, proclamations, petitions, manifestos, ballots, tickets, menus, business cards and so on.

The collection items serve as a time capsule, offering a valuable window on times and events gone by. They offer insights relating to the key events of American history, including the Revolutionary War, slavery, the western land rush, the Civil War, women’s suffrage and the Industrial Revolution, as well as the day-to-day existence of those that lived before us.

We are fortunate to have such a large and wonderful ephemera collection thanks to Peter Force, an avid collector of American artifacts and monographs. The Library of Congress acquired his collection in 1867, and it has served as the basis of the Printed Ephemera Collection. The collection boasts more than 28,000 items, 10,172 of which are digitized and available online. Future releases will continue to make more items available.

Although the way life is lived has changed in many ways through the years, a look at love in the 19th century proves that some things remain the same with each generation believing, in the words expressed on the valentine above:

And heav’n and earth shall witness be, That mortal never lov’d like me.

African-American History Month: Curating Black History

In this post, historians from the Library and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture highlight how collection items shed light on the black experience. The post is reprinted from the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The entire issue is available online.

Adrienne Cannon is the Afro-American history and culture specialist for the Library’s Manuscript Division. Paul Gardullo is a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and director of the museum’s new Center for the Study of Global Slavery. Here they discuss the importance of select items they curate.

Please tell us about an artifact you secured, or a manuscript collection you interpret.

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Adrienne Cannon and then-president Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP examine items from the Library’s NAACP records collection. Photo by Abby Brack Lewis.

Cannon: The Library’s African-American collections span the colonial period to the present and are particularly strong for the study of the 20th-century civil rights movement. The NAACP records are the cornerstone of the Library’s civil rights collections—they are the largest single collection ever acquired by the Library.

The Library has served as the official repository for the records since 1964; they now consist of approximately 5 million items. The Library’s civil rights collections also include the original records of the National Urban League, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. These records are enhanced by the personal papers of such prominent activists as Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins, Arthur Spingarn, Robert L. Carter, Mary Church Terrell, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, James Forman, Joseph Rauh, Edward W. Brooke, Patricia Roberts Harris, Rosa Parks and Jackie Robinson.

Gardullo: Between 2010 and 2015, I led the effort to collect two key structures from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola: a guard tower built some time in the 1930s or 1940s and a jail cell. Through these objects, we ask visitors to grapple with the power and depth of a particular place and its connection to the legacy of slavery in America.

The largest and perhaps most notorious American plantation prison, Angola was born in slavery—it sits on the site of a former slave plantation. It became a state penitentiary in the late 19th century and remains a working plantation to this day. More than 6,000 people, the great majority African-Americans serving life sentences, are incarcerated there.

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Paul Gardullo with a guard tower from the Louisiana penitentiary, now in the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Photo by Shawn Miller.

What are the challenges of acquiring such materials?

Cannon: Growing interest in African-American history and culture is making acquiring collections like the NAACP records more competitive. The Library acquired the NAACP records with the help of Morris L. Ernst, a friend of Arthur Spingarn, the NAACP’s longtime counsel and president. Since the establishment of the U.S. Copyright Office in the Library in 1870, a large percentage of materials have been collected as copyright deposits, while others—like the NAACP Records—have been acquired as gifts or through purchase and transfer.

Gardullo: The museum began without a collection, so we had to bring in artifacts from across the country and around the world. What started out as a weakness, we transformed into our greatest strength, as it allowed us to reach out and forge deep connections with individuals, families and communities. We are truly a people’s museum; when you walk through the museum, you can sense people’s feeling of ownership—of the materials on display, but also of the history.

To have that sense of ownership is an amazing thing when you are talking about the portrayal of African-American history and culture on the National Mall, a history that has been suppressed or disregarded far too long and far too often by our national institutions. We see our job as filling the silences in American history.

Why is it important to preserve these materials?

Cannon: Collections like the NAACP records document the long, ongoing struggle for civil rights. They inform our understanding of the present and can inspire us to create a better future.

Gardullo: In a country with the world’s highest incarceration rate, where African-Americans are imprisoned at six times the rate of white Americans, the persistence of Angola as a place that both changes and yet stays the same is a powerful testament to the continuum between slavery and incarceration. Its presence in the museum does not provide answers, but provokes questions about slavery and its legacies; about crime and punishment; about compassion, empathy and redemption; and about the power of race in America.

How have visitors or researchers responded to the materials?

Cannon: Annually, the NAACP Records are the most heavily used collection in the Library. They chronicle the NAACP’s fight to break down the barrier of the color line, which encompassed every aspect of American society and extended beyond America’s shores, particularly to Africa and the Caribbean.

They cover politics, the justice system, business, employment, education, family, housing, health care, transportation, the armed forces, sports, recreation, religion and the arts. They also contain information about major figures, events and organizations. The comprehensive scope of the collection accounts for its popularity. Materials in the Library’s recent exhibition commemorating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were drawn primarily from the NAACP Records. Nearly 780,000 visitors toured the physical exhibition, and the online version continues to attract thousands more.

Gardullo: By documenting and humanizing the incarcerated, we ultimately hope to depict Angola as a complex and important world for us to pay attention to. Some visitors may be surprised to learn about it, but most become absorbed by the depth and truthfulness of the fuller story. People want to feel connected to others and to history, and they appreciate a space where they can reflect, explore, learn and talk about incarceration, race and humanity.