Voices from Afghanistan
February 24–May 8, 2010
Voices from Afghanistan highlights letters sent by citizens of Afghanistan to Radio Azadi, the Afghan branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. These letters capture the concerns and hopes of ordinary citizens in Afghanistan living under the extraordinarily difficult conditions of conflict and war. Unable to control the larger forces that maintain and perpetuate the conflict, Afghans attempt to put some order into their daily lives—the school boy who complains about the broken window in his school demonstrates how the bitter cold is his worst enemy; the school teacher seeking to help his students writes about corruption that enables unskilled individuals to take the place of good teachers. Afghans also channel their emotions into activities that bring them some respite and give them a sense of joy, such as music, poetry, and art.
NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom
The NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom exhibition presents a retrospective of the major personalities, events, and achievements that shaped the NAACP’s history during its first 100 years. Currently, the site highlights 70 treasures and will eventually expand to feature more than 150 items.
Molto Animato! Music and Animation
November 12, 2009–March 27, 2010
Molto Animato! Music and Animation explores the unparalleled collections in the Music; Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound; and Prints and Photographs divisions of the Library of Congress. Molto Animato (“very animated”), juxtaposes music scores, lyrics, and drawings with film clips and sound recordings to provide a glimpse into the intricate wedding of art forms that bring drawings to life. This exhibition provides a small sample of the Library’s treasures that demonstrate the magic of animation and the music that makes it come alive.
Louis Braille: His Legacy and Influence
November 5, 2009–January 30, 2010
For thousands of years, the ability of blind people to participate fully in social, political, and cultural life was limited by the lack of access to written or printed forms of information. Although the work of many others contributed to his accomplishment, Louis Braille’s invention of a tactile six-dot reading and writing system revolutionized the way blind people perceived and contributed to the world.
Herblock!
October 13, 2009–May 1, 2010
The Library of Congress celebrates Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Herb Block (1909–2001) with a look at his remarkable seventy-two-year career (1929–2001). Herblock! includes eighty-two original cartoon drawings, primarily selected from the Library’s extensive Herbert L. Block Collection. These cartoons represent Block’s ability to wield his pen effectively and artfully, using it to condemn corruption and expose injustice, inequality, and immorality on topics including the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and World War II, communism and the Cold War, Senator Joseph McCarthy, race relations, Richard Nixon, the Reagan era, the 2000 election, and more.
Exploring the Early Americas
Ongoing exhibition, opened December 12, 2007.
Exploring the Early Americas features selections from the more than 3,000 rare maps, documents, paintings, prints, and artifacts that make up the Jay I. Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress. It provides insight into indigenous cultures, the drama of the encounters between Native Americans and European explorers and settlers, and the pivotal changes caused by the meeting of the American and European worlds. The exhibition includes two extraordinary maps by Martin Waldseemüller created in 1507 and 1516, which depict a world enlarged by the presence of the Western Hemisphere.
Creating the United States
Ongoing exhibition, opened April 11, 2008.
Imagination and vision played critical roles in the creative act of forming a self-governing United States of America. The collections of the Library of Congress are unquestionably the worlds best source for documenting that process. This exhibition offers a remarkable opportunity to learn in a fresh new way how the founding documents that emerged from this period were forged out of insight, invention, and creativity, as well as collaboration and much compromise.
Thomas Jefferson’s Library
Ongoing exhibition, opened April 11, 2008.
Throughout his life, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) collected books across a vast spectrum of topics and languages. Jefferson followed a modified version of an organizational system created by British philosopher Francis Bacon (1561–1626) to arrange the books in his library, then the largest private book collection in North America.
Divided into categories of Memory, Reason, and Imagination—which Jefferson translated to “History,” “Philosophy,” and “Fine Arts”—and further divided into forty-four “chapters,” the collection placed within Jefferson’s fingertips the span of his multifaceted interests. The books from Jefferson’s library are part of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress.
Library of Congress Bible Collection
Ongoing exhibition, opened April 11, 2008.
In the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, two monumental Bibles face each other as if in dialogue: one, the Giant Bible of Mainz, signifies the end of the handwritten book—and the other, the Gutenberg Bible, marks the beginning of the printed book and the explosion of knowledge and creativity it would engender. This exhibition explores the significance of the two Bibles, and, through an interactive presentation, the relationship between the Mainz Bible, the Gutenberg Bible, and sixteen selected Bibles from the Library’s collections.
With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition
February 12–May 10, 2009
In commemoration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the nation’s revered sixteenth president, this exhibition reveals Lincoln the man, whose thoughts, words, and actions were deeply affected by personal experiences and pivotal historic events.
With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition and its national tour are made possible through the generous support of Union Pacific Corporation.
Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln was the second speaker on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg. Lincoln was preceded on the podium by the famed orator Edward Everett, who spoke to the crowd for two hours. Lincoln followed with his now immortal Gettysburg Address. On November 20, Everett wrote to Lincoln: “Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you, with such eloquent simplicity & appropriateness, at the consecration of the Cemetery. I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”
Drawn from the Library’s collections, the presentation that follows gathers the key documents linked to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Voices, Votes, Victory: Presidential Campaign Songs
October 9, 2008–March 7, 2009
This exhibition presents a sampling of the rich collection of campaign songs housed in the Music Division of the Library of Congress. From pocket-sized songsters to sheet music, the wide variety of subjects reflect virtually every party platform and national issue on which presidential elections have focused. This look at presidential campaign songs, whose melodies so faithfully mirrored contemporary popular music and whose lyrics ranged from broad satire to sincere political expression, demonstrates just how effective a messenger music can be.
Serge Diaghilev and His World: A Centennial Celebration of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, 1909–1929
June 4, 2009–October 10, 2009
Features material concerning the Ballets Russes, one of the most influential dance companies of the twentieth century. Most of the objects come from the Library's Bronislava Nijinska collection. Nijinska, sister of the legendary Ballets Russes member Vaslav Nijinsky, was also a dancer and a choreographer for the company. Objects include photographs of Diaghilev and members of the company, musical scores, production photographs, costume designs, dance notation manuscripts, souvenir programs, and posters.
Bound for Glory: America in Color
September 8–January 21, 2006
Bound for Glory: America in Color is the first major exhibition of the little known color images taken by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI). Comprised of seventy digital prints made from color transparencies taken between 1939 and 1943, this exhibition reveals a surprisingly vibrant world that has typically been viewed only through black-and-white images. These vivid scenes and portraits capture the effects of the Depression on America's rural and small town populations, the nation's subsequent economic recovery and industrial growth, and the country's great mobilization for World War II.
The photographs in Bound for Glory, many by famed photographers such as John Vachon, Jack Delano, Russell Lee, and Marion Post Wolcott, document not only the subjects in the pictures, but also the dawn of a new era -- the Kodachrome era. These colorful images mark a historic divide in visual presentation between the monochrome world of the pre-modern age and the brilliant hues of the present. They change the way we look -- and think about -- our past.
Enduring Outrage: Editorial Cartoons by HERBLOCK
July 17, 2006–January 20, 2007
This exhibition features original work by the Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist Herb Block and draws from the generous gift of 14,000 original drawings and more than 50,000 preparatory sketches donated to the Library of Congress by the Herb Block Foundation in 2002. The exhibition focuses on themes of enduring importance to Herblock that continue to resonate in American society today The exhibited works cover most of the presidential administrations from the 1940s through the 1990s. In true Herblock form, the cartoons critique and comment on Democrats and Republicans alike.
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