Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Library of Congress

Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown embrace in the 1898 film 'Something Good-Negro Kiss.'

Found: The Earliest Cinematic Depiction of a Black Couple Kissing

The recently surfaced 19th-century nitrate print has been inducted into the Library of Congress

2018 Smithsonian Ingenuity Awards

Tracy K. Smith, America’s Poet Laureate, Travels the Country to Ignite Our Imaginations

Like Johnny Appleseed, Smith has been planting the seeds of verse across the U.S.

Gelatin silver print of Theodore Roosevelt. Dimensions: Mount: 9 × 17.9 cm (3 9/16 × 7 1/16")

Library of Congress Digitizes Its Huge Trove of Teddy Roosevelt Papers

Among the thousands of documents is a letter containing the first use of the president’s famed maxim: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick’

Deep, lush colors in the Turkey Red Cabinet set of 1911 (above, Safe at Third) led many to tack these on their walls as works of art.

Would Baseball have Become America’s National Pastime Without Baseball Cards?

Tobacco companies spurred the mania, but artistry won the hearts of collectors

Bird's eye view of the 1893 Columbian Exposition, which Olmsted was instrumental in planning

24,000 Documents Detailing Life of Landscape Architect Frederick Law Olmsted Now Available Online

Collection includes journals, personal correspondence detailing development of Biltmore estate, U.S. Capitol grounds and the Chicago World’s Fair

The rediscovered 1857 “Laws of Base Ball,” dubbed the sport’s Magna Carta, (above, with a 1911 image of the Brooklyn Baseball Club) makes its first appearance in a major exhibition at the Library of Congress.

This Crackerjack Lineup of Baseball Memorabilia Drives Home the Game’s American Essence

A new Library of Congress exhibition includes such treasures as the original 1857 “Magna Carta of Baseball”

The Armenian countryside on the road from Yerevan to Vanadzor.

Unfurling the Rich Tapestry of Armenian Culture

This year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival will offer a window on Armenian visions of home

Woodrow Wilson at his desk in the Oval Office c. 1913.

World War I: 100 Years Later

Woodrow Wilson’s Papers Go Digital, Leaving Microfiche Behind

This increased accessibility of Wilson’s papers coincides with a new wave of interest in the 28th president

Cool Finds

Cache of Benjamin Franklin’s Original Manuscripts—Doodles and All—Gets Digitized

The Library of Congress recently released approximately 8,000 letters, drafts and documents from the founding father

The Temptations

Library of Congress Adds ‘The Sound of Music,’ ‘My Girl’ to National Recording Registry

Each year since 2002, 25 recordings that impacted American culture are chosen for inclusion in the growing database. Read about the class of 2017

Dale Messick, creator of the comic strip "Brenda Starr," looks up from some of her strips in her studio in her Chicago apartment in 1975.

Women Who Shaped History

How Women Broke Into the Male-Dominated World of Cartoons and Illustrations

A new exhibition at the Library of Congress highlights female artists and their contributions to comic strips, magazine covers and political cartoons

Trending Today

The Library of Congress Will Stop Archiving Twitter

Because tweets have become too long and too numerous, the Library will only archive tweets of ‘historic value”

A newspaper's photograph of six men, all of different ethnicities. The caption reads: "Through by birth the men in this group, photographed at a National army cantonment, are as diverse as one could possibly imagine, they stand together in their readiness to fight for Uncle Sam."

Cool Finds

Help Find Historic Cartoons in World War I-era Newspapers

The crowd-sourcing effort is the first project in a new digital workspace that aims to make the Library of Congress’ vast resources more accessible

Alexander served as the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and was a prominent Founding Father before his untimely death.

Get Your Hamilton Fix With This New Trove of Digitized Documents

The Library of Congress has uploaded 12,000 items relating to the ‘ten-dollar Founding Father without a father’

Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, the first two commercially popular country music acts, got their national start at the Bristol Sessions.

How the Bristol Sessions Created Country Music

Ninety years ago, a yodeller named Jimmie Rodgers laid down two of the tracks he would be remembered for

Presumably laughing at a LOLcats meme.

Cool Finds

Why the Library of Congress Thinks Your Favorite Meme Is Worth Preserving

Webcomics and Web Cultures Archives are documenting online culture

Library of Congress Names Tracy K. Smith As New Poet Laureate

Smith previously won a Pulitzer Prize for her work, which is by turns philosophical, fantastical and deeply personal

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden still loves card catalogs.

The Librarian of Congress Weighs In on Why Card Catalogs Matter

The tech is gone, but it’s not forgotten. Carla Hayden explains why

Charles Manson Leaping at Judge Charles H. Older, October 5, 1970.

New Exhibit Highlights the Art of the Courtroom Sketch

For decades, these drawings offered the public its only glimpse into high-profile court cases

Previously unrecorded portrait of Harriet Tubman

Trending Today

Smithsonian and Library of Congress Purchase Rare 1860s Photo of Harriet Tubman

Part of an album of 44 photos of prominent abolitionists, the unique photo was recently acquired at auction

Page 3 of 5