Hidden Treasures at the Library of Congress

Library of Congress
  • 4.2 (45)
  • HISTORY

Watch videos highlighting fascinating artifacts from our treasured collections as presented by Library of Congress curators. In partnership with HISTORY.

  1. 09/07/2010 · VIDEO

    A Spiteful Souvenir

    Just before setting fire to the Capitol Building, Admiral Cockburn searched the president's ceremonial office for a memento that would match the official mace stolen from the Parliament Building by the American forces the previous year. He chose the only item labeled as "President of the U. States," a modest printed summary of the federal government's expenses.

    3 min

  2. 09/07/2010 · VIDEO

    A Key To Victory

    In preparation for the Normandy Invasion of early June 1944, the U.S. and British military prepared detailed maps of the coastline site in France. One was a three-dimensional model made of rubber depicting relief and showing tide lines, the slope of the beach, buildings, and locations of anti-landing craft systems, known as hedgehogs. The map was given to the Library of Congress by a participant in the invasion, Charles Lee Burwell, who as a naval intelligence officer during the conflict responsible for briefing Allied high command and troops.

    2 min

  3. 09/07/2010 · VIDEO

    What was in Lincoln's pockets?

    When Abraham Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865, he was carrying two pairs of spectacles and a lens polisher, a pocketknife, a watch fob, a linen handkerchief, a brown leather wallet containing a five-dollar Confederate note, and nine newspaper clippings, including several favorable to the president and his policies. Given to his son Robert Todd upon Lincoln's death, these everyday items, which through association with tragedy had become like relics, were kept in the Lincoln family for more than seventy years. Because it is quite unusual for the Library to keep personal artifacts among its holdings, they were not put on display until 1976 when then Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin thought their exposure would humanize a man who had become "mythologically engulfed."

    2 min

  4. 09/07/2010 · VIDEO

    The Book That Changed the World

    By introducing printing with moveable metal type to Western Europe, Johann Gutenberg revolutionized books, and, in fact, the very nature of communication. Text, once scarce and complicated to produce, was now easily created in multiples that were readily distributed. Out of the explosion of text enabled by moveable type came the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. The Bible, too, became a transformed document.

    2 min

  5. 09/07/2010 · VIDEO

    A Tale of Two Books

    Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau met for an afternoon on a Brooklyn esplanade in 1856, presenting each other with a copy of one of their works. Whitman recorded the event on the flyleaf of Thoreau's Concord and Merrimack: "Thoreau call'd upon me in Brooklyn 1856 and upon my giving him L of G first edition–gave me this volume–We had a two hours talk + walk. I liked him well–I think he told me he was busy at a surveying job I own on Staten Island. He was full of animation-seemed in good health-looked very well.–W.W." Over 100 years later, these same copies were reunited at the Library of Congress.

    3 min

  6. 09/07/2010 · VIDEO

    Mapmaking…on Horseback

    Jedediah Hotchkiss served as the official map maker and topographical engineer of the Valley District, Department of Virginia, under the command of General T. J. "Stonewall" Jackson from March 1862 to the conclusion of the Civil War. Hotchkiss produced highly detailed maps of the region, including a large map showing all points of offense and defense in the Shenandoah Valley from the Potomac River to Lexington, Virginia. His field sketchbook provides first-draft detailed maps—usually prepared while on horseback—of various sections of the Shenandoah Valley and the area around Chancellorsville. The two items are part of the Hotchkiss map collection in the Geography and Map Division.

    3 min

  7. 09/07/2010 · VIDEO

    Magical Momentos

    The future "Genius of Escape Who Will Startle and Amaze" ran away from home when he was 12 years old. A postcard from "Your truant son, Ehrich Weiss," to the mother he adored is the earliest example of Harry Houdini's handwriting at the Library of Congress. Houdini was born Ehrich Weisz in Budapest, Hungary, on March 24, 1874. Throughout his life, the man who became the famed Harry Houdini fervently explored the history and practice of the illusion arts. He kept record of his own career with equal passion, and, ever the self-promoter, maintained scrapbooks of all of his promotional advertising, replete with photographs, postcards, posters, playbills and news clippings. He willed his entire collection to the Library of Congress. His autobiographical scrapbooks have posed a serious conservation challenge. His keepsakes were glued to the acidic pages of cheap, store-bought scrapbooks. In order to preserve the items, the items were removed, treated and housed in appropriate archival storage.

    3 min

  8. 09/07/2010 · VIDEO

    The Founding Fathers Unite

    Thomas Jefferson received this first edition of The Federalist in book form while he was in Paris serving as minister to France. As the title page attests, this copy was originally a gift from Elizabeth Hamilton, wife of Alexander Hamilton, to her sister, Angelica Church, who was a close friend of Jefferson in Paris.

    3 min
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Watch videos highlighting fascinating artifacts from our treasured collections as presented by Library of Congress curators. In partnership with HISTORY.

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