Archive for the Civil War Category (78 posts)

Pic of the Week: Gettysburg Address

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Manuscript Division historian Michelle Krowl (left) talks with Washington, D.C., students about the story behind the Gettysburg Address, on display on Nov. 19 to celebrate the 155th anniversary of the historic speech. Photo by Shawn Miller.

On Nov. 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Invited to give a “few appropriate remarks” to dedicate a cemetery for Union soldiers killed at the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln delivered — over the course of about two minutes — what has become one of the most widely recognized speeches in the English language.

Yesterday, to mark the 155th anniversary of the historic Civil War address, the Library hosted a daylong celebration, including display of Lincoln’s earliest known draft of the speech and work stations at which visitors tried their hands at transcribing Lincoln documents using the Library’s new crowdsourcing tool.

If you missed yesterday’s event, not to worry: You can listen to a recording on the Library’s YouTube site. And if you have time over the Thanksgiving weekend, consider taking part in our Letters to Lincoln challenge. We hope to inspire volunteers to finish transcribing 10,000 items from the Abraham Lincoln Papers by the end of 2018.

Help us meet our goal by transcribing at least one page and sharing your work with others.

For more details about the Library’s crowdsourcing initiative, read this blog post.

New Online: A Civil War Marriage Confronts Illiteracy

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This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. Students of the Civil War are fortunate that so many Americans of the era were literate, and during the war made good use of their ability to read and write. Soldiers wrote to loved ones with stirring sentiments of patriotism, observations […]

Explore, Transcribe and Tag at Crowd.loc.gov!

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This is a guest post by Lauren Algee, senior innovation specialist with the Library’s Digital Innovation Lab. What yet-unwritten stories lie within the pages of Clara Barton’s diaries, the writings of civil rights pioneer Mary Church Terrell or letters written by constituents, friends and colleagues to Abraham Lincoln? With the launch of crowd.loc.gov, the Library […]

New Online: Diarist Documents Eventful Times on the Confederate Home Front

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This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. “A diary, faithfully kept in such eventful times as these, must be interesting to our own children,” wrote Betty Herndon Maury on June 3, 1861, explaining her purpose in keeping a journal after Maury’s family chose to leave Washington, D.C., to […]

John W. Kluge Prize: Drew Gilpin Faust and the Case for the Humanities

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On Wednesday, Sept. 12, Drew Gilpin Faust – historian, former Harvard University president and author of the Bancroft Prize-winning book “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War” – will accept the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. The $1 million Kluge Prize, bestowed through the generosity of […]

The John W. Kluge Prize: Q&A with Drew Gilpin Faust

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Today, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced that Drew Gilpin Faust—historian, Harvard University president and author of the Bancroft Prize-winning book “This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War”—will receive the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. The $1 million Kluge Prize, bestowed through the generosity of the […]

New Online: Joseph Holt Papers

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This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. The papers of Joseph Holt (1807–94), now available online, document his career as a lawyer, commissioner of patents, United States postmaster general, secretary of war and judge advocate general of the United States Army. Holt is best known for his service […]

New Online: Rare Photo of Harriet Tubman Preserved for Future Generations

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This post draws on the article “Building Black History: A New View of Tubman,” published in the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The issue is available in its entirety online. A remarkable photo album brought two major institutions together to restore and preserve an important piece of American history. Today, the […]

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

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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 […]

African-American History Month: Making Freedom the Law of the Land

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To celebrate African-American History Month and the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday—Feb. 12, 1809—we are sharing an article from “Building Black History,” the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine, available in its entirety online. The Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln understood, was a wartime measure that wouldn’t ensure the freedom of […]