Archive for the Abraham Lincoln Category (62 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.

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: 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 […]

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 […]

Inquiring Minds: Digital Artist Gives New Life to Historical Scenes and People

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Marina Amaral was studying international relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, when she first tried her hand at digitally colorizing a historical photograph. She had no formal background in art or photography, but since childhood she had enjoyed working with Photoshop in her free time. One day, while not feeling terribly […]

New Online: Abraham Lincoln Papers

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This is a guest post by Michelle Krowl, a historian in the Manuscript Division. Regular visitors to the Library of Congress website may be scratching their heads right now, thinking, “Aren’t the Abraham Lincoln Papers already online?” It is true that the bulk of the Abraham Lincoln Papers have long been available through the Library’s […]

Free to Use and Reuse: The Story of Abraham Lincoln

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Last week, the Library announced a new online presentation of Abraham Lincoln’s papers from his time as a lawyer, congressman and the 16th president. The refreshed digital collection follows a multiyear project to update the Library’s previous presentation with additional features, full-color images and new material. To celebrate, we’re highlighting items from the Library’s vast […]

A Ghostly Image: Spirit Photographs

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This is a guest post by Kristi Finefield, a reference librarian in the Prints and Photographs Division. An earlier version was published on “Picture This,” the division’s blog. Can you take a photograph of a ghost? Will a spirit pose for your camera? Looking at “spirit photographs” from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, you […]