 From Haven to Home:
350 Years of Jewish Life in America
Northwest Gallery,
Thomas Jefferson Building
September 9 - December 18, 2004
Monday - Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm
From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America features
more than two hundred treasures of American Judaica from the
collections of the Library of Congress, augmented by a selection
of important loans from other cooperating cultural institutions. The exhibition examines the Jewish experience in the United
States through the prisms of “Haven” and “Home.” “Haven” opens
with a selection of pivotal documents expressing the ideals of
freedom that have come to represent the promise of America. This
section also explores the formative experiences of Jewish immigrants
as they struggled to become American. The “Home” section
focuses on the opportunities and challenges inherent in a free
society and the uniquely American Jewish religious movements,
institutions, and associations created in response.
In telling the story of diverse groups of Jewish immigrants
who made the United States their home, the exhibition examines
the intertwined themes, and sometimes conflicting aims, of accommodation,
assertion, adaptation, and acculturation that have characterized
the American Jewish experience from its beginnings in 1654 to
the present day.
Links: Online
Exhibition Preview | Read
News Release
"With an Even Hand": Brown v. Board at Fifty
 Great
Hall Gallery South,
1st Floor,
Thomas Jefferson Building,
May 13 - November 13, 2004
Monday - Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm
On May 17, l954, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Brown
v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, declaring that "separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal." This decision
was pivotal to the struggle for racial desegregation in the United
States. This exhibition commemorates the fiftieth anniversary
of this landmark judicial case. The title quotes Robert L. Carter,
one of the counsel representing the plaintiffs. In his oral argument
before the Supreme Court on December 9, 1952, Carter argued against
the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools
and stated: "It is our position that any legislative or
governmental classification must fall with an even hand on all
persons similarly situated."
“With an Even Hand” is divided into three sections.
The exhibition examines precedent-setting court cases that laid
the ground work for the Brown v. Board decision, explores the
Supreme Court argument and the public’s response to it,
and closes with an overview of this profound decision’s
aftermath. The exhibition features more than one hundred items
from the Library’s extensive holdings on this subject,
including books, documents, photographs, personal papers, manuscripts,
maps, music, films, political cartoons, and prints. A film compilation
captures the historic events and highlights media coverage of
the struggle for desegregation.
Links: Online
Exhibition | Read
News Release
American Treasures of the Library of Congress
Southwest Gallery and Pavilion, 2nd Floor, Thomas Jefferson
Building,
Ongoing Exhibition
Monday - Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm
The "American Treasures" exhibition
showcases some 300 items that represent the breadth and depth
of the Library's American historical items.
Featured within the
exhibition from May 24 - November 13, 2004, is a special
presentation entitled From the
Home Front and the Front Lines: Veterans History Project
Collections of the Library of Congress, which consists of
original materials and oral histories drawn from the Veterans
History
Project collections
at the Library
of Congress. With an emphasis on World War I (1914-1918),
World War II (1939-1945), the Korean War (1950-1953), the
Vietnam
War (1965-1975), and the Persian Gulf War (1991), the Veterans
History
Project, by act of Congress, collects and preserves the experiences
of America's war veterans and those who supported them.
With nearly 1,700 veterans passing away each day, the collection
of these personal accounts of service men and women has become
an urgent endeavor. This exhibition features the collections
of these men and women in the form of their first-hand accounts
of war documented in correspondence, photographs, diaries, bound
volumes and albums, as well as maps, flags, and military papers.
The selections presented in the American Treasures gallery are
representative of the compelling and unique items already part
of this treasured collection.
To explore the Veterans History Project online go to http://www.loc.gov/vets/.
Links: Online Exhibition | Read
Article
Bob Hope and American Variety
 The
Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment, Ground Floor, Thomas
Jefferson Building, Ongoing Exhibition
Monday - Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm
Bob Hope has been a friend of
every president of the United States since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Now on view are engaging photographs of Bob Hope making the presidents
laugh, a personal holiday greeting from Richard M. Nixon and
scores of political jokes from Hope's 89,000-plus-page personal
Joke File, displayed in its entirety at the Library. The gallery
also includes items from the newly acquired Bob Hope Collection,
materials from the rich and varied collections of the Library,
and objects borrowed from the Bob Hope Archives.
Links: Online
Exhibition | Read
Article
Here to Stay:
The Legacy of George and Ira Gershwin
 Ground
Floor (across from the Coolidge Auditorium) Thomas Jefferson
Building
Ongoing Exhibition
Monday - Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm
The Gershwin Room is a tribute
to the enduring contribution to American music by the Gershwin
brothers and the permanent exhibition area for materials from
the Library's George and Ira Gershwin Collection. This inaugural
exhibition includes George's piano and desk, Ira's typing table,
a self-portrait oil painting of each brother, and other documents
that chronicle their lives and careers. Porgy and Bess will
be featured for the first few months of the exhibition, and a
selection of musical manuscripts from other Gershwin stage and
screen shows such as Lady Be Good, Funny Face, Girl
Crazy and Of Thee I Sing will also be on
display, as well as the holograph score for George Gershwin's
classic Rhapsody in Blue.
Link: Read
Article
The Earth as Art
 Geography
and Map Reading Room Corridor, B Level, James Madison Building,
Ongoing Exhibition
Monday - Friday, 8:30am to 5:00pm
The Library of Congress, in collaboration
with the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA)
and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), commemorate the 30th anniversary
of the launch of the Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS)
with an exhibition titled "The Earth as Art." ERTS
was the first satellite launched by the United States whose specific
purpose was to record imagery of the earth's surface. The exhibit
features 30" x 30" high-resolution prints of images
from LANDSAT 7, the current successor to the original ERTS platform.
Each of the 41 images has been selected for its artistic appeal
rather than for its scientific significance. Some of the landmarks
featured in "The Earth as Art" are the Ganges River
Delta, Mt. Kilimanjaro, the center-post irrigated farms of Garden
City, Kan., and the Everglades.
Links: Online
Exhibition - Geography
and Map Reading Room
The Gerry Mulligan Collection
 Foyer
of the Performing Arts Reading Room, LM 113, James Madison Building
Ongoing Exhibition
Monday - Friday, 8:30am to 5:00pm
Gerry Mulligan’s gold-plated
Conn baritone saxophone is the centerpiece of a new permanent
exhibition. Other items on display from the Library’s Gerry
Mulligan Collection are photographs that document Mulligan’s
long career, music manuscripts in Mulligan’s hand, record
covers, performance programs and posters, and a 1981 Grammy that
he won for the best jazz instrumental performance in his album
Walk on the Water.
Links: News
Release | Read
Article
By Securing to Authors: Copyright, Commerce, and Creativity
in America
4th Floor (Green/Blue Corridors), James Madison Building
Ongoing Exhibition, Monday - Friday, 8:30am to 5:00pm
The exhibition features a wide
range of items that have been copyrighted in America, including
original Ken and Barbie dolls, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have
a Dream speech and a statue of the "Maltese falcon" that
was used in the film of the same name.
Links: The U.S.
Copyright Office Home Page
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