American Treasures of the Library of Congress
The American Treasures of the Library of Congress exhibition is an unprecedented permanent exhibition of the rarest, most interesting or significant items relating to America's past, drawn from every corner of the world's largest library.
Selected highlight from this exhibition:
Wildflowers of ColoradoBy mid-life Helen Hunt had become one of the most prolific and respected poets, as well as a popular writer of children’s stories and travel sketches. While visiting in the Rockies, Hunt met and married Colorado Springs banker and railroad magnate William Jackson in 1875. Her charming essay celebrating the beauty of the wildflowers of her adopted state was originally published in 1878. To honor Jackson’s memory and her personal encouragement, painter Alice Stewart published and illustrated a limited edition of one hundred copies of this essay with twelve in-text marginal watercolors. This unique copy is opened to one of its extra six spectacular full-page watercolors.
From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America
From Haven to Home is a Library of Congress exhibition marking 350 years of Jewish life in America. The exhibition 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.
A selection of highlights from this exhibition includes:
A Russian Jewish Colony in Cotopaxi, ColoradoIn his report to the board of the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society, which sponsored the colonization activities of a small group of Russian Jewish settlers in Cotopaxi, Colorado, Julius Schwarz wrote: "It is with much satisfaction and justifiable pride that I pronounce the agricultural colony of the Rocky Mountains a full and complete success and the question whether Jews are fit to be farmers, solved and answered in the affirmative."
A Wimpel from ColoradoBeginning in southern Germany in the seventeenth century, the custom developed of transforming the linen swaddling cloth used to wrap the eight-day-old baby boy at his circumcision ceremony into a Torah binder. Called a "wimpel," from the German word for binding, the cloth was cut into strips and sewn together to form a long band which was embroidered or painted, usually by the mother or grandmother, with the child's name, birthdate, and the prayer recited at the circumcision ceremony that the child be blessed to grow to study the Torah, to be married, and to do good deeds. The folk art tradition made its way west with German immigrants in the second half of the nineteenth century as seen in this example from Trinidad, Colorado.
Mapping a Growing Nation: From Independence to Statehood
Mapping a Growing Nation: From Independence to Statehood comprises maps of the northeastern and southeastern regions of the United States. Over time, maps of all fifty states will be included in this online exhibition.
Selected highlight from this exhibition:
The Newly Formed State of ColoradoPublished by the firm of G. W. and C. B. Colton in 1878, on the 102nd anniversary of the United States’ independence from Britain, this striking map shows the newly formed state of Colorado. Major cities, counties, townships, roads, rivers, and railroad lines are shown. Interestingly, the map shows two prime meridians: one measured west from Washington, D.C., and a second measured west from Greenwich, England.
Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America
On April 7, 1805, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left Fort Mandan for points west, beginning the process of "filling in the canvas" of America. This exhibition features the Library's rich collections of exploration material documenting the quest to connect the East and the West by means of a waterway passage.
Selected highlight from this exhibition:
Escalante Expedition DiaryCopied by a lieutenant of the Spanish Royal Corps of Engineers, this volume includes the diary of the expedition conducted by the Franciscan priests Silvestre Veléz de Escalante and Francisco Dominguez. It records their route that started out from Sante Fe on July 29, 1776, making a circuit through what is now Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. The diary describes geographic features and mentions passing the ancient cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde in Colorado.
