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The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of primary source materials related to Connecticut, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, motion pictures, photographs, sheet music, and sound recordings. Provided below is a link to the home page for each relevant digital collection along with selected highlights.
Written materials in the Library's digital collections include but are not limited to books, pamphlets, government documents, and manuscripts. Examples of written materials related to Connecticut are provided for the collections listed below.
The complete Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 20,000 documents. The Lincoln Papers are characterized by a large number of correspondents, including friends and associates from Lincoln's Springfield days, well-known political figures and reformers, and local people and organizations writing to their president.
African American Perspectives gives a panoramic and eclectic review of African American history and culture and is primarily comprised of two collections in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division: the African American Pamphlet Collection and the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection with a date range of 1822 through 1909. Most were written by African-American authors, though some were written by others on topics of particular importance in African-American history. Five Connecticut related items are included.
The collection contains over 145,000 items. The online version contains 4,695 items (equaling about 51,500 images), consists of correspondence, scientific notebooks, journals, blueprints, articles, and photographs documenting Bell's invention of the telephone and his involvement in the first telephone company, his family life, his interest in the education of the deaf, and his aeronautical and other scientific research. You can browse the collection to find over 300 items related Connecticut.
The collection contains more than 11,100 items. This online release presents over 1,300 items with over 4,000 images and a date range of 1824-1931. It includes the complete collection of Sterns contemporary newspapers, Lincoln's law papers, sheet music, broadsides, prints, cartoons, maps, drawings, letters, campaign tickets, and other ephemeral items with at least fifteens items representing Connecticut.
A collection of over two hundred social dance manuals at the Library of Congress. The list begins with a rare late fifteenth-century source, Les basses danses de Marguerite d'Autriche (c.1490) and ends with Ella Gardner's 1929 Public dance halls, their regulation and place in the recreation of adolescents. Along with dance instruction manuals, this online presentation also includes a significant number of antidance manuals, histories, treatises on etiquette, and items from other conceptual categories. Many of the manuals also provide historical information on theatrical dance. All illuminate the manner in which people have joyfully expressed themselves as they dance for and with one another. An 18th century ballroom dance instruction manual published in Connecticut is included.
American Choral Music is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and the Choral Directors Association (ACDA). In 2007, the ACDA and the Library of Congress began a collaborative effort to create this Web site devoted to choral music that would present music in the public domain, available for users to download. Three composers with ties to Connecticut, Dudley Buck, Daniel Gregory Mason, and Horatio W. Parker are highlighted.
This collection of life histories consists of approximately 2,900 documents, compiled and transcribed by more than 300 writers from 24 states including Connecticut, working on the Folklore Project of the Federal Writers Project, a New Deal jobs program that was part of the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration from 1936 to 1940.
The collection comprises 253 published narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920. Also included is the thirty-two-volume set of manuscript sources entitled Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, published between 1904 and 1907. Use the location index to search for Connecticut related items.
The Andrew Jackson Papers is one of twenty-three presidential collections in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. The Jackson archival collection contains more than 26,000 items dating from 1767 to 1874. Search the collection to locate Connecticut related items.
The collection contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves including some from Missouri. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration and assembled and microfilmed in 1941. Browse the collection by location to find Connecticut related items.
The approximately 1,750 baseball scouting reports from the 1950s and 1960s presented here are part of the papers of Branch Rickey (1881-1965), best known as the executive who broke Major League Baseball's color line by signing Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers roster in 1947. Two scouting reports of players affiliated with Connecticut are available.
The collection covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century. It captures the pioneer experience; encounters between Anglo-Americans and the diverse peoples who had preceded them; the transformation of the land by mining, ranching, agriculture, and urban development; the often-turbulent growth of communities and cities; and California's emergence as both a state and a place of uniquely American dreams. Over sixty narratives from persons representing Connecticut are included.
The Capital and the Bay comprises first-person narratives, early histories, historical biographies, promotional brochures, and books of photographs in an attempt to capture in words and pictures a distinctive region as it developed between the onset of European settlement and the first quarter of the twentieth century.
The papers of suffragist, political strategist, and pacifist Carrie Lane Chapman Catt (1859-1947) span the years 1848-1950, with the bulk of the material dating from 1890 to 1920. Over forty items from Connecticut are represented.
The collection consists of a linked set of published congressional records of the United States of America from the Continental Congress through the 43rd Congress, 1774-1875. Search the full text using the search term Connecticut for items relating to the state.
The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress presents the papers of the nineteenth-century African-American abolitionist who escaped from slavery and then risked his own freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer, writer, and publisher. The special presentations for the collection include a Timeline, Douglass in His Own Words, and a Family Tree. Browse the collection by location to locate four items for Connecticut.
The papers of farmer, writer, reformer, landscape architect, urban and suburban planner, and conservationist Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) who was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Frederick Law Olmsted was the most sought-after landscape architect in the United States, together with his creation of the Olmsted firm.
The papers of army officer and first U.S. president George Washington (1732-1799) consist of approximately 77,000 items accumulated by Washington between 1745 and 1799, including correspondence, diaries, and financial and military records. Over 100 items related to Connecticut are included.
The papers of Gideon Welles (1802-1878), newspaper editor and U.S. secretary of the navy under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, consist of 15,070 items (26,302 images), most of which were digitized from 36 reels of previously produced microfilm. Speeches and writings pertaining to Connecticut are represented.
The Madison Papers consists of approximately 12,000 items, spanning the period 1723-1859, captured in some 72,000 digital images. They document the life of the man who came to be known as the Father of the Constitution through correspondence, personal notes, drafts of letters and legislation, an autobiography, legal and financial documents, and his notes on the 1787 federal Constitutional Convention.
Swedish theatrical producer, director, and publisher Lars Schmidt (1917-2009) spent over 50 years in the theater business. This site focuses on Schmidt's efforts to bring English-language plays and musicals, mostly from the United States, to Nordic and Parisian stages. The collection includes thousands of items from Connecticut.
The records of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) span the years from 1839 to 1961 and reflect the activities of precursor organizations involved in the abolition and women's rights movements, state and federal campaigns for women's suffrage, the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and international women's suffrage organizing. Items related to Connecticut are represented.
The collection contains, among other materials, posters, playbills, song sheets, notices, invitations, proclamations, petitions, timetables, leaflets, propaganda, manifestos, ballots, tickets, menus, and business cards. There are more than 28,000 items in the collection with 10,172 available online. The material dates from the seventeenth century to the present day and covers innumerable topics. The collection contains hundreds Connecticut related items.
The papers of Rosa Parks (1913-2005) span the years 1866-2006, with the bulk of the material dating from 1955 to 2000.The collection, which contains approximately 7,500 items in the Manuscript Division, as well as 2,500 photographs in the Prints and Photographs Division, documents many aspects of Parks private life and public activism on behalf of civil rights for African Americans. The collection contains a few Connecticut related photographs.
This collection is made up of digital versions of books from the Library of Congress General Collections on a wide range of subjects. Most of the books in this collection were published in the United States before 1923 and are in English, but there are also some materials in foreign languages or that were published elsewhere. The collection features hundreds of works of fiction published between 1800 and 1922, including books intended for children and young adults. The collection will grow over time. Browse the collection by location to find twelve items for Connecticut.
This collection consists of 105 library books and manuscripts, totaling approximately 8,700 pages drawn principally from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, with a few from the General Collections. Search the collection to locate a Connecticut related item.
This collection documents Jefferson's whole life, both public and personal as a delegate to the second Continental Congress, Virginia legislator and governor, diplomat and residence in France, secretary of state, and president. Search the collection to locate items for Connecticut.
The William A. Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection (ca. 500 items) spans the years 1773 to 1987, with the bulk of the material dating from the Civil War period, 1861-1865. The collection consists of correspondence, pay vouchers, orders, muster rolls, enlistment and discharge papers, receipts, contracts, affidavits, tax records, miscellaneous military documents, and printed matter. At least twenty Connecticut related items are included.
The collections of the Prints & Photographs Division include photographs, fine and popular prints and drawings, posters, and architectural and engineering drawings. While international in scope, the collections are particularly rich in materials produced in, or documenting the history of, the United States and the lives, interests and achievements of the American people. Search using the subject heading United States--Connecticut to find digital images related to Connecticut, such as prints, photographs, and political cartoons.
The Architecture, Design, and Engineering category covers about 40,000 drawings (described in more than 3,900 catalog records), spanning 1600 to 1989, with most dating between 1880 and 1940. The designs are primarily for sites and structures in the U.S. (especially Washington, D.C.), as well as Europe and Mexico.
This collection represents the photographic files of one of America's earliest news picture agencies. The collection richly documents sports events, theater, celebrities, crime, strikes, disasters, political activities including the woman suffrage campaign, conventions and public celebrations.
In 1954 the Library of Congress purchased approximately 10,000 original, duplicate, and copy negatives from the daughters of Levin C. Handy who was apprenticed at the age of twelve to his uncle, famed Civil War photographer Mathew B. Brady. The majority of the Brady-Handy negatives are of Civil War and post-Civil War portraits. A few negatives representing Connecticut are represented.
In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American in the twentieth century to play professional major league baseball. Before joining the majors, Jackie Robinson played in the Negro Leagues with the Kansas City, Monarchs. Robinson's departure from the Negro Leagues and the ensuing recruitment of other great African-American players marked the decline and eventual close of the Negro Leagues in 1960. The collection includes a photo of Jackie Robinson, Rachel Robinson, and their three children (David, Sharon, and Jackie, Jr.) at home in Stamford, Connecticut.
Contains more than four thousand original drawings by American book, magazine, and newspaper illustrators, made primarily between 1880 and 1910. Over 100 drawings related to Connecticut are represented.
The Cartoon Drawings filing series spans the late 1700s to the present, primarily from 1880 to 1980. The cartoons cover people and events throughout the world, but most of the images were intended for publication in American newspapers and magazines.
Herbert L. Block (1909-2001), known to the world as Herblock, was one of the most influential political commentators and editorial cartoonists in American history. His long chronicle of major social and political events began to appear in newspapers in 1929, and he continued to document domestic and international events for 72 years. Drawings from Connecticut are represented.
The Caroline and Erwin Swann Collection of Caricature and Cartoon contains 2,085 drawings, prints, and paintings that span the years 1780 to 1977. Most of the images are cartoons, comic strips, and periodical illustrations drawn by American artists between 1890 and 1970. Connecticut related items are among those represented.
This collection of more than 500 prints made in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries encompasses several forms of political art, including Connecticut related items.
The Prints and Photographs Division holds one of the largest collections of British political and satirical prints in America. The approximately 9,000 prints (approximately 8,500 distinct images) in the collection highlight British political life, society, fashion, manners, and theater. Connecticut items are represented.
This collection explore the faces, places and events of the U.S. Civil War through photographs, prints and drawings. Browse the collection by location to access items related to Connecticut.
There are approximately 700 daguerreotypes in the Prints & Photographs Division. The majority of the images are portraits, but the collection does include a few early architectural views, outdoor scenes, and copies of works of art. Items from Connecticut are represented.
Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection includes over 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies as well as about 300 color photo lithograph prints, mostly of the eastern United States. Subjects strongly represented in the collection include city and town views, including streets and architecture; parks and gardens; recreation; and industrial and work scenes. Over 100 items from Connecticut are represented.
The Documentary Drawings category includes more than 3,000 drawings made between 1750 and 1970. Eye-witness sketches made during the U.S. Civil War are the most frequently used images. Search the collection for Connecticut related items.
Some 4,700 drawings created by American artist, illustrator, printmaker, and writer Joseph Pennell (1857-1926) cover the period known as America's golden age of illustration and offers researchers many opportunities to gain new insights into that era, the life of an artist, and the role of both traditional and then-new drawing media. Search the collection for the Connecticut related item.
The images in the Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Collection consist of about 175,000 black-and-white negatives of American people and places. The collection of photographs, taken by a group of U.S. government photographers, fall into the public domain and contain more than 2,000 black-and-white photographs of Connecticut.
Photographers working for the U.S. government's Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) between 1939 and 1944 made approximately 1,600 color photographs that depict life in the United States, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Photographs of Connecticut are included.
The William A. Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs provides almost 350 images showing African Americans and related military and social history. Thousands of items from Connecticut are represented.
The Gottscho-Schleisner Collection is comprised of over 29,000 images primarily of architectural subjects, including interiors and exteriors of homes, stores, offices, factories, historic buildings, and other structures. Although subjects are concentrated chiefly in the northeastern United States, more than 2,000 Connecticut related items are represented.
More than 13,000 groups of photographs, prints, drawings, and other visual material offer access to 1.5 million items dating primarily from the 1800s through the present. The groups, called LOTs gather images related to one another by provenance, creator, subject, or format into manageable sets. A few items representing Connecticut are represented.
The Harris & Ewing, Inc. Collection of photographic negatives includes glass and film negatives taken by Harris & Ewing, Inc., which provide excellent coverage of Washington people, events, and architecture, during the period 1905-1945. Over 30 items related to Connecticut are represented.
The online presentation of the Carol M. Highsmith Archive features photographs of landmark buildings and architectural renovation projects in Washington, D.C., and throughout the United States. The first 23 groups of photographs contain more than 2,500 images and date from 1980 to 2005, with many views in color as well as black-and-white. Highsmith, a distinguished and richly-published American photographer, has donated her work to the Library of Congress since 1992. Her generosity in dedicating the rights to the American people for copyright free access also makes this Archive a very special visual resource. The archive contains over one thousand Connecticut photographs
The collections document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types and engineering technologies. Browse the collection by location to locate hundreds of items for Connecticut.
Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) was one of the first American women to achieve prominence as a photographer. The collection includes over 50 Connecticut related items.
This selection of photographs by Balthazar Korab, one of the most respected architectural photographers in the United States, documents 19 projects designed by renowned architect Eero Saarinen. Browse the collection by location to find the Connecticut related items.
This online presentation offers images of nearly 2,500 design sketches for stained glass windows, murals, mosaics, furnishings, metalwork, and interior architecture. The drawings feature striking watercolors created from the 1860s to the 1990s, primarily for churches, synagogues, and other sacred spaces from Connecticut.
More than 3,000 special portrait photographs, called ambrotypes and tintypes, and small card photos called cartes de visite represent both Union and Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War (1861-1865). The portraits often show weapons, hats, canteens, musical instruments, painted backdrops, and other details that enhance the research value of the collection. Search by location to find items related to Connecticut.
The collection includes 400 snapshot photographs made in the course of sound recording expeditions carried out by John Avery Lomax, Alan Lomax, and Ruby Terrill Lomax, between 1934 and ca. 1950 for the Archive of American Folk-Song. Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) and Martha Promise Ledbetter are photographed at the home of John Lomax in Wilton, Connecticut.
More than 5,100 photographic prints and 355 glass negatives in the Prints and Photographs Division's holdings, together with the often extensive captions that describe the photo subjects, reflect the results of this early documentary effort, offering a detailed depiction of working and living conditions of many children--and adults--in the United States between 1908 and 1924. The collection includes more than 100 Connecticut prints and negatives.
The Panoramic Photograph Collection date from 1851 to 1991 and features American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits. Subject strengths include: agricultural life; beauty contests; disasters; engineering work such as bridges, canals and dams; fairs and expositions; military and naval activities, especially during World War I; the oil industry; schools and college campuses; sports; and transportation. All 50 states including Connecticut are represented.
About 15,000 historical prints (ca. 1700-1900) created to document geographic locations such as Connecticut or popular subjects that are sometimes used for advertising and educational purposes. Most are by American printmakers (e.g., Baillie, Currier & Ives, Sachse & Co.).
The online Artist Posters consist of a small but growing proportion of the more than 85,000 posters in the Artist Poster filing series. This series highlights the work of poster artists, both identified and anonymous. It includes posters from the nineteenth century to the present day.
This collection consists of 907 posters produced from 1936 to 1943 by various branches of the WPA. The posters were designed to publicize exhibits, community activities, theatrical productions, and health and educational programs in seventeen states, and the District of Columbia. Connecticut is included but the strongest representation is from California, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
The Yanker Poster Collection includes more than 3,000 political, propaganda, and social issue posters and handbills, dating 1927-1980. Most posters are from the United States, but over 55 other countries and the United Nations are also represented.
The Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project was a field project conducted in 1978 by the American Folklife Center, in partnership with the National Park Service. The quilt images convey the range of contemporary quiltmaking styles in the United States, while the recorded interview segments provide information on the quiltmakers and their work within the context of their lives and region and a more in-depth portrait of quiltmaking in daily life. Images of three quilts from Connecticut residents are highlighted.
Stereographs consist of two nearly identical photographs or photomechanical prints, paired to produce the illusion of a single three-dimensional image, usually when viewed through a stereoscope. Items from Connecticut are represented.
Comprised of 1,395 photographs taken by American photographer Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964) between 1932 and 1964, the bulk of the collection consists of portrait photographs of celebrities, including many figures from the Harlem Renaissance. A much smaller portion of the collection is an assortment of American landscapes. A few of the photographs represent Connecticut.
The collection consists of jazz photographs taken by writer-photographer William P. Gottlieb, from 1938 to 1948, the Golden Age of Jazz when swing reached its peak and modern jazz developed. Connecticut related photographs are represented.
The photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party, a collection housed in the Manuscript Division, document the National Woman's Party's push for ratification of the 19th Amendment as well as its later efforts for passage of the Equal Rights. Connecticut related photographs are available.
The Library of Congress has custody of the largest and most comprehensive cartographic collection in the world with collections numbering over 5.5 million maps, 80,000 atlases, 6,000 reference works, over 500 globes and globe gores, 3,000 raised relief models, and a large number of cartographic materials in other formats, including over 19,000 CDs/DVDs.
The Library oversees one of the largest collections of motion pictures in the world. Acquired primarily through copyright deposit, exchange, gift and purchase, the collection spans the entire history of the cinema. The following moving image collections contain materials related to Connecticut.
Features 20th century motion picture presentations of school and leisure activities in Connecticut.
This site features 341 motion pictures, 81 disc sound recordings, and other related materials, such as photographs and original magazine articles. There are two motion pictures related to Connecticut.
The National Screening Room showcases the riches of the Library's vast moving image collection, designed to make otherwise unavailable movies, both copyrighted and in the public domain, accessible to the viewers worldwide. A few Connecticut related items are included.
The Library of Congress holds the nation's largest public collection of sound recordings (music and spoken word) and radio broadcasts, some three million recordings in all.
The collection contains 118 hours of recordings documenting North American English dialects. The recordings include speech samples, linguistic interviews, oral histories, conversations, and excerpts from public speeches. The collection includes recordings from forty-three states.
The Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature at the Library of Congress dates back to 1943 and contains nearly two thousand recordings - of poets and prose writers participating in literary events at the Library's Capitol Hill campus as well as sessions at the Library's Recording Laboratory. In digitizing the archive and presenting it online, the Library hopes to greatly broaden its use and value. Search the collection for recordings of poets affiliated with Connecticut.
These transcripts present a window into the lives of U.S. diplomats and the major diplomatic crisis and issues that the United States faced during the second half of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st. Five Connecticut related interviews are represented in the Frontline Diplomacy collection.
The Songs of America allows you to explore American history as documented in the work of some of our country's greatest composers, poets, scholars, and performers. From popular and traditional songs, to poetic art songs and sacred music, the relationship of song to historical events from the nation's founding to the present is highlighted through more than 90,000 online items. There are more than fifty items representing Connecticut.
The Library of Congress National Jukebox, makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge. The Jukebox includes recordings from the extraordinary collections of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation and other contributing libraries and archives. Search the National Jukebox to locate items pertaining to Connecticut.
The Library's sheet music collection include popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra.
This collection spans the period from the turn of the nineteenth century to the 1880s, although a majority of the song sheets were published during the height of the craze, from the 1850s to the 1870s.
The collection features 147 items of sheet music that reference baseball from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Connecticut related items are represented.
The Civil War Sheet Music Collection consists of over 2500 pieces culled from the Library's collections. This collection is unique in that it offers a contemporary perspective from both sides of the conflict, unfiltered by generations of historical interpretation. The collection is limited to music about the war and therefore does not include every piece of sheet music published during the war. Connecticut themed sheet music is available.
This sheet music collection consists of approximately 9,000 items published from 1800 to 1922, although the majority is from 1850 to 1920. The bulk was published in many different cities in the United States, but some of the items bear European imprints. Most of the music is written for voice and piano; a significant minority is instrumental.
The Songs of America presentation allows you to explore American history as documented in the work of some of our country's greatest composers, poets, scholars, and performers. From popular and traditional songs, to poetic art songs and sacred music, the relationship of song to historical events from the nation's founding to the present is highlighted through more than 80,000 online items. Connecticut related items are represented.
Consists of over 15,000 pieces of sheet music registered for copyright during the years 1820 to 1860. This collection complements an earlier American Memory project, Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1870-1885 as well as the Band Music from the Civil War Era and Sheet Music from the Civil War Era and includes five Connecticut themed pieces.
Consists of over 47,000 pieces of sheet music, including Connecticut items registered for copyright during the years 1870 to 1885. Included are popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra.
