This Earth Day, we’re taking a look at the Library’s incredibly cute pocket globe collection in the Geography and Map Division. 🌎
Learn more about these tiny treasures: blogs.loc.gov/loc/2022/05/pocket-globe...
Also on the train was a coffin containing the body of Lincoln's son, Willie, who had died three years earlier at the age of 11. The president’s remains were displayed in several cities along the route, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Albany, Columbus and Chicago. www.loc.gov/exhibits/lin...
Photo shows a Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Railroad engine, with a portrait of Abraham Lincoln mounted on the front. The engine was one of several used to carry Lincoln's body from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Ill. This photograph is a copy, probably made in the early 1900s, of a photo taken in 1865. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
On this day in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln's funeral train left Washington, D.C., en route to its final destination of Springfield, Illinois. The journey took 13 days and covered 1,700 miles through seven states. The train that carried the slain president was called the “Lincoln Special.” 🧵
It's National Library Week. ❤️ That's it, that's the post.
An image promoting Family Days at the Library of Congress features images of activities that will be available at the Library, as well as headshots of guests (Scott McCloud, Raina Telgemeier). Text reads: Free Saturday activities monthly, 10:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. See dates at loc.gov/events.
NEWS: The Library will host monthly Family Days throughout 2026, featuring programs tied to America’s 250th anniversary. Join us! newsroom.loc.gov/news/library-unveils-spr...
Friday vibes.
It is Haiku Day
Let's celebrate this art form
Please, share your poems!
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Different types of "yokai" from a 19th century Japanese book. They are in all shapes and sizes, and some resemble real-world creatures, from frogs to dogs to insects. Others look uniquely monstrous. Some are just walking while others carry weapons.
A yellow demon with a hammer prepares to strike a bright red, one-eyed demon resembling a beetle. A green demon with a spear stands in front of them, watching the scene unfold.
On the left, a headless demon holds up a mirror for a demon applying makeup to its face. On the right, a demon with three eyes stands on its hands and sticks out its tongue at a bear-like demon with a human-looking face, also sticking out its tongue. Several creatures appear to peer at the scene through small slits drawn onto the paper, possibly meant to appear like cracks in reality.
Tag yourself. 👹 "Yokai" are a class of supernatural beings that have long been a favorite subject for Japanese artists and storytellers. These are from “Kyōsai’s illustrated story of 100 demons," a recently digitized volume from the Library's Asian Division.
See more. ⬇️ www.loc.gov/resource/asi...
Along with the Europa Clipper, "In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa," will travel 1.8 billion miles to reach Jupiter and begin flybys of its icy moon in 2030. Enjoy this video that features Limón reading her poem, which has also been adapted into a picture book.
Poet Laureate Ada Limón watches the Europa Clipper lift off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, October 14, 2024. The clipper, bound for Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, bears a vault plate engraved with Limón's poem, "In Praise of Mystery." Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.
The lower half of Europa Clipper’s vault plate, showing the poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón (lower right), a drawing representing the Jovian system that will host the names of 2.6 million people flying with mission on a microchip (top right), a tribute to planetary scientist Ron Greeley (bottom left), and the radio emission lines known a the ‘Water Hole’ (center). Image credit: NASA
Artemis II 🤝 National Poetry Month
Good timing, since the mission helped so many people realize that space exploration goes hand in hand with poetry.
It's been making us think of NASA's Europa Clipper, which literally has a poem by 24th U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón engraved on it. 🧵
Photograph shows French brothers Michel (age 4) and Edmond Navratil (age 2) of Nice, France, seated on their mother's lap. To board the ship, their father assumed the name Louis Hoffman and used their nicknames, Lolo and Mamon. Their father died in the disaster of the RMS TITANIC, which struck an iceberg in April 1912 and sank, killing more than 1,500 people.
Many newspapers reported on the boys, known as "the waifs of the deep," ultimately helping their French mother find them from an ocean away, and creating one happy ending in the wake of unimaginable tragedy.
Discover more Titanic stories in Chronicling America: guides.loc.gov/chronicling-...
A page of The evening world (New York, N.Y.), April 20, 1912 features a photograph of the Titanic orphans.
A page of The Washington herald (Washington, D.C.), April 21, 1912 features a photograph of the Titanic orphans.
Two Library of Congress archives — the Prints and Photographs Division and the Chronicling America historical newspaper archive — can be used to tell a more complete story of two young #Titanic survivors whose identities became a mystery after their father (and kidnapper) went down with the ship. 🧵
Sze was named poet laureate in September 2025 and began working to expand appreciation of poetry through his focus on translating poetry originally written in languages other than English. His newest book, “Transient Worlds: On Translating Poetry,” is out today.
NEWS: This National Poetry Month, the Library of Congress has appointed Arthur Sze to serve a second term as the nation’s 25th Poet Laureate for 2026-2027. newsroom.loc.gov/news/u.s.-poet-laureate-...
Learn more about the Hunt collection at the Library.
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www.loc.gov/item/video-1...
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue at 81st Street, New York, New York. Preliminary drawing for Fifth Avenue entrance wing. Richard Morris Hunt, architect.
On this day in 1870, The Metropolitan Museum of Art was formally established with an act of the New York legislature. The papers of architect and founding museum trustee Richard Morris Hunt are held at the Library of Congress, and among them is his sketch of the Met's iconic Fifth Avenue entrance.
The American Folklife Center has likely the largest collection of ethnographic cylinder recordings in the world, and it is cared for by the Library's National Audio Visual Conservation Center. Part of that care is state-of-the-art digitization, seen in the video above.
blogs.loc.gov/folklife/202...
Are you a fan of the band BTS? You may have seen a teaser video last month for the band's new album, "Arirang," which shares its name with a beloved Korean folk song. The video alluded to the first recording ever made of that song, a nearly 130-year-old wax cylinder preserved here at the Library. 🧵
The IRENE system at the Library of Congress can be used to create a digital file of a record using optical imaging, without ever coming into physical contact with the item. It was recently used to scan a 94-year-old recording of an Amelia Earhart speech.
Read more: blogs.loc.gov/loc/2026/04/...
These maps have their own kind of beauty, and alongside today's Artemis II mission, they tell a story about enduring human ingenuity and curiosity. blogs.loc.gov/maps/2020/03...
Plate 649 from Selenographia, sive, Lunæ descriptio : atque accurata … delineatio. In quâ simul cæterorum omnium planetarum nativa facies, variæque observationes … figuris accuratissimè æri incisis, sub aspectum ponuntur … Addita est, lentes expoliendi nova ratio …Map by Johannes Hevelius, 1647. Rare Books and Special Collections Division. Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687), often referred to as the founder of lunar topography, came from a wealthy family of brewers. He built an observatory in his hometown of Gdansk in 1641, and published an atlas of the moon titled Selenographia in 1647. This map is from that atlas.
"Copy, moon joy." 🌕✨
The #ArtemisII mission's stunning new images of the moon are making us think about the lunar maps created long before space travel was possible for humankind. This one is by Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687), often referred to as the founder of lunar topography. 🧵
MAGAZINE MONDAY | Middle-earth. Lilliput. Treasure Island. The Land of Oz. There are some 230 literary maps held in the Library's Geography and Map Division. Read more in the current issue of the Library of Congress Magazine. lcm.loc.gov/issue/march-...
This photo comes from a cultural research survey conducted in Chicago in 1977 by the American Folklife Center, which documented more than 20 communities there. Many similar surveys in the collection feature photos like this one.
Explore, and prepare to be hungry: blogs.loc.gov/folklife/202...
A customer poses for a photo in front of a hot dog food truck near Chicago’s Jazz Alley. Jonas Dovydenas, photographer. July 10, 1977. Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection (AFC 1981/004), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Folklife = FOOD. 🌭 Part of the mission of the Library's American Folklife Center is to document and share living cultural traditions. And that includes food trucks, food stalls and other eateries that may not be brick-and-mortar, but are still part of the fabric of their respective communities. 🧵
![[Robert Frost, half-length portrait, facing front, looking down, reading] / World-Telegram photo by F. Palumbo.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:o4ro452d4q3ejzr75btaqlhj/bafkreiafd7h7k232o6saf4xigdd5w6anjtmj7ouwyygcbnfc3hurolirbe)
[Robert Frost, half-length portrait, facing front, looking down, reading] / World-Telegram photo by F. Palumbo.
April is National Poetry Month! The Library of Congress Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature dates back to 1943 and contains nearly 2,000 recordings of poets, from Audre Lorde to Robert Frost to Margaret Atwood.
Explore it: www.loc.gov/collections/...
The Library is a universal and enduring source of knowledge and creativity, but the archive would be nothing without the artists, writers, researchers, scientists and explorers (including explorers of space!) who have contributed to it. Per aspera ad astra, from all of us here at the Library. 💫
A waxing crescent moon crowns the Torch of Learning atop the Jefferson Building dome, December 5, 2024. Photo by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress.
"We have a beautiful moonrise, we're headed right at it." -Commander Reid Wiseman minutes into the #ArtemisII launch on Wednesday. This photo from December 2024 shows the Library of Congress Jefferson Building's "Torch of Learning" appearing to graze the tip of the distant crescent moon. 🧵
Photo Credit: Shawn Miller / Library of Congress. National Ambassador for Young People s Literature Mac Barnett
NEWS: There are four upcoming dates for “Consider the Picture Book,” a curated series of conversations hosted by National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Mac Barnett about the power of picture books. newsroom.loc.gov/news/nationa...
April 26, 1889 edition of Fisherman & Farmer, Edention, N.C. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, Chapel Hill, NC. Archived issues are available in digital format from the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
The Eiffel Tower remained the tallest human-made structure in the world for more than 40 years. This article from the Library's Chronicling America historic newspaper archive illustrates how news of its completion was presented to audiences around the world.
Paris. The Eiffel Tower is a most uncanny structure, no matter in which part of Paris one is visiting, the tower dominates the landscape. Here is the view the "doughboy" got of it from the doorway of an apartment house. Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940, photographer. March 1919. American National Red Cross photograph collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Aerial view of Paris, France, from a balloon, showing the Seine River and the Eiffel Tower at center, and buildings of the Exposition universelle. Liébert, A. (Alphonse), 1826-1913 or 1914, photographer. 1889. Tissandier collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The Eiffel Tower was completed and dedicated on this day in 1889. Erected over 26 months as the main attraction of the 1889 Paris Exposition, it was originally supposed to be a temporary structure. Hard to imagine, right?
The Library has a wide array of images of the iconic tower. 🧵
