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Posted by: Julie Miller
In letters to her sister, Margaret Hunter Hall (1799-1876), wife of the popular British travel author Basil Hall (1788-1844), recorded her impressions of the United States during a trip the couple took in 1827-1828. These are available for research in the Margaret Hunter Hall Papers in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
Posted in: Early America, International History, Letters
Posted by: Josh Levy
In 1982, former United States Marine Corps historian H. C. L. Merillat published a history of the Guadalcanal Campaign based largely on his wartime diaries, but he left out entries that showed him struggling with his role in the military and in the war. Unpublished excerpts reveal Merillat’s thoughts and insecurities during the campaign and reveal some of the burdens of recording history as it happened.
Posted in: Journalism, War and Society
Posted by: Michelle Krowl
In summer 1861, William J. Rhees, chief clerk of the Smithsonian Institution, wrote to his wife about Professor Thaddeus Lowe’s balloon experiments on the National Mall . . . including the reason one ascent never got off the ground. Because (almost) nothing in Washington happens without first securing a purchase order or an appropriation.
Posted in: Aviation, Civil War, Science and Technology, War and Society
Posted by: Josh Levy
Supplementary items from the Manuscript Division’s Walt Whitman Papers in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection are newly available for transcription through the Library of Congress By the People program.
Posted in: Literature Culture & the Arts