Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First 100 Years. The Library of Congress Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First 100 Years Manuscript Division, Library of Congress Search by Keyword | Browse the Name and Subject Index | Browse the Chronological List In honor of the Manuscript Division's centennial, its staff has selected for online display approximately ninety representative documents spanning from the fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. Included are the papers of presidents, cabinet ministers, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, military officers and diplomats, reformers and political activists, artists and writers, scientists and inventors, and other prominent Americans whose lives reflect our country's evolution.
The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. Compromise of 1850. Henry Clay, U.S. senator from Kentucky, was determined to find a solution. In 1820 he had resolved a fiery debate over the spread of slavery with his Missouri Compromise.
Now, thirty years later, the matter surfaced again within the walls of the Capitol. But this time the stakes were higher -- nothing less than keeping the Union together. There were several points at issue: ¥ The United States had recently acquired a vast territory -- the result of its war with Mexico. . ¥ California -- a territory that had grown tremendously with the gold rush of 1849, had recently petitioned Congress to enter the Union as a free state. . ¥ There was a dispute over land: Texas claimed that its territory extended all the way to Santa Fe. ¥ Finally, there was Washington, D.C.
On January 29, 1850, the 70-year-old Clay presented a compromise. Of all the bills that made up the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was the most controversial. Previous | next. NYPL Digital Schomburg Images of African Americans from the 19th Century. Liberia - The African-American Mosaic Exhibition | Exhibitions (Library of Congress) Liberia Joseph Jenkins Roberts (1809-1876), a wealthy Monrovia merchant who had emigrated in 1829 from Petersburg, Virginia, became the first black ACS governor of Liberia in 1841. In 1848, he was elected the first president of an independent Liberia. He achieved international recognition for the new country before leaving the presidency in 1856.
After many years as president of Liberia College, Roberts again served as Liberian president from 1872-1876. Jane Roberts, ca. 1855 Rufus Anson Daguerreotype Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (10b) Joseph Jenkins Roberts, ca. 1855 Rufus Anson Daguerreotype Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (10a) Bookmark this item: Beginnings of the American Colonization Society President Roberts Seeks American Support Bookmark this item: American Architectural Influence in Liberia Liberian Currency Mission at Cape Palmas. Documenting the American South: North American Slave Narratives. Been Here So Long. An Introduction to the American Slave Narratives Journalists and other writers employed by the Federal Writers Project, part of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration (WPA), gathered the American Slave Narratives during 1936-1938.
Over 2,000 interviews with ex-slaves were collected during these years of the Great Depression and eventually compiled by George P. Rawick in The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, 1979. While the narratives concern the personal experiences of African Americans during slavery and after emancipation, the project itself was a product of the 1930s, and should be understood in this light. The Ex-Slave Interviews in the Depression Cultural Context The New Deal Network has selected seventeen of these narratives to provide teachers and students with a useful sample of the kind of work undertaken by the Federal Writer's Project.
Gallery: On the Trail . . . Sam Houston a Texas Hero. The Rev. J. W. Loguen, as a slave and as a freeman.: A narrative of real life.