WASHINGTON — The Library of Congress unveils an eclectic new exhibition drawing from the institute’s vast historical archives and designed to make the library a more popular and accessible destination for visitors and tourists.
“Collecting Memories” – which opens to the public on June 13 – is an intensively curated exhibition that brings together items as varied as ancient Hebrew religious texts, the contents of President Abraham Lincoln’s pockets when he was murdered The first Spider-Man sketches and videos appeared in 1865 Carlos Santana during a concert.
“These items are an expression of our collective history,” said Carla Hayden, the official librarian of Congress. “We want people to see themselves in our exhibition.”
The new exhibit is part of a campaign to make the Library of Congress more attractive to casual tourists and school groups. David Rubenstein, the prominent local philanthropist who donated $10 million to the initiative, said the goal was to make the Library of Congress a regular part of tourist itineraries, along with the monuments and several museums.
“Normally you don’t go to the Library of Congress because you don’t know that the Library of Congress is more than just a library,” Rubinstein said.
The dimly lit exhibit hall, housed in the Thomas Jefferson Building, next to the Supreme Court and across the street from the Capitol, is bursting with statues and antiquities. Slideshows play on the walls and display cases display vibrant tapestries, ancient texts, photographs and historical curiosities such as former President James Madison’s crystal flute and Lincoln’s pocket knife and wallet – including a $5 Confederate bill. The life story of Omar Ibn Said, an African man kidnapped into American slavery, is told in his own autobiography, written in Arabic.
David Mandel, the library’s director of exhibitions, said the goal was to give visitors the feeling of being “surrounded and immersed in the library’s collections.”
The exhibition will last approximately 18 months, until the end of 2025. Some of the more delicate items on display will be exchanged at six-month intervals to protect them from exposure. The 127 items on display are all from the Library of Congress’s own internal collections, which number more than 178 million items.
At times the selections seem almost arbitrary, but curators have embedded small connections and juxtapositions throughout – something Mandel described as the “synergies between the stories.”
An illustrated 15th-century Hebrew text stands next to a colorful Ethiopian religious book written in Amharic. Previously top secret photos of the original Trinity test nuclear explosion stand next to a handwritten report by a Japanese survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima, detailing the ordeal and its aftermath.
A section focusing on refugee experiences combines photos of Syrian refugees who arrived in Michigan in 2015 with a 1949 “statement of identity” by famed Jewish historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt, who was a German refugee in America at the time and classified as stateless . .
A multi-screen video wall plays a rotating mix of old videos, ranging from home movies of ordinary families from the 1950s to footage of Charlie Chaplin and clips of the Rockettes’ performances. Ancient Sumerian cuneiform tablets—possibly the earliest examples of written language—share space with clips of D.C. native Duke Ellington performing as a black dance troupe performs an acrobatic Lindy Hop.
“The stories told by these objects continue to inspire and amaze, decades or even centuries after they were created,” says Hayden.
Visitors to the new exhibition must purchase a timed entry pass, available free of charge at loc.gov/visit.