Books & Writing
Andrew Carnegie, Libraries and D.C. History
Last week the Library of Congress held a seminar on Andrew Carnegie‘s legacy of establishing public libraries in the United States and other countries, beginning in the late 19th century. About 1,600 were built in the United States. One of them is at Mount Vernon Square in Washington. Today it houses the Historical Society of…
Read MoreQuoted as ‘Scidmore Scholar’ by Washington Post
The Washington Post published a special supplement today spotlighting the 100th anniversary of the city’s Japanese cherry trees. Reporter Michael Ruane quoted me at length in his very good article about Eliza Scidmore. She’s finally getting her due, after being overlooked for a very long time.
Read MoreScidmore Book Titles at 1893 World’s Fair
Women’s History Month begins this week. The Center for the Book at the Library of Congress kicked things off things with a presentation March 2 on a new scholarly work, Right Here I See My Own Books. The book describes the woman’s library of 8,000 titles assembled for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 (officially the…
Read MoreHow to Be a Successful Biographer
What does it take to be a successful writer of biographies? The question discussed at a literary festival this weekend in Jaipur, India, caught my attention. As a first-time biographer, I need to know the answer. There’s no formula for how to go about it, so am I on the right track? Paul Beckett of…
Read MoreBooks: ‘You Need a Schoolhouse’
I’m heading up to Capitol Hill this evening for a presentation by Stephanie Deutsch, who’s launching her book on the so-called Rosenwald schools. The book, You Need a Schoolhouse, describes the unlikely partnership between educator and black leader Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears, Roebuck. The two men collaborated in efforts…
Read MoreWashington’s New “It” Girl: Eliza Scidmore
Ah, if only I’d stumbled on Eliza Scidmore‘s story sooner I might have a book coming off the presses in time for the centennial of Washington’s first Japanese cherry trees next spring. Talk about the perfect book-signing opportunity! When I began research on Scidmore not long ago, it didn’t hit me at first that the…
Read MoreMeet Eliza Scidmore’s Cousin
The day I received a package in the mail from Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois, is when I finally knew that writing a book on Eliza Scidmore might be possible. The package contained a master’s thesis I’d requested through an interlibrary loan, “Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore: More Than a Footnote in History” (2000). I tracked it…
Read MoreLibrary of Congress Hosts Women’s History Forum
Today is the first Thursday of the month. That calls for packing my lunch so I can join the Women’s History Discussion Group at the Library of Congress. We all crowd into a small conference room and sit around sharing ideas about research avenues for our various projects. Some of the tips are things that…
Read MoreBooks: 4 Great Reads By or About Women
I love literature, and as an English major I’ve read a lot of fiction over the years. But these days it seems I read mostly nonfiction. Just finished dipping into an academic book I picked up in the Library of Congress’s gift shop, titled Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War, by…
Read MoreWashington-Area Classes for Book Writers
Writing is never easy, and the long-haul process of writing a book — especially if it’s your first — can feel overwhelming at times. When I started thinking about a book on Eliza Scidmore, I decided to do what I’ve always done when there’s something I’m not sure I can easily figure out on my own:…
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