Library of Congress
Library of Congress reading room
Established	1800
Location	Washington, D.C.
Branches	N/A
Collection
Size	22,765,967 cataloged books in the Library of Congress classification system 5,600 incunabula (books printed before 1500), monographs and serials, music, bound newspapers, pamphlets, technical reports, and other printed material, and 109,029,796 items in the nonclassified (special) collections 151,785,778 total Items[1]
Access and use
Circulation	Library does not publicly circulate
Population served	541 members of the United States Congress, their staff, and members of the public
Other information
Budget	$613,496,414[1]
Director	James H. Billington (Librarian of Congress)
Staff	3,597[1]
Website	www.loc.gov

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States of America, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in four buildings in Washington, D.C., as well as the Packard Campus^[2] in Culpeper, Virginia, it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and number of books. The head of the Library is the Librarian of Congress, currently James H. Billington.

The Library of Congress was instituted for Congress in 1800, and was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century. After much of the original collection had been destroyed during the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson sold 6,487 books, his entire personal collection, to the library in 1815.^[3][4] After a period of decline during the mid-19th century the Library of Congress began to grow rapidly in both size and importance after the American Civil War, culminating in the construction of a separate library building and the transference of all copyright deposit holdings to the Library. During the rapid expansion of the 20th century the Library of Congress assumed a preeminent public role, becoming a "library of last resort" and expanding its mission for the benefit of scholars and the American people.

The Library's primary mission is researching inquiries made by members of Congress through the Congressional Research Service. Although it is open to the public, only Library employees, Members of Congress, Supreme Court justices and other high-ranking government officials may check out books. As the de facto national library, the Library of Congress promotes literacy and American literature through projects such as the American Folklife Center, American Memory, Center for the Book and Poet Laureate.

History[link]

Construction of the Thomas Jefferson Building, from July 8, 1888, to May 15, 1894.

Origins and Jefferson's contribution (1800–1851)[link]

The Library of Congress was established on April 24, 1800, when President John Adams signed an Act of Congress providing for the transfer of the seat of government from Philadelphia to the new capital city of Washington. Part of the legislation appropriated $5,000 "for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress ..., and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them...." Books were ordered from London and the collection, consisting of 740 books and 3 maps, was housed in the new Capitol.^[5] The collection covered a variety of topics but the bulk of the materials were legal in nature, reflecting Congress' role as a maker of laws.^{[citation needed]}

Thomas Jefferson played an important role in the Library's early formation, signing into law on January 26, 1802, the first law establishing the structure of the Library of Congress. The law established the presidentially appointed post of Librarian of Congress and a Joint Committee on the Library to regulate and oversee the Library, as well as giving the president and vice president the ability to borrow books.^[5] The Library of Congress was destroyed in August 1814, when invading British troops set fire to the Capitol building and the small library of 3,000 volumes within.^[5]

Within a month, former President Jefferson offered his personal library^[6][7] as a replacement. Jefferson had spent 50 years accumulating a wide variety of books, including ones in foreign languages and volumes of philosophy, science, literature, and other topics not normally viewed as part of a legislative library, such as cookbooks, writing that, "I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their collection; there is, in fact, no subject to which a Member of Congress may not have occasion to refer." In January 1815, Congress accepted Jefferson's offer, appropriating $23,950 to purchase his 6,487 books.^[5]

Weakening (1851–1865)[link]

The antebellum period was difficult for the Library. During the 1850s the Smithsonian Institution's librarian Charles Coffin Jewett aggressively tried to move that organization towards becoming the United States' national library. His efforts were blocked by the Smithsonian's Secretary Joseph Henry, who advocated a focus on scientific research and publication and favored the Library of Congress' development into the national library. Henry's dismissal of Jewett in July 1854 ended the Smithsonian's attempts to become the national library, and in 1866 Henry transferred the Smithsonian's forty thousand-volume library to the Library of Congress.^[5]

On December 24, 1851 the largest fire in the Library's history destroyed 35,000 books, about two–thirds of the Library's 55,000 book collection, including two–thirds of Jefferson's original transfer.^[5] Congress in 1852 quickly appropriated $168,700 to replace the lost books, but not for the acquisition of new materials. This marked the start of a conservative period in the Library's administration under Librarian John Silva Meehan and Joint Committee Chairman James A. Pearce, who worked to restrict the Library's activities.^[5] In 1857, Congress transferred the Library's public document distribution activities to the Department of the Interior and its international book exchange program to the Department of State. Abraham Lincoln's political appointment of John G. Stephenson as Librarian of Congress in 1861 further weakened the Library; Stephenson's focus was on non-library affairs, including service as a volunteer aide-de-camp at the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg during the American Civil War. By the conclusion of the war, the Library of Congress had a staff of seven for a collection of 80,000 volumes.^[5] The centralization of copyright offices into the United States Patent Office in 1859 ended the Library's thirteen year role as a depository of all copyrighted books and pamphlets.

Spofford's expansion (1865–1897)[link]

The Library of Congress inside the U.S. Capitol Building c. 1890

The Library of Congress reasserted itself during the latter half of the 19th century under Librarian Ainsworth Rand Spofford, who directed the Library from 1865 to 1897. Aided by an overall expansion of the federal government and a favorable political climate, Spofford built broad bipartisan support for the Library as a national library and a legislative resource, began comprehensively collecting Americana and American literature, and led the construction of a new building to house the Library, and transformed the Librarian of Congress position into one of strength and independence.^[5] Between 1865 and 1870, Congress appropriated funds for the construction of the Thomas Jefferson Building, placed all copyright registration and deposit activities under the Library's control, and restored the Library's international book exchange. The Library also acquired the vast libraries of both the Smithsonian and historian Peter Force, strengthening its scientific and Americana collections significantly. By 1876, the Library of Congress had 300,000 volumes and was tied with Boston Public Library as the nation's largest library. When the Library moved from the Capitol building to its new headquarters in 1897, it had over 840,000 volumes, 40% of which had been acquired through copyright deposit.^[5]

Some of the Library of Congress' holdings awaiting shelving inside the newly opened Thomas Jefferson Building

A year before the Library's move to its new location, the Joint Library Committee held a session of hearings to assess the condition of the Library and plan for its future growth and possible reorganization. Spofford and six experts sent by the American Library Association, including future Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam and Melvil Dewey of the New York State Library, testified before the committee that the Library should continue its expansion towards becoming a true national library.^[5] Based on the hearings and with the assistance of Senators Justin Morrill of Vermont and Daniel Voorhees of Indiana, Congress more than doubled the Library's staff from 42 to 108 and established new administrative units for all aspects of the Library's collection. Congress also strengthened the office of Librarian of Congress to govern the Library and make staff appointments, as well as requiring Senate approval for presidential appointees to the position.^[5]

Post-reorganization (1897–1939)[link]

Main Library of Congress building at the start of the 20th century

The Library of Congress, spurred by the 1897 reorganization, began to grow and develop more rapidly. Spofford's successor John Russell Young, though only in office for two years, overhauled the Library's bureaucracy, used his connections as a former diplomat to acquire more materials from around the world, and established the Library's first assistance programs for the blind and physically disabled.^[5] Young's successor Herbert Putnam held the office for forty years from 1899 to 1939, entering into the position two years before the Library became the first in the United States to hold one million volumes.^[5] Putnam focused his efforts on making the Library more accessible and useful for the public and for other libraries. He instituted the interlibrary loan service, transforming the Library of Congress into what he referred to as a "library of last resort".^[8] Putnam also expanded Library access to "scientific investigators and duly qualified individuals" and began publishing primary sources for the benefit of scholars.^[5]

Putnam's tenure also saw increasing diversity in the Library's acquisitions. In 1903 he persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt to transfer by executive order the papers of the Founding Fathers from the State Department to the Library of Congress. Putnam expanded foreign acquisitions as well, including the 1904 purchase of a four-thousand volume library of Indica, the 1906 purchase of G. V. Yudin's eighty-thousand volume Russian library, the 1908 Schatz collection of early opera librettos, and the early 1930s purchase of the Russian Imperial Collection, consisting of 2,600 volumes from the library of the Romanov family on a variety of topics. Collections of Hebraica and Chinese and Japanese works were also acquired.^[5] Congress even took the initiative to acquire materials for the Library in one occasion, when in 1929 Congressman Ross Collins of Mississippi successfully proposed the $1.5 million purchase of Otto Vollbehr's collection of incunabula, including one of four remaining perfect vellum copies of the Gutenberg Bible.^[5]

A copy of the Gutenberg Bible on display at the Library of Congress

In 1914 Putnam established the Legislative Reference Service as a separative administrative unit of the Library. Based in the Progressive era's philosophy of science as a problem-solver, and modeled after successful research branches of state legislatures, the LRS would provide informed answers to Congressional research inquiries on almost any topic.^[5] In 1965 Congress passed an act allowing the Library of Congress to establish a trust fund board to accept donations and endowments, giving the Library a role as a patron of the arts. The Library received the donations and endowments of prominent individuals such as John D. Rockefeller, James B. Wilbur and Archer M. Huntington. Gertrude Clarke Whittall donated five Stradivarius violins to the Library and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge's donations paid for a concert hall within the Library of Congress building and the establishment of an honorarium for the Music Division. A number of chairs and consultantships were established from the donations, the most well-known of which is the Poet Laureate Consultant.^[5]

The Library's expansion eventually filled the Library's Main Building, despite shelving expansions in 1910 and 1927, forcing the Library to expand into a new structure. Congress acquired nearby land in 1928 and approved construction of the Annex Building (later the John Adams Building) in 1930. Although delayed during the Depression years, it was completed in 1938 and opened to the public in 1939.^[5]

Modern history (1939–Present)[link]

Erotica, mural painting by George Randolph Barse (1861–1938) in the Library of Congress

Elihu Vedder's Minerva of Peace mosaic

When Putnam retired in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Archibald MacLeish as his successor. Occupying the post from 1939 to 1944 during the height of World War II, MacLeish became the most visible Librarian of Congress in the Library's history. MacLeish encouraged librarians to oppose totalitarianism on behalf of democracy; dedicated the South Reading Room of the Adams Building to Thomas Jefferson, commissioning artist Ezra Winter to paint four themed murals for the room; and established a "democracy alcove" in the Main Reading Room of the Jefferson Building for important documents such as the Declaration, Constitution and Federalist Papers.^[5] Even the Library of Congress assisted during the war effort, ranging from the storage of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution in Fort Knox for safekeeping to researching weather data on the Himalayas for Air Force pilots.^[5] MacLeish resigned in 1944 to become Assistant Secretary of State, and President Harry Truman appointed Luther H. Evans as Librarian of Congress. Evans, who served until 1953, expanded the Library's acquisitions, cataloging and bibliographic services as much as the fiscal-minded Congress would allow, but his primary achievement was the creation of Library of Congress Missions around the world. Missions played a variety of roles in the postwar world: the mission in San Francisco assisted participants in the meeting that established the United Nations, the mission in Europe acquired European publications for the Library of Congress and other American libraries, and the mission in Japan aided in the creation of the National Diet Library.^[5]

Evans' successor L. Quincy Mumford took over in 1953. Mumford's tenure, lasting until 1974, saw the initiation of the construction of the James Madison Memorial Building, the third Library of Congress building. Mumford directed the Library during a period of increased educational spending, the windfall of which allowed the Library to devote energies towards establishing new acquisition centers abroad, including in Cairo and New Delhi. In 1967 the Library began experimenting with book preservation techniques through a Preservation Office, which grew to become the largest library research and conservation effort in the United States.^[5] Mumford's administration also saw the last major public debate about the Library of Congress' role as both a legislative library and a national library. A 1962 memorandum by Douglas Bryant of the Harvard University Library, compiled at the request of Joint Library Committee chairman Claiborne Pell, proposed a number of institutional reforms, including expansion of national activities and services and various organizational changes, all of which would shift the Library more towards its national role over its legislative role. Bryant even suggested possibly changing the name of the Library of Congress, which was rebuked by Mumford as "unspeakable violence to tradition".^[5] Debate continued within the library community until the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 shifted the Library back towards its legislative roles, placing greater focus on research for Congress and congressional committees and renaming the Legislative Reference Service to the Congressional Research Service.^[5]

After Mumford retired in 1974, Gerald Ford appointed Daniel J. Boorstin as Librarian. Boorstin's first challenge was the move to the new Madison Building, which took place between 1980 and 1982. The move released pressures on staff and shelf space, allowing Boorstin to focus on other areas of Library administration such as acquisitions and collections. Taking advantage of steady budgetary growth, from $116 million in 1975 to over $250 million by 1987, Boorstin actively participated in enhancing ties with scholars, authors, publishers, cultural leaders, and the business community. His active and prolific role changed the post of Librarian of Congress so that by the time he retired in 1987, the New York Times called it "perhaps the leading intellectual public position in the nation."^[5] Ronald Reagan appointed James H. Billington as the thirteenth Librarian of Congress in 1987, a post he holds as of 2011. Billington took advantage of new technological advancements and the Internet to link the Library to educational institutions around the country in 1991. The end of the Cold War also enabled the Library to develop relationships with newly open Eastern European nations, helping them to establish parliamentary libraries of their own.^[5]

In the mid-1990s, under Billington's leadership, the Library of Congress began to pursue the development of what it called a "National Digital Library," part of an overall strategic direction that has been somewhat controversial within the library profession.^[9] In late November 2005, the Library announced intentions to launch the World Digital Library, digitally preserving books and other objects from all world cultures. In April 2010, it announced plans to archive all public communication on Twitter, including all communication since Twitter's launch in March 2006.^[10]

Holdings[link]

Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building

The Great Hall interior

The collections of the Library of Congress include more than 32 million cataloged books and other print materials in 470 languages; more than 61 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America, including the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, a Gutenberg Bible (one of only four perfect vellum copies known to exist);^[11] over 1 million US government publications; 1 million issues of world newspapers spanning the past three centuries; 33,000 bound newspaper volumes; 500,000 microfilm reels; over 6,000 comic book^[12] titles; films; 5.3 million maps; 6 million works of sheet music; 3 million sound recordings; more than 14.7 million prints and photographic images including fine and popular art pieces and architectural drawings;^[13] the Betts Stradivarius; and the Cassavetti Stradivarius.

The Library developed a system of book classification called Library of Congress Classification (LCC), which is used by most US research and university libraries.

The Library serves as a legal repository for copyright protection and copyright registration, and as the base for the United States Copyright Office. Regardless of whether they register their copyright, all publishers are required to submit two complete copies of their published works to the Library—this requirement is known as mandatory deposit.^[14] Nearly 22,000 new items published in the U.S. arrive every business day at the Library. Contrary to popular belief, however, the Library does not retain all of these works in its permanent collection, although it does add an average of 10,000 items per day. Rejected items are used in trades with other libraries around the world, distributed to federal agencies, or donated to schools, communities, and other organizations within the United States.^[15] As is true of many similar libraries, the Library of Congress retains copies of every publication in the English language that is deemed significant.

The Library of Congress states that its collection fills about 838 miles (1,349 km) of bookshelves,^[16] while the British Library reports about 625 kilometers (388 mi) of shelves.^[17] The Library of Congress holds about 147 million items with 33 million books against approximately 150 million items with 25 million books for the British Library.^[16][17]

The Library makes millions of digital objects, comprising tens of petabytes, available at its American Memory site. American Memory is a source for public domain image resources, as well as audio, video, and archived Web content. Nearly all of the lists of holdings, the catalogs of the library, can be consulted directly on its web site. Librarians all over the world consult these catalogs, through the Web or through other media better suited to their needs, when they need to catalog for their collection a book published in the United States. They use the Library of Congress Control Number to make sure of the exact identity of the book.

The Library of Congress also provides an online archive of the proceedings of the U.S. Congress at THOMAS, including bill text, Congressional Record text, bill summary and status, the Congressional Record Index, and the United States Constitution.

The Library also administers the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, an audio book and braille library program provided to more than 766,000 Americans.

Buildings of the Library[link]

Jefferson Building

Madison Building

The Library of Congress is physically housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill and a conservation center in rural Virginia. The Library's Capitol Hill buildings are all connected by underground passageways, so that a library user need pass through security only once in a single visit. The library also has off-site storage facilities for less commonly-requested materials.

Thomas Jefferson Building[link]

The Thomas Jefferson Building is located between Independence Avenue and East Capitol Street on First Street SE. It first opened in 1897 as the main building of the Library and is the oldest of the three buildings. Known originally as the Library of Congress Building or Main Building, it took its present name on June 13, 1980.

John Adams Building[link]

The John Adams Building is located between Independence Avenue and East Capitol Street on 2nd Street SE, the block adjacent to the Jefferson Building. The building was originally built simply as an annex to the Jefferson Building. It opened its doors to the public on January 3, 1939.

James Madison Memorial Building[link]

The James Madison Memorial Building is located between First and Second Streets on Independence Avenue SE. The building was constructed from 1971 to 1976, and serves as the official memorial to President James Madison.

The Madison Building is also home to the Mary Pickford Theater, the "motion picture and television reading room" of the Library of Congress. The theater hosts regular free screenings of classic and contemporary movies and television shows.

Packard Campus (Culpeper, Virginia)

Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation[link]

The Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation is the Library of Congress's newest building, opened in 2007 and located in Culpeper, Virginia. It was constructed out of a former Federal Reserve storage center and Cold War bunker. The campus is designed to act as a single site to store all of the library's movie, television, and sound collections. It is named to honor David Woodley Packard, whose Packard Humanities Institute oversaw design and construction of the facility. The centerpiece of the complex is a reproduction Art Deco movie theater that presents free movie screenings to the public on a semi-weekly basis.^[18]

Using the Library[link]

The library is open to the general public for academic research and tourists. Only those who are issued a Reader Identification Card may enter the reading rooms and access the collection. The Reader Identification Card is available in the Madison building to persons who are at least 16 years of age upon presentation of a government issued picture identification (e.g. driver's license, state ID card or passport).^[19] However, only members of Congress, Supreme Court Justices, their staff, Library of Congress staff and certain other government officials may actually remove items from the library buildings. Members of the general public with Reader Identification Cards must use items from the library collection inside the reading rooms only; they are not allowed to remove library items from the reading rooms or the library buildings.^{[citation needed]}

Since 1902, libraries in the United States have been able to request books and other items through interlibrary loan from the Library of Congress if these items are not readily available elsewhere. Through this, the Library of Congress has served as a "library of last resort", according to former Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam.^[8] The Library of Congress lends books to other libraries with the stipulation that they be used only inside the borrowing library.^[20]

The Library of Congress is sometimes used as an unusual unit of measurement to represent an impressively large quantity of data when discussing digital storage or networking technologies.

Standards[link]

In addition to its library services, the Library of Congress is also actively involved in various standard activities in areas related to bibliographical and search and retrieve standards. Areas of work include METS, Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), Z39.50 and Search/Retrieve Web Service (SRW), and Search/Retrieve via URL (SRU).

Librarians of Congress[link]

The Librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the Senate, and serves as the chief librarian of all the sections of the Library of Congress. One of the responsibilities of the Librarian of Congress is to appoint the U.S. Poet Laureate.

1. John J. Beckley (1802–1807)
2. Patrick Magruder (1807–1815)
3. George Watterston (1815–1829)
4. John Silva Meehan (1829–1861)
5. John Gould Stephenson (1861–1864)
6. Ainsworth Rand Spofford (1864–1897)
7. John Russell Young (1897–1899)
8. Herbert Putnam (1899–1939)
9. Archibald MacLeish (1939–1944)
10. Luther H. Evans (1945–1953)
11. Lawrence Quincy Mumford (1954–1974)
12. Daniel J. Boorstin (1975–1987)
13. James H. Billington (1987–present)

Annual events[link]

• Archives Fair
• Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress
• Davidson Fellows Reception
• Founder's Day Celebration
• Gershwin Prize for Popular Song
• Judith P. Austin Memorial Lecture
• The National Book Festival

See also[link]

• American Folklife Center
• British Library
• Congressional Research Service
  • Federal Research Division
• Documents Expediting Project
• History of Public Library Advocacy
• Law Library of Congress
• Library of Congress Classification
• Library of Congress Country Studies
• Library of Congress Living Legend
• Library of Congress Subject Headings
• List of librarians
• List of national libraries
• MARC standards
• National Archives and Records Administration
• National Film Registry
• National Recording Registry
• Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
• Project MINERVA
• Public Library Advocacy
• The Feleky Collection
• United States Copyright Office
• United States Senate Library
• Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center
• World Digital Library

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Library of Congress

Wikisource has the text of a 1905 New International Encyclopedia article about Library of Congress.

• The Library of Congress website
  • American Memory
  • History of the Library of Congress
  • Search the Library of Congress catalog
  • thomas.loc.gov, legislative information
• Library Of Congress Meeting Notices and Rule Changes from The Federal Register RSS Feed
• Library of Congress photos on Flickr
• Outdoor sculpture at the Library of Congress
• Standards, The Library of Congress
• Works by the Library of Congress at Project Gutenberg
• Library of Congress at FamilySearch Research Wiki for genealogists
•  "Congress, Library of". Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. 
• C-SPAN's Library of Congress documentary and resources

Coordinates: 38°53′19″N 77°00′17″W / 38.88861°N 77.00472°W / 38.88861; -77.00472

v t e   United States National Libraries Department of Agriculture: National Agricultural Library Congressional seal Congress: Library of Congress Department of Transportation: National Transportation Library   Department of Health and Human Services / National Institutes of Health: National Library of Medicine Department of Education: National Library of Education Other related libraries and services: Federal Depository Library Program · National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) · Presidential library system

Archibald Hoxsey (October 15, 1884 – December 31, 1910) was an aviator for the Wright brothers.

Biography[link]

He was born in Staunton, Illinois on October 15, 1884. He moved with his parents to Pasadena, California and by 1909-1910 his mechanical ability led to a meeting with the Wright Brothers. In March 1910 the Wright brothers opened a flight school in Montgomery, Alabama and Hoxey was a teacher there. There he became the first pilot to fly at night.^[1]

On October 11, 1910 at Kinloch Field in St. Louis he took Theodore Roosevelt up in an airplane.

Because of their dueling altitude record attempts, he and Ralph Johnstone were nicknamed the "heavenly twins".

On December 30, 1910 Hoxley set the flight altitude record of 11,474 feet.

He died on December 31, 1910 in Los Angeles, California after crashing from 7,000 feet. He was trying to set a new flight altitude record. The Wright Brothers paid for the funeral.^[2]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Archibald Hoxsey

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Archibald Hoxsey

• Archibald Hoxsey bibliography
• Early Aviators: Archibald Hoxsey
• North Dakota first flight
• Video of flight with Theodore Roosevelt in 1910
• Hoxsey's own description of Roosevelt flight October 12 1910 United Press International
• Photo of Arch Hoxsey & President Roosevelt seated in Wright Flyer prior to their flight
• Another camera angle of Hoxsey & President Roosevelt in Wright aeroplane before their flight
• Arch Hoxsey & Colonel Roosevelt ready to fly image from Wright State University([http://dmc.ohiolink.edu for pic click on 'history & archives' section then type in Theodore Roosevelt's name).

Further reading[link]

• Hoxsey trading card
• New York Times, August 20, 1910; Airmen Play Tag With Moonbeams; Hoxsey And Johnstone Unexpectedly Make Two Night Flights At Asbury Park. Asbury Park, New Jersey, August 19, 1910. With no one to watch them save the night birds and a few invited friends. Arch Hoxsey and Ralph Johnstone, the young Wright airmen, winged their way up among the moonbeams between 10:00 and 10:30 o'clock tonight.
• New York Times, October 9, 1910; Flight Of 104 Miles Is Made By Hoxsey; In Wright Biplane He Goes From Springfield To St. Louis With A Detour. St. Louis, Missouri; October 8, 1910. After making the longest continuous aeroplane flight recorded in America, Arch Hoxsey, who soared aloft in a Wright biplane at Springfield, Illinois, at 11:56 this morning, landed upon the lawn of the St. Louis Country Club shortly before 3 o'clock this afternoon, Although the distance to St. Louis from Springfield is only 88 miles, Hoxsey made a detour that brought his continued flight up to 104 miles.
• New York Times, Sunday, January 1, 1911; Wrights Deplore Hoxsey. He Was One Of The Most Promising And Intrepid Of Aviators, They Say. Dayton, Ohio; December 31, 1910. The announcement of the death of Arch Hoxsey at Los Angeles today came as a terrible shock to Wilbur and Orville Wright, but they emphatically declared that they did not care to discuss the accident until they had heard further details and had received a statement of the conditions under which it occurred from some experienced aviator who witnessed it.
• Time (magazine); Monday, June 11, 1928; I have a picture of President Roosevelt seated in a plane which was of the "pusher" type: Beneath the picture is the following notation: "Colonel Roosevelt in a Wright Aeroplane at St. Louis. Archibald Hoxsey, who carried the Colonel twice around the Park, a distance of 4½ miles, is seen talking to Mr. Roosevelt, who was most enthusiastic over his experience, declaring he never felt a bit of fear. This picture shows the Colonel as he took his seat. Before starting he took off his hat and put on a cap." Unfortunately the picture is not dated but the information may be of interest to those who are debating the "Rough Rider's" courage anent leaving terra firma.

This article appears to be written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by rewriting promotional content from a neutral point of view and removing any inappropriate external links. (October 2010)

The Ensō String Quartet is a US-based string quartet. They have won a number of competitions including the 2003 Concert Artists Guild, 2004 Banff International String Quartet Competition and Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Formed in 1999, they have released three CDs on the Naxos Records label, one of which was nominated for a "Best Chamber Music Performance" Grammy award.

Members[link]

• Maureen Nelson, violin I
• John Marcus, violin II
• Melissa Reardon, viola
• Richard Belcher, cello

Richard Belcher is a native of New Zealand.

Biography[link]

Shortly after the group’s inception at Yale University in 1999, Ensō had success at the Banff International String Quartet Competition and won the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and has consistently received high praise for performances ever since. The quartet’s debut recording was described by Strad Magazine as “an auspicious start to their recording career,” and was followed by the recent Grammy-nominated release of the quartets of Ginastera. MusicWeb International summed up this album as “playing of jaw-dropping prowess revealing masterpieces of the 20th century quartet literature … seek out this group – they are clearly bound for greatness.” The disc was selected as one of MusicWeb’s Recordings of the Year for 2009.

In the 09/10 season the Ensō Quartet was announced as a winner of the Chamber Music America Commissioning Grant which will see the quartet work with composer Kurt Stallmann on a new piece for string quartet and electronics. Since the quartet’s inception in 1999, new music has featured prominently – from winning the Piece-de-Concert prize at the Banff Competition for the best performance of the commissioned piece, to premiering Joan Tower’s Piano Quintet last season, to making premiere recordings released on Albany Records this season of works by composers Anthony Brandt and Karim al Zand.

The 09/10 season has also seen release of the Enso Quartet’s CD of the three quartets by Alberto Ginastera on the Naxos label. The Ginastera CD, which was nominated for "Best Chamber Music Performance" Grammy award [1], follows the quartet’s 2005 debut on Naxos Records, a 2-CD set of Ignaz Pleyel’s six string quartets, Op. 2, which garnered rave reviews, with Strad Magazine calling the disc “an auspicious start to the Enso Quartet’s recording career.” Gramophone Magazine hailed their playing as “lively and intelligent”, and Fanfare Magazine praised the ensemble for its "extraordinary talent...exceptional sense of vitality and elegance.”

The Ensō Quartet’s members also teach and coach chamber music. Institutions with which they have held substantial teaching or performing residencies include the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (08/09 season), Boston University Tanglewood Institute (06-08), Interlochen Adult Amateur Chamber Music Camp (07-present), and Rice University (04-06) where the members of the quartet served as Guest Lecturers in String Quartet. The quartet has been awarded the Guarneri Quartet Award for their continuing collaboration with Connecticut’s Music for Youth program with whom they have developed a successful program for string students in public schools in Bridgeport and Weston, CT.

The Ensō Quartet's members hold degrees from The Juilliard School, Curtis Institute of Music, New England Conservatory, Guildhall School of Music (UK) and the University of Canterbury (New Zealand). The ensemble formed in 1999 and while students at Yale University and completed graduate residencies at Northern Illinois University with the Vermeer Quartet and at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. The quartet has been featured in the American Ensembles column of Chamber Music magazine and their live performances have been broadcast on PBS, Chicago’s WFMT, Wisconsin Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio’s Saint Paul Sunday program, Houston’s KUHF, Australia’s ABC Classic FM, Radio New Zealand and Canada’s CBC radio.

The ensemble’s name, enso, is derived from the Japanese zen painting of the circle which represents many things; perfection and imperfection, the moment of chaos that is creation, the emptiness of the void, the endless circle of life, and the fullness of the spirit.

Competitions and honors[link]

The Ensō Quartet has won top prizes in many competitions including the 2003 Concert Artists Guild,^[1] 2004 Banff International String Quartet Competition, Chamber Music Yellow Springs, and Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.

The ensemble was chosen as the graduate quartet-in-residence at Northern Illinois University where they were mentored by the Vermeer String Quartet. They also completed a graduate residency at Rice University.

The Ensō Quartet's recording of the complete Ginastera String Quartets was nominated for "Best Chamber Music Performance" Grammy award and selected by MusicWeb International as "Recordings of the Year 2009".

The ensemble has also been the recipient of a Commissioning grant and Residency partnership grants from Chamber Music America.^[2]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Enso String Quartet (official website)
• http://www.myspace.com/ensoquartet
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRfWPhXmMcs

A real-life "Rosie" working on the A-31 Vengeance bomber in Nashville, Tennessee (1943)

Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon of the United States, representing the American women who worked in factories during World War II,^[1][2] many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs replacing the male workers who were in the military. Rosie the Riveter is commonly used as a symbol of feminism and women's economic power.^[3]

History[link]

The term "Rosie the Riveter" was first used in 1942 in a song of the same name written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. The song was recorded by numerous artists, including the popular big band leader Kay Kyser, and became a national hit.^[4] The song portrays "Rosie" as a tireless assembly line worker, doing her part to help the American war effort.^[5]

All the day long,
Whether rain or shine
She’s part of the assembly line.
She’s making history,
Working for victory
Rosie the Riveter

A real-life "Rosie" at work operating a turret lathe (1942)

Man and woman riveting team working on the cockpit shell of a C-47 aircraft at the plant of North American Aviation (1942)

Although women took on male dominated trades during World War II, they were expected to return to their everyday housework once men returned from the war. Government campaigns targeting women were addressed solely at housewives, perhaps because already employed women would move to the higher-paid "essential" jobs on their own,^[6] perhaps because it was assumed that most would be housewives.^[7] One government advertisement asked women "Can you use an electric mixer? If so, you can learn to operate a drill."^[8]:160 Propaganda was also directed at their husbands, many of whom were unwilling to support such jobs.^[9] Most women opted to do this. Later, many women returned to traditional work such as clerical or administration positions, despite their reluctance to re-enter the lower-paying fields.^[10] However, some of these women continued working in the factories.

The individual who was the inspiration for the song was Rosalind P. Walter, who "came from old money and worked on the night shift building the F4U Corsair fighter." Later in life Walter was a philanthropist, a board member of the WNET public television station in New York and an early and long-time supporter of the Charlie Rose interview show.^[11]

Rosie the Riveter became most closely associated with another real woman, Rose Will Monroe, who was born in Pulaski County, Kentucky^[12][13][14] in 1920 and moved to Michigan during World War II. She worked as a riveter at the Willow Run Aircraft Factory in Ypsilanti, Michigan, building B-29 and B-24 bombers for the U.S. Army Air Forces. Monroe achieved her dream of piloting a plane when she was in her 50's and her love of flying resulted in an accident that contributed to her death 19 years later.^[4] Monroe was asked to star in a promotional film about the war effort at home. The song "Rosie the Riveter" was popular at the time,^[2] and Monroe happened to best fit the description of the worker depicted in the song.^[15] Rosie went on to become perhaps the most widely recognized icon of that era. The films and posters she appeared in were used to encourage women to go to work in support of the war effort.

Welding at the Gary Tubular Steel Plant

According to the Encyclopedia of American Economic History, "Rosie the Riveter" inspired a social movement that increased the number of working American women from 12 million to 20 million by 1944, a 57% increase from 1940.^{[citation needed]} By 1944 only 1.7 million unmarried men between the ages of 20 and 34 worked in the defense industry, while 4.1 million unmarried women between those ages did so.^[16] Although the image of "Rosie the Riveter" reflected the industrial work of welders and riveters during World War II, the majority of working women filled non-factory positions in every sector of the economy. What unified the experiences of these women was that they proved to themselves (and the country) that they could do a "man's job" and could do it well.^[17] In 1942, just between the months of January and July, the estimates of the proportion of jobs that would be "acceptable" for women was raised by employers from 29 to 85%.^{[citation needed]} African American women were some of those most affected by the need for women workers. It has been said that it was the process of whites working along blacks during the time that encouraged a breaking down of social barriers and a healthy recognition of diversity.^[17] African-Americans were able to lay the groundwork for the postwar civil rights revolution by equating segregation with Nazi white supremacist ideology.^[17]

Conditions were sometimes harsh and pay was not always equal—the average man working in a wartime plant was paid $54.65 per week, while women were paid about $31.50.^[18] Nonetheless, women quickly responded to Rosie the Riveter, who convinced them that they had a patriotic duty to enter the workforce. Some claim that she forever opened the work force for women, but others dispute that point, noting that many women were discharged after the war and their jobs were given to returning servicemen.^{[citation needed]} These critics claim that when peace returned, few women returned to their wartime positions and instead resumed domestic vocations or transferred into sex-typed occupations such as clerical and service work.^[19] For some, World War II represented a major turning point for women as they eagerly supported the war effort, while other historians emphasize that the changes were temporary and that immediately after the war was over, women were expected to return to traditional roles of wives and mothers, and finally, a third group has emphasized how the long-range significance of the changes brought about by the war provided the foundation for the contemporary woman’s movement.^[20] Leila J. Rupp in her study of World War II wrote "For the first time, the working woman dominated the public image. Women were riveting housewives in slacks, not mother, domestic beings, or civilizers."^[21]

After the war, the "Rosies" and the generations that followed them knew that working in the factories was in fact a possibility for women, even though they did not reenter the job market in such large proportions again until the 1970s. By that time factory employment was in decline all over the country.^{[citation needed]}

On October 14, 2000, the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park was opened in Richmond, California, site of four Kaiser shipyards, where thousands of "Rosies" from around the country worked (although ships at the Kaiser yards were not riveted, but rather welded).^[22] Over 200 former Rosies attended the ceremony.^[23][24][2]

The documentary film The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter addresses the history of Rosie.

Images[link]

Westinghouse poster[link]

"We Can Do It!" by J. Howard Miller

In 1942, Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller was hired by the Westinghouse Company's War Production Coordinating Committee to create a series of posters for the war effort. One of these posters became the famous "We Can Do It!" image—an image that in later years would also be called "Rosie the Riveter", though it was never given this title during the war. Miller based his "We Can Do It!" poster on a United Press International wire service photograph taken of Ann Arbor, Michigan, factory worker Geraldine Hoff (later Doyle), who was 17 and briefly working as a metal-stamping machine operator. The intent of the poster was to keep production up by boosting morale, not to recruit more women workers. It was shown only to Westinghouse employees in the Midwest during a two-week period in February 1943, then it disappeared for nearly four decades. During the war, the name "Rosie" was not associated with the image, and it was not about women's empowerment. It was only later, in the early 1980s, that the Miller poster was rediscovered and became famous, associated with feminism, and often mistakenly called "Rosie The Riveter".^{[25][26][27][28]}

[edit] Saturday Evening Post

Norman Rockwell's image of "Rosie the Riveter" received mass distribution on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on Memorial Day, May 29, 1943. Rockwell's illustration features a brawny woman taking her lunch break with a rivet gun on her lap and beneath her Penny loafer a copy of Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf. Her lunch pail reads "Rosie"; viewers quickly recognized this to be "Rosie the Riveter" from the familiar song.^[29] Rockwell, America's best-known popular illustrator of the day, posed his model to match the Sistine Chapel ceiling image of the prophet Isaiah, painted by Michelangelo in 1509. Rockwell's model was a Vermont resident, 19-year-old Mary Doyle who was a telephone operator near where Rockwell lived, not a riveter. Rockwell painted his "Rosie" as a larger woman than his model, and he later phoned to apologize.^[30] The Post's cover image proved hugely popular, and the magazine loaned it to the U.S. Treasury Department for the duration of the war, for use in war bond drives.^[31]

After the war the Rockwell "Rosie" was seen less and less because of a general policy of vigorous copyright protection by the Rockwell estate. In 2002, the original painting sold at Sotheby's for nearly $5 million.^[31] In June 2009 the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas acquired Norman Rockwell's iconic Rosie the Riveter painting for its permanent collection from a private collector.^[32]

In late 1942, Doyle posed twice for Rockwell's photographer, Gene Pelham, as Rockwell preferred to work from still images rather than live models. The first photo was not suitable because she wore a blouse rather than a blue work shirt. In total, she was paid $10 for her modeling work. In 1949 she married Robert J. Keefe to become Mary Doyle Keefe. The Keefes were invited and present in 2002 when the Rockwell painting was sold at Sotheby's.^[33]

Homages[link]

A "Wendy the Welder" at the Richmond Shipyards

According to Penny Colman's Rosie the Riveter, there was also, very briefly, a "Wendy the Welder" based on Janet Doyle, a worker at the Kaiser Richmond Liberty Shipyards in California, and also "Julie the Janitor," a worker at Eastern Illinois University.^[34]

In the 1960s, Hollywood actress Jane Withers gained fame as "Josephine the Plumber", a character in a long-running and popular series of television commercials for "Comet" cleansing powder that lasted into the 1970s. This character was based on the original "Rosie" character and thus owes much to exemplary women's efforts in the traditional male workplace.^[35]

More recent cultural references include a character called "Rosie" in the video game BioShock, armed with a rivet gun. There is a DC Comics character called Rosie The Riveter,^[36] who wields a rivet gun as a weapon (and first appeared in Green Lantern vol. 2 No. 176 (May 1984)). In the video game Fallout 3 there are billboards featuring "Rosies" assembling atom bombs while drinking Nuka-Cola.

John Crowley's historical novel Four Freedoms covers the wartime industries, and studies the real working conditions of many female industrial workers. "Rosie the Riveter" is frequently referenced.

See also[link]

	Feminism portal
	United States portal
	World War II portal

• Australian Women's Land Army
• Canary girl—British women working in munitions
• Greatest Generation
• Ronnie the Bren Gun Girl—the Canadian equivalent
• United States home front during World War II
• Women in the workforce
• Woman's Land Army of America ("farmettes")
• Women's Land Army—British farm workers ("land girls")
• Women's roles in the World Wars
• Work ethic

References[link]

Sources[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rosie the riveter

• Library of Congress Webcast
• Rosie the Riveter World War II / Home Front National Historical Park
• Rosie the Riveter at History Channel's website.
• Regional Oral History Office / Rosie the Riveter / WWII American Homefront Project
• American Rosie the Riveter Association
• A Real-Life "Rosie the Riveter"
• Another Real-Life "Rosie" from the Library of Congress' image set
• The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter movie
• Oral history interview with Audrey Lyons, a "real life" Rosie, who worked in the Brooklyn shipyard during WWII from the Veterans History Project at Central Connecticut State University
• Oral history interview with Mary Doyle Keefe, who modeled for Norman Rockwell's "Rosie the Riveter" painting from the Veterans History Project at Central Connecticut State University