Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress -- Library of Congre

Memory formation, memorialization, collective history, and knowledge of the known world are guided by individuals and their cultures. <i>Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress</i> explores the ways people have preserved their history, culture, and personal recollections in a variety of artifacts, including letters, diaries, photographs, maps, books, quilts, rugs, murals, scrolls, and monuments.<br/><br/>The official companion to the Library of Congress exhibition, <i>Collecting Memories</i> uses vivid photographs and interpretive text to bring context to a wide variety of historic objects, from President Abraham Lincoln's handwritten draft of the Gettysburg Address to Steve Ditko's original drawings of the Spider-Man origin story. Other highlights include: <br/><br/>* Maya Lin's original competition drawings for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial<br/><br/>* The first Italian cookbook, <i>Libro de arte coquinaria, </i> published in the late 1400s<br/><br/>* An incredibly rare crystal flute given to President James Madison by French flute maker Claude Laurent <br/><br/>* Illustrations from a thirty-nine-foot nineteenth-century Japanese scroll<br/><br/>* Scenes from the fifteenth-century <i>Washington Haggadah</i><br/><br/>* Images of a colorful six-by-nine-foot canvas family tree documenting a Black family genealogy dating back to the eighteenth century<br/><br/>* A hand-painted scroll, or <i>thangka, </i> given to the Library by the fourteenth Dalai Lama<br/><