Random Fascinating Historical Artifacts Stored In Library of Congress (16 items)

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  (#16) Helen Keller's Plea To Alexander Bell

  In the early 1900s, famous folks, like everyone else, communicated via telegram. The celebrities involved in a 1907 telegram donated to the Library of Congress are Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind, yet became a noted speaker and activist, and Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone and was also an advocate for deaf people. In the telegram, sent before Keller delivers a talk in New York, she asks Bell if he will “stand beside me and repeat my speech so that all may hear?”
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  (#7) Bizarre Health Product Labels

  Weight watchers in the U.S. at the turn of the century were more worried about being too thin (unhealthy) than being too fat (a sign of vim and vigor). This color lithograph from the Library of Congress, published circa 1895, is an advertising label for fat-producing products called Loring's Fat-Ten-U food tablets and Loring's Corpula food. A drugstore ad for the products, complete with skinny before and corpulent after drawings, said they were “guaranteed to make the thin plump and rosy with honest fleshiness of form."  
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  (#4) America's Birth Certificate

  The “birth certificate” is actually a world map described as the first document printed with the name “America.” Created by cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in 1507 CE and acquired by the Library of Congress in 2003, the world map has a mouthful of a Latin name: “Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorū que lustratione,” which translates to “A drawing of the whole earth following the tradition of Ptolemy and the travels of Amerigo Vespucci and others.” To Americans today, the map probably looks fairly accurate, but to long-ago Europeans, “America” was a big chunk of unknown continent. The document is also the first map to show a separate Western Hemisphere and Pacific Ocean.
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  (#2) Movie Etiquette Slides

  Modern-day movie theater annoyances that necessitate pre-film and on-screen warnings generally refer to turning off cell phones. In the early days of cinema, the big offenders were less technical but equally obtrusive: ladies’ hats. The Library of Congress has a collection of slides from old movie theaters in the early 1900s with “movie etiquette” suggestions like “Applaud with hands only” and “If annoyed when here please tell the management.” Or, for women with towering headgear, “Madam how would you like to sit behind the hat you’re wearing.”
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  (#3) Amelia Earhart's Palm Print

  Palmistry is the practice of studying someone’s hands as a way to interpret the person’s personality. Palmist Nellie Simmons Meier examined the hand prints of famed aviator Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, in 1933 – four years before Earhart mysteriously disappeared during a flight over the Pacific Ocean. In Meier's book Lions’ Paws: The Story of Famous Hands (the book’s original prints and character analyses were donated to the Library of Congress), she wrote the following about Earheart:

  The length of the palm indicates the love of physical activity, but the restraining influence shown by the length of the fingers, indicative of carefulness in detail, enables her to make careful preparation toward accomplishing a definite goal.
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  (#13) Thomas Jefferson's Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe

  The Library of Congress contains the largest collection of Thomas Jefferson documents in the world – more than 27,000 items that showcase his skills as a diplomat, politician, writer, scientist, architect, and historian. But this favorite Founding Father was also a dessert maker. His highly detailed recipe for vanilla ice cream – also available in his papers at the Library of Congress – is super natural. The ingredients are simply “good cream,” egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla. For a more decipherable version of the recipe, visit The Kitchn.

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