Foreign Language Programs

Creating French Culture

Throughout French history the powerful have sought to harness culture to their own ends. They understood that the representation of power--what today we call "image"--is a form of power itself. They patronized artists, artisans, and intellectuals who produced works that proclaimed the legitimacy of their rule, reinforced their authority, and enhanced their prestige. At times, they stifled creative impulses incompatible with their ambition. The relationship between power--or politics--and culture in French history is thus an ambivalent one, defined as much by conflict and censorship as by cooperation and patronage.

Creating French Culture traces the history of this relationship from Charlemagne (b. 742?-d. 814) to Charles de Gaulle (b. 1890-d. 1970), through the prism of more than 200 magnificent "treasures" on loan from the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris

Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library

One of Dresden's outstanding cultural institutions is the Sächsische Landesbibliothek (Saxon State Library), founded in 1556 when Prince Elector Augustus (ruled 1553-1586) started systematically to acquire learned books and literary works.

During the first half of the eighteenth century, under the rulers Augustus the Strong (ruled 1694-1733) and his son, Augustus II (ruled 1733-1763), Saxony reached the pinnacle of its cultural influence, manifested in the city's spectacular Baroque architecture. The city became a major European cultural center, whose monarchs fostered the arts, and made significant additions to its art, museum, and library collections. During this period the Court Library became a true state library for Saxony, adding many manuscripts, maps, and books from distinguished private collections. After World War II began in 1939, the most precious holdings of the Saxon State Library were moved to eighteen castles and offices in the vicinity of Dresden. Because of this, they largely survived the bombing raids of February and March 1945 by the British and American Air Forces that virtually destroyed the old city of Dresden and about 200,000 volumes of twentieth-century holdings.

World Treasures of the Library of Congress: Beginnings

The international collections of the Library of Congress started with the arrival of the Thomas Jefferson library in 1815. Today the Library's international collections are unparalleled; they are comprehensive in scope and include research materials in more than 460 languages and in many media.

Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaisaance Life

The manuscripts and printed books that came to rest in the Vatican Library tell many stories. They help to explain the development of Renaissance thought and art, scholarship and science, in Rome and elsewhere. They shed light on the history of the universal Roman church and on the city in which it flourished, on the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation--even on the history of Western efforts to understand and convert the peoples of the non-Western world. They describe the new education, art, and music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; they show how the curia reached beyond the bounds of Europe, to the Islamic world and even to China; and they reveal some of the conflicts that flared up when the accomplishment of church policy and the pursuit of new knowledge could not both be carried out.

1492: An Ongoing Voyage

1492. An Ongoing Voyage examines the rich mixture of societies coexisting in five areas of this hemisphere before European arrival. It then surveys the polyglot Mediterranean world at a dynamic turning point in its development.

The exhibition examines the first sustained contacts between American people and European explorers, conquerors and settlers from 1492 to 1600. During this period, in the wake of Columbus's voyages, Africans also arrived in the hemisphere, usually as slaves. All of these encounters, some brutal and traumatic, others more gradual, irreversibly changed the way in which peoples in the Americas led their lives.

Freud: Conflict and Culture

Immigration

This feature presentation links educators to primary sources from the Library of Congress' online collections. These Web resources can make history come alive for students! The feature provides an introduction to the study of immigration to the United States. It is far from the complete story, and focuses only on the immigrant groups that arrived in greatest numbers during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

American Memory Timeline

This resource was developed to help teachers and students use the vast online collections of the Library of Congress. The links to the right will lead you to sets of  selected primary sources on a variety of topics in United States History. The sets are arranged by chronological period.

The Great American Potluck

Part of the Immigration Web site, this resource lists recipes from all over the United States. Residents of the United States trace their family origins to countries around the world. The traditions of our forebears are reflected in the diversity of our recipes. Some recipes list ingredients which are unknown in this country, or which are unusual and difficult to find.

Community Roots

The United States is home to a diverse population that celebrates its cultural richness and variety through local festivals, community events, and other grassroots activities. These community gatherings demonstrate Americans' pride in where they come from, who they are, and where they live. Community Roots, drawing on the Local Legacies project provides a "snapshot" of American Culture as it was expressed in spring of 2000, in communities from every state in the nation.

MINERVA: Mapping the INternet Electronic Resources VIrtual Archive

Connects to archived Web pages from many countries in many languages. Topics include webpages published in reaction Sept. 11th and the 2000 Election

The World of 1898: The Spanish American War

Information about Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Spain, and the United States is provided in chronologies, bibliographies, and a variety of pictorial and textual material from bilingual sources

Carpenter's Collection

The Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection represents the extensive photographic files assembled by Frank G. Carpenter (1855-1924) to illustrate his popular writings on geography. Click on: Preview: Sample Images

World War I Posters

The World War I posters include posters made in America and in France between 1914 and 1920 to advertise war efforts and issues. Click on: Preview: All the Images

Foreign Language Workshop