Hispanic Reading Room
Description from the LC: The reading room, named after the Hispanic Society in New York, was dedicated in 1939 to serve as a focal point to orient and assist researchers who seek to avail themselves of the immense opportunities afforded by Luso-Hispanic materials throughout the Library of Congress. The Hispanic Reading Room, as it is usually called, serves as the primary access point for research relating to those parts of the world encompassing the geographical areas of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Iberia; the indigenous cultures of those areas; and peoples throughout the world historically influenced by Luso-Hispanic heritage, including Latinos in the U.S., and peoples of Portuguese or Spanish heritage in Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
Hispanic Americans Themed Resource
Explore the culture, contributions and interactions of Hispanic peoples in North America through rare maps, historical documents from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, local histories, recorded songs, interactive games, and detailed online bibliographies.
Exploring the Early Americas
Exploring the Early Americas features selections from the more than 3,000 rare maps, documents, paintings, prints, and artifacts that make up the Jay I. Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress. It provides insight into indigenous cultures, the drama of the encounters between Native Americans and European explorers and settlers, and the pivotal changes caused by the meeting of the American and European worlds. The exhibition includes two extraordinary maps by Martin Waldseemüller created in 1507 and 1516, which depict a world enlarged by the presence of the Western Hemisphere.
American Memory Collections:
California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties. Collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell (Summary and Teaching Resources) This collection can be searched by ethnic group and includes recorded folk music of Basque, Mexican, Portuguese, Puerto Rican and Spanish origins.
Hispano Music and Culture from the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection (Summary Only) This collection documents 1940s religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents of rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Essays in both English and Spanish are included.
Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake (Summary Only) View items related to travels in Spanish America.
Parallel Histories: Spain, the United States and the American Frontier (Summary and Teaching Resources) This bilingual collection explores the history of the Spanish presence in North America from Columbus to the continued exploration and settlement of California and the American Southwest in the early 19th century.
Puerto Rico at the Dawn of the Modern Age: Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Perspectives (Summary and Teaching Resources) This collection portrays the early history of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico through first-person accounts, political writings, and primary source items drawn from the American Memory collections.
The South Texas Border, 1900-1920: Photographs from the Robert Runyon Collection (Summary and Teaching Resources) This collection features early 1900s photographs documenting the history and development of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. More than 350 images depict events in Northeastern Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.
The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures (Summary and Teaching Resources) This collection contains the first movies made of American troops in wartime and features troops, ships, notable figures, parades, reenactments of battles and other war-time events.
The United States and Brazil: Expanding Frontiers, Comparing Cultures (Summary Only) This collection, presented in both English and Portuguese, studies the interactions that have taken place between the United States and Brazil and the parallels and contrasts in the histories of these countries.
