This month's museum pick...

The Library of Congress

By Patrick Totty

Language of the Land

Journeys into Literary America

The Library of Congress looks at four U.S. regions and explores American  literature that used those regions as backdrops and points of departure in this ongoing exhibition located in the Thomas Jefferson Building in the Library’s Washington, DC complex. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

The description below is taken from the Library of Congress’s home page.

Exhibition Overview

From Robert Frost's New England farms to John Steinbeck's California valley to Eudora Welty's Mississippi Delta, authors have described the American landscape to evoke a strong sense of place. They have peopled our land with memorable characters and woven into their works the regional traits of a dynamic culture. Using the metaphor of a journey, Language of the Land: Journey into Literary America examines the following literary heritage though maps, photographs, and the works of American authors from a variety of periods.

The Introduction of the exhibitions features quotations that provide impressions of the United State by "roving authors" who toured the country, for example, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac, and John Steinbeck. Maps of the entire United States and photographs of typical places from the regions that will be explored in the rest of the exhibit are linked with appropriate quotations.

In the main part of the exhibit, viewers tour four sections of the United States: the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West, guided by passages from authors whose works are rooted in a particular place. The quotations are juxtaposed with photographs that characterize each locality and literary maps that highlight famous works and authors associated with each region. Many of these works also depict a journey, for example, Huckleberry Finn; travels down the Mississippi River from Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the Joad family's trek to California in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The overall effect of the exhibit is an excursion into literary America, guided by the voices of writers whose works vividly evoke time and place.