Exhibition Loans

Manuscript Division collections provide fertile ground for curators and other specialists involved in creating exhibitions. The Manuscript Division exhibition liaison, in partnership with the division's manuscript specialists and the Library of Congress Conservation Division helps the Library's Interpretive Programs Office (IPO) facilitate the loan of original collection material to institutions worldwide. Exhibit quality facsimiles of collection material can be ordered through the Library's Duplication Services.

For information on how to request items for exhibition loan from any part of the Library, including the Manuscript Division, please consult the Library of Congress Interpretative Programs Office Loan Procedures to Institutions page. Contact the registrars, Rachel Waldron [email protected] or Patrick Shepler [email protected], with any further questions, or to begin a loan arrangement procedure.

Questions about Manuscript Division collections can be directed to the division’s exhibition liaison, Barbara Bair [email protected], and to the division’s subject specialists and reference librarians.

All formal loan requests must be submitted to the IPO registrars at least six months prior to the open date of the exhibition.

All exhibition loans are subject to conservation review and approval for use by Library administrators. 

Please keep in mind in planning that the borrowing institution is responsible for all of the costs related to the loan, including fabrication of display housing, insurance, crating, and shipping and/or courier expenses.

The following institutions are among those that have borrowed or reproduced for display items from the Manuscript Division for recent or forthcoming exhibitions, ca. 2008-2011:

Abbe Museum: Celebrating Maine’s Native American Heritage, Bar Harbor, Maine
        Indians and Rusticators: Wabanaki and Summer Visitors on Mount Desert Island

The American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation, Oshkosh Public Museum, Oshkosh, Wisconsin; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey; and the Kansas City Museum, Kansas City, Missouri.
     The Tsar and the President: Alexander II and Abraham Lincoln, Liberator & Emancipator

Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Austin, Texas
     Tango Alpha Charlie: Texas Aviation Centennial

Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation , The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center , Washburn, North Dakota
     The 175th Anniversary of the Visit of Prince Maximilian

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
     Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World

Louisiana State Archives, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
     Judah P. Benjamin: A Louisiana Statesman

Miami University Art Museum, Oxford, Ohio
     Myaamiaki iisi meehtohseeniwiciki How the Miami People Live

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, New York
     Romantic Gardens: Nature, Art, and Landscape Design

Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association and the Society of the Cincinnati, Donald W. Reynolds Museum, George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens , Mount Vernon, Virginia
     Gilder Lehrman Gallery: George Washington and Faith
     E. M. Kirby Foundation Gallery: George Washington and His Generals

Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea de Trento e Rovereto (Contemporary and Modern Art Museum of Trento and Rovereto), Rovereto, Italy
      The Jazz Century: Art, Cinema, Music and Photography from Picasso to Basquiat

Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
     The Universal Archive: The Condition of the Document and the Modern Photographic Utopia

Museu d’Història de Catalunya (Museum of the History of Catalonia), Barcelona, Spain
     Les Filles de la Libertat

Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York, New York
     The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service

Portrait of Henry Morgenthau as a young man. Container 45, Henry Morgenthau Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Facsimile exhibited in The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service at the Museum of Jewish Heritage	Receipt, Hebrew Female Orphan Dowry, 1874. Container 5, Henry Morgenthau Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Facsimile exhibited in The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service at the Museum of Jewish Heritage
		Labels for Patent Pine-Balsam Syrup and Fire & Life Insurance Brokers. Container 5, Henry Morgenthau Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Facsimiles exhibited in The Morgenthaus: A Legacy of Service at the Museum of Jewish Heritage

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
     One Life: Katherine Graham

New-York Historical Society, New York, New York
     Lincoln and New York and
     Nation at the Crossroads: The Great New York Debate Over the Constitution, 1787–88 , (companion exhibition to a History Web site)

The Rail Splitter (a national organization of Lincoln scholars), the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission , and the Abraham Lincoln Institute, Federal Hall National Memorial, U.S. National Park Service, New York, New York
     Abraham Lincoln in New York: A Rail Splitter Bicentennial Celebration

Richard Nixon Foundation, Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace , Yorba Linda, California
     The 40th Anniversary of Richard Nixon’s Inaugural

The U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.
     A More Perfect Union (ongoing rotating exhibitions of original documents)

University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, Virginia.
     Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village: The Creation of an Architectural Masterpiece
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