'Great Society Congress'
UD Library, ACSC announce opening of online exhibition about 89th Congress
3:06 p.m., April 2, 2015--The University of Delaware Library has joined the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress (ACSC) to announce the opening of “The Great Society Congress,” an online permanent exhibition that draws on primary resources to highlight legislation passed during the 89th United States Congress (1965-66).
The 89th Congress, considered one of the most productive in American history, passed an extensive legislative program as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s ambitious “Great Society” agenda.
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The exhibition is a collaborative project of the ACSC, an independent alliance of organizations and institutions that supports a wide range of programs designed to inform and educate students, scholars, policy-makers and the general public on the history of Congress, the legislative process, and current issues facing Congress. The University Library is an institutional member of the ACSC.
The library is hosting this multi-institutional digital exhibition, which was created using the web publishing system Omeka.
Omeka, a project of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, in Fairfax Virginia, provided the platform for this groundbreaking collaboration.
The 89th Congress enacted the most extensive legislative program since the New Deal between January 1965 and December 1966. The Voting Rights Act, Immigration and Nationality Act, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the Social Security Act of 1965 each were transformative pieces of legislation and cornerstones of the Great Society. They are also but a few of the many significant laws passed during the two sessions of the 89th Congress that are still felt and debated in America today.
The online exhibition uses images, government documents, press releases, personal correspondence and other materials contributed by more than 10 ACSC member collections.
“The Great Society Congress” explores the central role that the 89th Congress played in the construction of the Great Society and how some of the most impactful pieces of legislation in American history were shaped. The exhibition will be released in phases with content corresponding with legislative anniversaries and is available at this site.
ACSC institutions that contributed to the project are the:
- W.R. Poage Legislative Library, Baylor University
- University of Delaware Library
- Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia
- Everett McKinley Dirksen Congressional Leadership Research Center, Pekin, Illinois
- Indiana University Libraries Modern Political Papers
- Robert J. Dole Archive and Special Collections, University of Kansas
- John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress, New York University
- Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center, University of Oklahoma
- South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina
- Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin
- Office of Art and Archives, U.S. House of Representatives
- U. S. Senate Historical Office
- Center for Legislative Archives, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
- Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies, Shepherdstown, West Virginia
Co-curators for this exhibition are Danielle Emerling, assistant librarian, University of Delaware Library, and Jay Wyatt, director of programs and research, Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies.
The exhibition project team members are Hope Grebner, political papers archivist and assistant professor of librarianship, Drake University, and Evan Hocker, registrar, The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Audrey Hamelers, assistant librarian and digital humanities and web services librarian, University of Delaware Library, implemented the Omeka site’s design.
The University of Delaware Library has been a member of the ACSC since 2004 and supports the preservation of material that documents the work of Congress. The University Library holds a number of modern congressional collections, including: John J. Williams (U.S. Senate, 1947 to 1971); J. Allen Frear Jr. (U.S. Senate, 1949 to 1961); Thomas R. Carper (U.S. House of Representatives, 1983 to 1993); Michael N. Castle (U.S. House of Representatives, 1993 to 2011); and Edward E. (Ted) Kaufman (U.S. Senate, 2009-2010).
Image courtesy of the Carl Albert Center Congressional Archives, University of Oklahoma. Used with permission.