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George Washington, First Inauguration James Buchanan, Inauguration Abraham Lincoln, Second Inauguration |
Delving into the presidential and other papers in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress and the trove of pictorial images in the Prints and Photographs and Rare Book Divisions in preparation for Presidential Inaugurations has resulted in the discovery of several felicitous pairings in which a contemporary recounting of an inaugural event in a diary or letter corresponds perfectly to an image of the same event. As solitary artifacts, letters, diaries, and visual images of inaugurations are wonderfully evocative of a certain place and time, but when certain words and images are brought together there is an element of drama, a synergy. Together, there is a greater resonance, a greater poignancy, a greater intimacy, a greater sense of the moment. |