Celebrations Today – January 1

Celebrations Today – USA – January 1

National Hangover Day
National Bloody Mary Day
New Years Day
Apple Gifting Day
Commitment Day
Copyright Law Day
Ellis Island Day
Euro Day
Global Family Day
National Bloody Mary Day
National First Foot Day
National Hangover Day
New Year’s Day
New Year’s Dishonor List Day
Polar Bear Swim Day
Public Domain Day
Saint Basil’s Day
World Day of Peace
Z Day

 

 

Today in History: January 1

Happy New Year!

Bernstein with Felicia, Jamie, Alexander and Nina.
Leonard Bernstein Collection, 1920-1989

The Leonard and Felicia Bernstein family sent New Year’s Day (January 1) greeting cards to extended family and friends during the holiday season. Holiday card pictures are among the eighty-five photographs for the 1960s now available online in the Leonard Bernstein Collection, 1920-1989 held by the Library of Congress Music Division.

Holograph Piano-Vocal Score, 1957.
“Something’s Coming” from West Side Story
Composed by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim
Copyright 1957, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Copyright renewed. Used by permission of the Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company.
American Treasures of the Library of Congress

With more than 400,000 items including music and literary manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, audio and video recordings, fan mail, and other materials, this collection, donated by the Bernstein family in 1992, is one of the largest and most varied special collections in the Music Division.

During the 1960s, Leonard Bernstein donated the sketches and piano-vocal scores from West Side Story to the Library of Congress. The holograph piano-vocal score of the song, “Something’s Coming” composed by Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim for the character of Tony, is one of the items on display in the Imagination portion of the exhibition of the American Treasures of the Library of Congress.

• View photographs from each decade of the life of this American composer in the Bernstein Photo Gallery.
• Browse the Leonard Bernstein Chronology for important events in Bernstein’s life.
• Browse Leonard Bernstein in William P. Gottlieb: Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz for portraits of Bernstein.
• Search Leonard Bernstein in Music, Theater & Dance for additional photographs as well as information on other special collections that reference Bernstein.
• Visit the exhibition American Treasures of the Library of Congress to see other creations of the American Imagination.
• Search the Today in History Archive on the keyword composer to view other features on American musical artists such as George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and George M. Cohan.
• Visit the Official Leonard Bernstein Site for more information about the composer and his works.

Could it be? Yes it could!
Something’s coming, something good!
Maybe tonight…
“Something’s Coming” from West Side Story,
Composed by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.

“Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free”

On January 1, 1892, a fifteen-year old Irish girl named Annie Moore became the first of the more than twelve million immigrants who would pass through the doors of the Ellis Island Immigration Station in its sixty-two years of operation. This small island off the New Jersey coast in the New York Harbor lies in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Together, these two landmarks have welcomed millions of immigrants to America.

Emigrants [i.e. immigrants] Landing at Ellis Island,
Filmed, July 9, 1903. Copyright, July 24, 1903, Thomas A. Edison, Inc.
Life of a City: New York, 1898-1906

The film opens with a view of the steam ferryboat William Myers laden with passengers approaching a dock at the Ellis Island Immigration Station. The vessel is docked, the gangway is placed, and the immigrant passengers are seen coming up the gangway and onto the dock where they cross in front of the camera.

Immigrants who had just completed their journeys across the Atlantic Ocean would dock at Ellis Island, where they disembarked. The passengers were screened by doctors for obvious physical ailments and by officers who reviewed their legal documents. If they were in reasonably good health and their papers were in order, immigrants were allowed into the United States within a few hours of their arrival.

Inspection Room, Ellis Island,
between 1900 and 1915.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920

“At seven o’clock our boat lifted anchor and we glided up the still waters of the harbour. The whole prow was a black mass of passengers staring at the ferry-boats, the distant factories, and sky-scrapers. Every point of vantage was seized, and some scores of emigrants were clinging to the rigging. At length we came into sight of the green-grey statue of Liberty, far away and diminutive at first, but later on, a celestial figure in a blaze of sunlight. An American waved a starry flag in greeting, and some emigrants were disposed to cheer, some shed silent tears. Many, however, did not know what the statue was. I heard one Russian telling another that it was the tombstone of Columbus.

We carried our luggage out at eight, and in a pushing crowd prepared to disembark…. At a quarter to ten we steamed for Ellis Island. We were then marched to another ferry-boat, and expected to be transported somewhere else, but this second vessel was simply a floating waiting-room. We were crushed and almost suffocated upon it. A hot sun beat upon its wooden roof; the windows in the sides were fixed; we could not move an inch from the places where we were awkwardly standing, for the boxes and baskets were so thick about our feet; babies kept crying sadly, and irritated emigrants swore at the sound of them. All were thinking–“Shall I get through?”From p. 42-43, With poor immigrants to America; by Stephen Graham.
New York, The Macmillan Company, 1914.
American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920

Find other artifacts on the Library’s Web site related to Ellis Island:

• Search the following American Memory collections on the phrase Ellis Island :
  • Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record, 1933-Present
  • Life of a City: New York, 1898-1906
  • Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920
• Search for the phrase: “Ellis Island” using the Library’s new Web site search engine (Beta).
• View in the Library’s online catalog the pamphlet: Our immigrants at Ellis Island; an exercise prepared for the young people and descriptive of the reception, inspection, and experiences of our immigrants in the detention-room and railway offices, by Mrs. Francis E. Clark. Published/Created: Boston, Chicago, United Society of Christian Endeavor, c1912.
• Find other immigration-related materials on the Library’s Web site: View the list of American Memory collections containing materials relating to immigration and American Expansion.
• Search the American Memory collection American Life Histories, 1936-1940 on Swiss, German, Italian, Norwegian or other names of national groups to find many firsthand accounts of immigrants’ experiences.
• Other resources on Ellis Island and immigration from the Library’s Web site: View the feature presentation Immigration from the Teachers Page.
• Consult the guide to print sources on immigrant arrivals from the Library’s Local History and Genealogy Reading Room: “Immigrant Arrivals: A Guide To Published Sources.”
• Special feature on the Prints and Photographs Division’s Web site: “Selected Images of Ellis Island and Immigration, ca. 1880-1920.”

Today in History January 1 -External Links

Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia