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Topic Changemakers

Changemakers are everywhere. Everyday citizens become trailblazers and history makers, shaping America and making life better. Come discover their stories with us, and be inspired to create your own.

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Visit the Library

Free Events

Celebrate changemakers with talks, exhibition tours, films & more

Exhibition

Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote

Major exhibition tells the story of the long campaign for women's suffrage

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Help Transcribe Women's Suffrage History

Dig into the papers of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Church Terrell & more

Photographs

African-American Women Changemakers

Photos of educators, activists & artists

Featured Collection Rosa Parks

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Changemakers in Library Collections

These digital collections document the work of changemakers throughout history. Get to know them by exploring their personal papers, letters, photos & more.

Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar
Susan B. Anthony Papers
Clara Barton Papers
Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers
Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry
Leonard Bernstein Collection
Carrie Chapman Catt Papers
Civil Rights History Project
Aaron Copland Collection
Anna E. Dickinson Papers
Frederick Douglass Papers
Selections from the Katherine Dunham Collection
Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies
Benjamin Franklin Papers
Martha Graham Collection
Alexander Hamilton Papers
National Child Labor Committee Collection
Zora Neale Hurston Plays
Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection
Abraham Lincoln Papers
Alan Lomax Collection
PBS NewsHour with Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer
Frederick Law Olmsted Papers
Rosa Parks Papers
By Popular Demand: Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights, 1860s-1960s
Finding Our Place in the Cosmos: From Galileo to Sagan and Beyond
Omar Ibn Said Collection
Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers
Mary Church Terrell Papers
George Washington Papers
Walt Whitman Papers in the Charles E. Feinberg Collection
Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers

Changemakers in Online Exhibitions

These exhibitions tell the stories of people who have shaped history through art, activism, discovery and invention.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: 50 Years Cultural Ambassador to the World
Art in Action: Herblock and Fellow Artists Respond to Their Times
Arthur Szyk: Artist for Freedom
Books That Shaped America
Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom
Creative Space: Fifty Years of Robert Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop
A Day Like No Other: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington
I Love Lucy: An American Legend
Jacob Riis: Revealing "How the Other Half Lives"
Jazz Singers
Louis Braille: His Legacy and Influence
Mapping a Growing Nation: From Independence to Statehood
Margaret Mead: Human Nature and the Power of Culture
Women Come to the Front: Journalists, Photographers, and Broadcasters During WWII
The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention
Chamber Music: The Life and Legacy of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge