Film Treasures from the Library of Congress

Carla Hayden, the 14th Librarian of Congress, was the featured guest during a special night celebrating the Library’s role in collecting and preserving American cinema. Her presentation showcased some of the amazing films – both famous and forgotten – that the Library has collected over the last 124 years and are now preserved at the Library’s Packard Campus facility in Culpeper, Virginia.

Dr. Hayden is the first woman, and the first African American, to serve as chief executive of the Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, with more than 162 million items in its collections. The Library serves Congress and makes its research collections accessible on-site and online.

The evening featured the world premiere of the Library’s restoration of Lois Weber’s On the Brink (1911), the only surviving footage from two “lost” Technicolor musicals from the early 1930s, and Edison’s Frankenstein (1910), which was once on AFI’s list of top ten most wanted films. In addition to selections from the National Film Registry, the evening included rare footage of Clara Bow and the Marx Brothers and Hollywood home movies featuring Loretta Young, Clark Gable, George Gershwin and Ernest Hemingway.

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This program is supported in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.