John & Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art
Reno, Nevada
The Lilley Museum of Art is located on the main campus of the University of Nevada, Reno.
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Artist: Daniel J. Boorstin (American, 1914-2004)
Daniel J. Boorstin, the twelfth Librarian of Congress, grew up and attended public schools in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After graduating in 1930, he entered Harvard College, which awarded him the bachelor’s degree summa cum laude in 1934. As a Rhodes Scholar from Oklahoma, in 1934, he entered Balliol College, Oxford, from which he received his B.A. in Jurisprudence (first class honors) in 1936 and his Bachelor of Civil Laws (first class honors) in 1937. Simultaneously, he was enrolled as a student at the Inner Temple, London, and passed the English bar examinations. He became a Barrister-at-Law in 1937.
Boorstin returned to the United States in 1937 earning a doctor of judicial science degree in 1940. From 1938 to 1942, he was an instructor on the faculty of Harvard University, where he taught English and American history and literature, and also legal history at the Harvard Law School. His first book, The Mysterious Science of the Law, was published by Harvard University Press in 1941. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1942.
In 1969, after a distinguished and productive 25-year academic career and many honors in the United States and abroad, Boorstin left the University of Chicago to become director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of History and Technology (today known as the National Museum of American History).
On June 30, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford nominated Boorstin to be Librarian of Congress. Confirmation occurred, without debate, on September 26, 1975, and on November 12, 1975, Daniel J. Boorstin took the oath of office as the twelfth Librarian of Congress. He was given the honor Librarian of Congress Emeritus.
Throughout his career, Boorstin was a prolific author. He continued his work as an historian while Librarian of Congress, carefully pointing out that his research and writing took place in the morning at home
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