THE WIZARD OF OZ Musical Sketches Added To The Library of Congress Harold Arlen Collection

The Library of Congress has acquired rare music and lyric sketches from composer Harold Arlen and lyricist E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, best known for their collaboration on the score of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. The acquisition, announced on August 25, 2025—marking 86 years since the film’s release—joins the Library’s growing Harold Arlen Collection.

The newly acquired materials include 35 manuscript items, among them the only known lyric sketch for “Over the Rainbow.” Scrawled in pencil on yellow legal paper, Harburg’s early draft reads: “Some day I’ll wish upon a star + wake + find the darkness far behind me.” The film’s score went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, cementing Judy Garland’s performance as one of the most beloved in film history.

Additional highlights include:

• Three pages of music sketches for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

• Manuscripts for “Off to See the Wizard,” “Lollipop League,” and “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.”

• Seven pages of “Oz possibilities,” with preliminary themes.

• Music sketches for “Mayor of Munchkin Land.”

• The 1939 Academy Award for Best Original Song awarded to Harold Arlen for “Over the Rainbow.”

• A 1929 self-portrait of George Gershwin, sent personally to Arlen.

“Harold Arlen’s contributions to The Wizard of Oz have profoundly shaped American culture,” said Nicholas A. Brown-Cáceres, Acting Chief of the Library’s Music Division. “This donation not only honors Arlen and Harburg’s imaginative genius but preserves the legacy of music that has captured the hearts of generations.”

Selections from the acquisition will be featured in a new display in the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building beginning October 23, 2025. The exhibit will pair original Wizard of Oz manuscripts with materials from Wicked, running through January 7, 2026, in celebration of L. Frank Baum’s novel’s 125th anniversary.

The Wizard of Oz sketches join an extensive Harold Arlen Collection, donated beginning in 2022 by Arlen’s sister-in-law, Rita Arlen. The collection includes sketches for House of Flowers (1954), manuscripts for Garland’s The Man That Got Away, Arlen’s original draft for Stormy Weather, and correspondence with cultural luminaries such as Louis Armstrong, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Barbra Streisand.

Arlen’s catalog of American standards—“Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” and many more—sits alongside dozens of other songwriter collections at the Library, including Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Leonard Bernstein.

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, home to the U.S. Copyright Office and the National Film Registry, which inducted The Wizard of Oz in 1989. Explore collections at loc.gov.