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Family

On the ties that bind ancestors and their descendants.

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Detail of faces on a family tree.

The Pocahontas Exception: America’s Ancestor Obsession

The ‘methods and collections’ of genealogists are political because they have a great deal in common with genealogy as a way of doing history.
by Thomas W. Laqueur via London Review of Books on March 30, 2023
Father sitting with children
partner

The Rise of the Domestic Husband

In the late 1800s, advice writers targeting white, middle-class Americans began encouraging men to become more engaged in the emotional lives of their households.
by Livia Gershon, Margaret Marsh via JSTOR Daily on September 7, 2023
Connie Chung with other Asian-American women named after her.

Why Are There So Many Asian American Women Named Connie?

I thought my story was special. Little did I know it was the story of a generation.
by Connie Wang via New York Times on May 11, 2023
A collage of Jacuzzi family photographs.

The Frothy Saga of the Jacuzzi Family

An immigrant story, an American dream, a machine that defined bourgeois sensuality.
by Saskia Solomon via New York Times on August 11, 2023

Exhibits

Family register sampler sewed by Abigail Barnard, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1833.
Exhibit

Finding Ancestors

The many ways of knowing those who came before us.

Father sitting with children
partner

The Rise of the Domestic Husband

In the late 1800s, advice writers targeting white, middle-class Americans began encouraging men to become more engaged in the emotional lives of their households.
by Livia Gershon, Margaret Marsh via JSTOR Daily on September 7, 2023
An illustration of Lucinda Williams in a storm with debris in the air behind her.

Lucinda Williams and the Idea of Louisiana

An exploration of the family stories, Southern territory, and distortions of memory that Lucinda Williams' songwriting evokes.
by Wyatt Williams via The Bitter Southerner on September 5, 2023
An enslaved African American family or families posing in front of a wooden house on a plantation

10 Million Enslaved Americans' Names are Missing from History. AI is Helping Identify Them.

When journalist Dorothy Tucker first learned about the 10 Million Names genealogical project, it helped amplify memories of long car journeys to “Down South."
by Rachel Jones via National Geographic on August 31, 2023
Burkhard Bilger’s uncle (as a baby) and grandfather, Gernot and Karl Gönner, Aulfingen, Germany, early 1930s.

The Trouble with Ancestry

Two family histories by Americans connected to Europe’s twentieth century through their fascist grandfathers seek to occupy the void between history and memory.
by Fintan O’Toole via New York Review of Books on August 31, 2023
A picture of Huey Newton and Fredrika Newton embracing.

The Misunderstood Visionary Behind the Black Panther Party

Huey P. Newton has been mythologized and maligned since his murder 34 years ago. His family and friends offer an intimate look inside his life and mind.
by Jenny Rothenberg Gritz via Smithsonian on August 22, 2023
A collage of Jacuzzi family photographs.

The Frothy Saga of the Jacuzzi Family

An immigrant story, an American dream, a machine that defined bourgeois sensuality.
by Saskia Solomon via New York Times on August 11, 2023
Afeni Shakur at a session of the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention, organized by the Black Panther Party, in Philadelphia, September 1970.

How the Shakurs Became One of America’s Most Influential Families

In a white supremacist society, where Black people are still fighting for freedom, the Black family offers protection and, at times, a space for resistance.
by Keisha N. Blain via The New Republic on August 3, 2023
Goofus and Gallant characters and quotations.

The Comic Strip That Explains the Evolution of American Parenting

What eight decades of "Goofus and Gallant" illustrate about society’s changing expectations of children.
by Julie Beck via The Atlantic on June 28, 2023
A page of the 1838 deal by the Jesuits to sell 272 enslaved people.

The Families Enslaved by the Jesuits, Then Sold to Save Georgetown

In 1838, leaders of the Catholic order faced opposition from their own priests, but pressed forward with the sale of 272 human beings anyway.
by Rachel L. Swarns via Retropolis on June 15, 2023
Barbara Antmann, whose sister was a Sullivanian, outside one of their buildings.

The Upper West Side Cult That Hid in Plain Sight

In the sixties and seventies, the Sullivanian Institute had a winning sales pitch for young New Yorkers: parties, sex, low rent, and affordable therapy.
by Jessica Winter via The New Yorker on June 14, 2023
Morlok quadruplets with a teacher next to a chalkboard.

Sleepwalking to Madness in Mid-Century America

On Audrey Clare Farley’s “Girls and Their Monsters.”
by Ellen Wayland Smith via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 13, 2023
Tina Turner singing on stage

America Loved Tina Turner. But It Wasn’t Good To Her.

Over the course of her 83 years, the megawatt star that was Tina Turner kept telling us who she was in the hopes that we would see her — all of her.
by Soraya Nadia McDonald via Andscape on June 6, 2023
Portrait of William Costin.

Did Martha Washington Have a Black Grandson?

Likely the child of Martha's son from her first marriage, William Costin used his position to advocate for D.C.'s free Black community.
by Cassandra Good via Smithsonian on June 5, 2023
James Dent Walker.

A Major Group of Family Genealogists Apologizes For Past Racism

The National Genealogical Society is one of the oldest, largest groups dedicated to helping families trace their ancestries.
by Sydney Trent via Retropolis on May 31, 2023
A precolonization map of the Northeast, showing Abenaki homeland, at the Musee des Abenakis.

Review of Records Fails to Support Local Leaders’ Claims of Abenaki Ancestry

Questions are swirling in New Hampshire around attempts by two local groups to gain tribal recognition.
by Julia Furukawa via New Hampshire Public Radio on May 22, 2023
Phyllis McLaughlin in her Red Cross Clubmobile uniform.

My Mother Returned From World War II a Changed Woman

In her World War II photographs and those of her friends, my mother is laughing and bright-eyed in every single one. I almost don’t recognize her.
by Luis Alberto Urrea via New York Times on May 12, 2023
Connie Chung with other Asian-American women named after her.

Why Are There So Many Asian American Women Named Connie?

I thought my story was special. Little did I know it was the story of a generation.
by Connie Wang via New York Times on May 11, 2023
Illustrated portrait of Martin Luther King Jr., by PS Spencer.

The New Definitive Biography of Martin Luther King Jr.

“King: A Life,” by Jonathan Eig, is the first comprehensive account of the civil rights icon in decades.
by Dwight Garner via New York Times on May 8, 2023
Formal portrait photograph of a young Jackie Bouvier.

The Making of Jackie Kennedy

As a student in Paris and a photographer at the Washington Times-Herald, the future First Lady worked behind the lens to bring her own ideas into focus.
by Thomas Mallon via The New Yorker on May 1, 2023
The men of the Dawahares family, a Syrian immigrant family who founded a clothing business in Kentucky.

Moses of Cairo (Illinois)

The idea that non-white immigrants are, generally speaking, new to the Midwest could not be further from the truth.
by Edward E. Curtis IV via Belt Magazine on April 23, 2023
Photographs of a family sitting at table, a woman in a crowd, and parents holding signs of support at a pride parade.

How One Mother’s Love for Her Gay Son Started a Revolution

In the sixties and seventies, fighting for the rights of queer people was considered radical activism. To Jeanne Manford, it was just part of being a parent.
by Kathryn Schulz via The New Yorker on April 10, 2023
A box of explosives removed from the murderer's home

America’s First Plane Bomber, and His Intended Victim

A mass murderer of 1955.
by Nathan Munn via Popula on April 5, 2023
Detail of faces on a family tree.

The Pocahontas Exception: America’s Ancestor Obsession

The ‘methods and collections’ of genealogists are political because they have a great deal in common with genealogy as a way of doing history.
by Thomas W. Laqueur via London Review of Books on March 30, 2023
Fort William Henry, 1755.

The Curious History of Ulysses Grant's Great Grandfather

The sacrifice of Captain Noah Grant, during the French and Indian War, may have influenced Ulysses S. Grant, as he decided to rejoin the U.S. Army in 1861.
by John Reeves via History News Network on March 19, 2023
Illustration of Mina Miller Edison in front of news clippings about her.

Mina Miller Edison Was Much More Than the Wife of the 'Wizard of Menlo Park'

The second wife of Thomas Edison, she viewed domestic labor as a science, calling herself a "home executive."
by Katherine Hobbs via Smithsonian on March 3, 2023
Bobby Seal and Huey Newton standig in front of a Black Panther Party sign

How Huey P. Newton’s Early Intellectual Life Led Him To Activism

The role of family in Huey P. Newton's educational journey.
by Mark Whitaker via Literary Hub on February 13, 2023
Edgar Allan Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe Had a Promising Military Career. Then He Blew it Up.

Netflix’s “The Pale Blue Eye” portrays Edgar Allan Poe as a young West Point cadet. Here’s the true story of his brief, failed military career.
by Dave Kindy via Retropolis on January 19, 2023

Fleeing Slavery in a Top Hat and Cravat

A new book relates the daring escape from bondage in Georgia to freedom in the North by an enslaved couple disguised as a wealthy planter and his property.
by W. Caleb McDaniel via New York Times on January 15, 2023
A Union soldier stands with African Americans on a plantation, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, 1862.

Military Service and Black Families During the Civil War

One war, in one city, Philadelphia, and the fate of the men, women, and children left behind as collateral damage in the wake of conflict.
by Barbara A. Gannon via Black Perspectives on January 11, 2023
Artwork of trees with multicolored roots.

Yearning for Roots

We're born with a hunger for connection with our ancestors – both biological and spiritual.
by Peter Mommsen via Plough Magazine on December 5, 2022
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