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Portraits of David Crichton and William Ansah Sessarakoo.

The Record Scratch: Uncovering Documents Relating to William Ansah Sessarakoo

As it turns out, as much as this clutch of papers is about a specific story of Atlantic slavery it still relates to British finance and national politics.
by Jayne Ptolemy via Commonplace on June 17, 2025
Louis Armstrong performs on the Kraft Music Hall TV show at NBC Studios in Brooklyn in June 1967 in New York.

Louis Armstrong’s Difficult Upbringing Revealed in Family Police Records

A new book reveals the jazz musician’s mother and sister were arrested several times for prostitution in New Orleans.
by Dalya Alberge via The Guardian on February 1, 2025
Portrait of a Black woman; artist unknown, American, circa 1830–1835.

In Search of the Real Hannah Crafts

"The Bondwoman’s Narrative" is the first novel by a Black woman to describe slavery from the inside. Recently, scholars have discovered her true identity.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on July 25, 2024
Map Green Lawn Cemetery.

An Indianapolis Archivist’s Curiosity Revives Historical Truths

A Black cemetery by the site of the former Greenlawn Cemetery in Indianapolis is now a point of contention as the city plans to develop the area.
by Mary Lee Pappas via Arts Midwest on June 29, 2023
A cut out from the magazine New Masses with the headline "For College Student H.H.C," pasted over a photo montage of an archive.

“H.H.C.”: The Story of a Queer Life—Glimpsed, Lost, and Finally Found

My hunt for one man across the lonely expanse of the queer past ended in a place I never expected.
by Aaron Lecklider via Slate on April 24, 2023

A Lost Operatic Masterpiece Written By White Men For An All-Black Cast Was Found And Restored

Can it be produced without controversy?
by Fredric Dannen via Billboard on March 27, 2023
Professor Wendy Roberts holding a book.

UAlbany Professor Finds New Poem by Famed Early American Poet Phillis Wheatley

Discovery of Phillis Wheatley's earliest known elegy in a commonplace book gives us important insights into her early life and how her work circulated.
by Bethany Bump via SUNY Albany on January 17, 2023
Noble Johnson (left rear), Jimmie Smith, and Beulah Hall in “The Trooper of Troop K”

Looking (and Looking Again) at Black Film History

Uncovering the earliest surviving fragment of Black-produced cinema.
by Cary O'Dell via Library of Congress Blog on October 4, 2022
Finger pointing to a writ of habeas corpus filed on behalf of Sojourner Truth

State Archives Find Sojourner Truth’s Historic Court Case

A document thought lost to history shows how Sojourner Truth became the first Black woman to successfully sue white men to get her son released from slavery.
by Kenneth C. Crowe II via Times Union on February 1, 2022
Red binder pulled from row of blue binders

Serendipity in the Archives

Or, a lost freedom story I found while looking for something else.
by Marcus Rediker via Public Seminar on August 25, 2021
An image of the diary of John Claypoole, third husband of Betsy Ross.

Betsy Ross’s Husband’s Diary Turned Up in a Garage. Here’s What it Tells Us About The Flagmaker.

The 240-year-old journal of John Claypoole, a Revolutionary War POW and later the third husband of Betsy Ross, sheds light on the flagmaker.
by Natalie Pompilio via Retropolis on July 12, 2021

Edison vs. Scott

The complicated story behind the invention of sound recording.
by Emma Jacobs via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 31, 2017
People standing around the aftermath of a train accident in 1926.

A Roomful of Death and Destruction

The room at One Police Plaza, jammed to the ceiling with filing cabinets and boxes, and reeking of vinegar, held about 180,000 images ranging from 1914 to 1972.
by Lucy Sante via New York Review of Books on June 22, 2015
Portrait of Charles Lennox, the third Duke of Richmond reading by a tree.

Secrets of a Radical Duke

How a lost copy of the Declaration of Independence unlocked a historical mystery.
by Danielle Allen via The Atlantic on October 9, 2025
James Baldwin

Through the Lens of Love

On a new biography of James Baldwin.
by Nicholas Boggs, Danté Stewart via Literary Hub on August 25, 2025
Lee Pattie Registrar's Report

Trouble with the Brothers: Booze, Divorce, and Madness in the American West

The past really is a foreign country, as historian Jonathan Ablard finds when piecing together the turbulent history of his ancestors in the West and Midwest.
by Jonathan Ablard via Tropics of Meta on June 23, 2025
Collage of various black women mentioned within the article.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Edda L. Fields-Black on the Combahee River Raid

Harriet Tubman’s revolutionary Civil War raid and the power of preserving Black history in the face of political pushback.
by Edda Fields-Black, Janell Hobson via Ms. Magazine on June 2, 2025
Mugshot (side profile, left, and front-facing, right) of Malcolm Little (Malcolm X).

A New Discovery Sheds Light on Malcolm X’s Journey to Islam

The civil rights leader’s lone poem, written from prison, reveals his love of language — and his quest for truth.
by Patrick Parr via New Lines on February 21, 2025

Opus Dei, Embezzlement, and Human Trafficking

The Catholic order has branches all over the world, and a deep history of unethical and illegal behavior.
by Mark Oppenheimer, Gareth Gore via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on January 21, 2025
Nicholas Said, an African American Muslim in his Union Army uniform.

Fighting for Freedom: The Little-Known Story of Muslims and the Civil War

The stories of two Muslim immigrants who fought for the Union show that the American Civil War was an international fight.
via PBS on November 21, 2024
Bob Dylan performing on stage.

The Lines, They Are A-Changin’

Getting lost and found in the Bob Dylan archives.
by Justin Taylor via Bookforum on October 29, 2024
Alice Morgan Wright with unknown friend, sitting on a tree stump.

Reconstructing the Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement

Rouse reveals the hidden queer histories of suffragists like Alice Morgan Wright, who balanced activism with private, erased relationships.
by Wendy L. Rouse via Gay And Lesbian Review on September 20, 2024
Collage art of Supreme Court Justices.

Science Historian Naomi Oreskes Schools the Supreme Court on Climate Change

Scientists and lawmakers in the 70s knew more than we think they did about climate change and the impacts of fossil fuel regulations.
by Naomi Oreskes, Jessica McKenzie via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on August 15, 2024
Edmund Muskie with a concerned expression, next to a globe.

The Lost History of What Americans Knew About Climate Change in the 1960s

It wasn’t just scientists who were worried, but Congress, the White House, and even Sports Illustrated, newly unearthed documents show.
by Kate Yoder via Grist on August 5, 2024
Detail from "the Book of Negroes," listing Arthur Bowler and his family, 1783.

Eight Clues

Recovering a life in fragments, Arthur Bowler in slavery and freedom.
by Jane Lancaster via Journal of the American Revolution on June 6, 2024
AI-generated image of the “shiny object ancestor” experience.

Shiny Object Ancestors: The Ones We Can’t Resist

Tracing the family history of some of today's most popular celebrities.
by Megan Smolenyak via Megansmolenyak.com on May 21, 2024
John Thorn photographed in front of baseball memorabilia.

How Baseball’s Official Historian Dug Up the Game’s Unknown Origins

A lifelong passion for the national pastime led John Thorn to redefine the sport's relationship with statistics and reveal the truth behind its earliest days.
by Frederic J. Frommer via Smithsonian on March 28, 2024
A black and white drawing of Julia Ann Chinn.

Tenuous Privileges, Tenuous Power

Amrita Myers paints freedom as a process in which Black women used the tools available to them to secure rights and privileges within a slave society.
by Keisha N. Blain, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers via Public Books on March 19, 2024
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

Five Centuries Ago, France Came to America

This is the story of Giovanni da Verrazzano, who never reached Asia, but became the first European to set foot on the site of the future city of New York.
by Diane de Vignemont via France-Amérique on March 5, 2024

UC Berkeley Student Brings to Light Stories of LGBTQ+ Japanese Americans Incarcerated During WWII

A UC Berkeley student’s award-winning research shines a light on LGBTQ+ life in Japanese American concentration camps during World War II.
by Tor Haugan via UC Berkeley Library on February 19, 2024
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