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Painting of Liberian leaders and Americans deliberating

How One Historian Located Liberia’s Elusive Founding Document

The piece of paper went missing for nearly 200 years, leaving some scholars to question whether it even existed.
by Amy Crawford via Smithsonian on July 7, 2022
A cemetery with a dusting of snow.

Safer Than Childbirth

Abortion in the 19th century was widely accepted as a means of avoiding the risks of pregnancy.
by Tamara Dean via The American Scholar on March 4, 2022
Children learning about Thanksgiving, with model log cabin on table, Whittier Primary School, Hampton, Virginia circa 1900.

Fugitive Pedagogy

Jarvis Givens rediscovers the underground history of black schooling.
by Lydialyle Gibson via Harvard Magazine on February 11, 2022
Photograph of Chinese man in Sierra County with his name and description next to him.

The Dark Purpose Behind a Town Constable’s Journal

Why did a local official, at the turn of the twentieth century, maintain a ledger tracking Chinese residents?
by Michael Luo via The New Yorker on January 28, 2022
Side-by-side portraits of Lincoln, Rockwell, and Garfield

This Man Was the Only Eyewitness to the Deaths of Both Lincoln and Garfield

Almon F. Rockwell's newly resurfaced journals, excerpted exclusively here, offer an incisive account of the assassinated presidents' final moments.
by Jason Emerson via Smithsonian on January 7, 2022
Soldiers of the U.S. 7th Army march past the entrance of the Burgerbraukeller, site of Adolf Hitler's 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, in Munich on May 3, 1945, five days before the formal end of the World War II in Europe.

‘Greatest Generation’ Survey on Race, Sex and Combat During World War II Runs Counter to Its Image

Virginia Tech project finds forgotten Army surveys that reveal World War II lingo and “the good, the bad, the ugly, heroic, not heroic” attitudes of soldiers.
by Michael E. Ruane via Retropolis on December 20, 2021
An old water tower stands near abandoned outhouses on the former site of a Firestone plantation in Liberia.

Corporations Are Hiding Vast Troves of History From the Public

You can work around some of the holes this lack of access creates, but it takes years.
by Gregg Mitman via Slate on November 2, 2021
Archaeologists excavating grounds near the Rhode Island state house.

Before Rhode Island Built Its State House, a Racist Mob Destroyed the Community That Lived There

In 1831, a group of white rioters razed the Providence neighborhood of Snowtown. Now, archaeologists are excavating its legacy.
by Robin Catalono via Smithsonian on October 5, 2021
A former slave cabin, surrounded by tourists.

‘These Are Our Ancestors’: Descendants of Enslaved People Are Shifting Plantation Tourism

At three plantations in Charleston, S.C., Black descendants are connecting with their family’s history and helping reshape the narrative.
by Ariel Felton via Retropolis on October 1, 2021
Viking statues with a map background

Viking Map of North America Identified as 20th-Century Forgery

New technical analysis dates Yale's Vinland Map to the 1920s or later, not the 1440s as previously suggested.
by Matthew Gabriele, David M. Perry via Smithsonian on September 27, 2021
Booker T. Washington giving his Atlanta speech.

From the Recording Registry

On the anniversary of Booker T. Washington’s historic Atlanta speech, we look back at the rare 1908 recording so that his words would not be lost to history.
by Cary O'Dell via Library of Congress on September 18, 2021
Illustration of Clarence Thomas in front of factory

The Radicalization of Clarence Thomas

His time working for Monsanto and other polluting industries helped make him the fierce conservative he is today.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on August 13, 2021
Hungerford Deed

New Analysis Reveals More Details About Smithsonian Founder's Illegitimate Family Tree

The newly recovered 1787 Hungerford Deed, detailing a contentious squabble over property and prestige, can now be viewed in a new virtual exhibition.
by Alice George via Smithsonian on August 10, 2021
Woman looking over a former plantation site

The Lost Graves of Louisiana’s Enslaved People

A story about the hidden burial grounds of Louisiana’s enslaved people, and how continued industrial development is putting the historic sites at risk.
by Alexandra Eaton, Christoph Koettl via New York Times Op-Docs on June 27, 2021

The Secret Papers of Lee Atwater, Who Invented the Scurrilous Tactics That Trump Normalized

An infamous Republican political operative’s unpublished memoir shows how the Party came to embrace lies, racial fearmongering, and winning at any cost.
by Jane Mayer via The New Yorker on May 6, 2021
A hand holding the hand of a baby doll.

The Strange Tradition of “Practice Babies” at 20th-Century Women’s Colleges

A photo archive shows college coeds vacuuming, preparing baby bottles, diapering babies, and generally practicing at motherhood.
by Megan Culhane Galbraith via Hyperallergic on May 2, 2021
Richard Wright at a typewriter

Richard Wright's Newly Uncut Novel Offers a Timely Depiction of Police Brutality

'The Man Who Lived Underground,' newly expanded from a story into a novel by the Library of America, may revise the seminal Black author's reputation.
by Sonaiya Kelley via Los Angeles Times on April 19, 2021
Photographs of Kim Lee Finger and Michelle Brooks

Two Women Researched Slavery in Their Family. They Didn’t See the Same Story.

Trying to learn more about a woman named Ann led her descendants to confront a painful past; ‘I just wanted to know the truth.’
by Amy Dockser Marcus via The Wall Street Journal on April 16, 2021
Photo of the 1870 U.S. Census, with lines highlighted in orange, yellow, and green

The Strange Case of Booker T. Washington's Birthday

If Booker T. Washington never knew when he was born, how are we so sure about it now?
by Bill Black via Contingent on April 5, 2021
Members of the Harvard branch of the KKK pose for 1924 graduation photo at the foot of John Harvard Statue

The Crimson Klan

The KKK was clearly present at Harvard. But the university rarely mentions the 20th century in its attempts to reckon with its past.
by Simon J. Levien via The Harvard Crimson on March 29, 2021
An illustration of a man holding a photo of a naked man who is curled up defensively.

A Virginia Mental Institution for Black Patients Yields a Trove of Disturbing Records

Racism documented in files from the “Central Lunatic Asylum for the Colored Insane.”
by Britt Peterson via Washington Post Magazine on March 26, 2021
Lady Bird Johnson looking through stack of papers at a desk

The Lost Story of Lady Bird

Why do most chroniclers of LBJ’s presidency miss the centrality and influence of the first lady?
by Julia E. Sweig via The Atlantic on March 15, 2021

Why Martha Washington's Life Is So Elusive to Historians

A gown worn by the first First Lady reveals a dimension of her nature that few have been aware of.
by Alexis Coe via Smithsonian on February 17, 2021
Photograph of a former slave interviewed by the Federal Writers' Projects

Stories of Slavery, From Those Who Survived It

The Federal Writers’ Project narratives provide an all-too-rare link to our past.
by Clint Smith via The Atlantic on February 9, 2021
Two people being tarred and feathered

The Hidden Story of When Two Black College Students Were Tarred and Feathered

In the course of research about the Red Summer of 1919, a historian in Maine uncovers a disturbing event that took place on her own campus.
by Karen Sieber via The Conversation on February 8, 2021
Book cover for Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Chernow Gonna Chernow

A Pulitzer Prize winner punches down.
by Alexis Coe via Study Marry Kill on January 30, 2021
Signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Against the Consensus Approach to History

How not to learn about the American past.
by William Hogeland via The New Republic on January 25, 2021
Statue of "Freedom" on top of the U.S. Capitol

Philip Reed, The Enslaved Man Who Rescued Freedom

The ironies abound in the story of Reed, who made it possible to erect the statue that remains on the top of the Capitol dome today.
by Megan Smolenyak via Medium on January 10, 2021
The Citizen DJ logo, a stylized stick-figure person with headphones on.

Citizen DJ 2020 Retrospective

The long history of sampling in music, and a new tool that lets artists sample without fear of copyright claims.
by Brian Foo via Citizen DJ on December 31, 2020
A landscape painting.

The Hotel at the Heart of the Hudson River School

An unearthed guest register from the Catskill Mountain House sheds light on the artists who spent the night there.
by Rebecca Rego Barry via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 18, 2020
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