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Trump at the National Archives.

The Nation’s Archivist Should Not Be Political

Trump’s clumsy partisan takeover of the National Archives and Records Administration recalls two consequential and troubling episodes from its history.
by Anthony Clark via The Bulwark on March 12, 2025
A gloved hand reaches for a magnifying glass to view photos on slides.

Photos Are Disappearing, One Archive at a Time

We risk losing not just the images but also our ability to bear witness to history itself.
by Kira Pollack via Washington Post on March 10, 2025
A “mosser” with a load of seaweed bound for the agar factory in Beaufort, N.C.

When Fishermen Harvested Seaweed: The Agar Industry in Beaufort, N.C. during the Second World War

How a small factory off the coast of North Carolina played a role in the war.
by David Cecelski via davidcecelski.com on February 12, 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
Frances Perkins

How the First ‘Madam Secretary’ Fought to Save Jewish Refugees Fleeing From Nazi Germany

Frances Perkins’ challenged the United States’ restrictive immigration policies as FDR’s Secretary of Labor.
by Sara Georgini, Rebecca Brenner Graham via Smithsonian on January 21, 2025
Lerone A. Martin

Christian Nationalists Don’t Want Us To Remember the Real MLK

The same Christian ideology that inspired J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to surveil MLK is alive and well in the Trump administration.
by Lerone A. Martin, Josiah R. Daniels via Sojourners on January 21, 2025
Person using a magnifying glass to examine aerial photographs of naval vessels.

When America’s Top Spies Were Academics and Librarians

How scholars achieved some of the most consequential intelligence victories of the twentieth century.
by Greg Barnhisel via The New Republic on January 16, 2025
A portrait of Major Ridge, an older Cherokee man.
partner

Revealed Through a Mountain of Paperwork

As the nation’s highest court debated Native sovereignty, I was in the archives, uncovering family stories entwined with those debates.
by Rebecca Nagle via HNN on September 24, 2024
An inaccurate Spanish map from the 1500s of the southeast of the United States.

To Understand Mississippi, I Went to Spain

The forces that would shape my home state’s violent history were set in motion by a 480-year-old map made by a Spanish explorer.
by Wright Thompson via The Atlantic on September 17, 2024
A photograph of Waverly Woodson Jr. in his U.S. Army uniform.

The Forgotten Hero of D-Day

Waverly Woodson treated men for 30 hours on Omaha Beach, but his heroism became a casualty of entrenched racism, bureaucracy and Pentagon record-keeping.
by Garrett M. Graff via Politico Magazine on June 3, 2024
Emily Brooks.

When NYC Invented Modern Policing: On WWII–Era Surveillance and Discrimination

From the 1880s to the 1940s, New York City was transformed—and so too was the New York City Police Department.
by Matthew Guariglia, Emily M. Brooks via Public Books on April 2, 2024
Portrait of James G. Birney.

The Power of Pamphlets in the Anti-Slavery Movement

Black-authored print was central to James G. Birney’s conversion from enslaver to abolitionist and presidential candidate.
by Marcy J. Dinius via JSTOR Daily on March 25, 2024
Illustration of an AI machine reading a book.

How AI Can Make History

Large language models can do a lot of things. But can they write like an 18th-century fur trader?
by Josh Dzieza via The Verge on February 15, 2024
‘View of Grave Creek Mound’; engraving by Ebenezer Mathers, 1839.

The Plunder and the Pity

Alicia Puglionesi explores the damage white supremacy did to Native Americans and their land.
by Ian Frazier via New York Review of Books on January 18, 2024
Files in Guatemala’s Historical Archive of the National Police. Photo by Luis Soto.

In the Best Interest of the Child

A new book gets inside Guatemala’s international adoption industry and the complicated context of deciding a child’s welfare.
by Rachel Nolan, Erin Siegal McIntyre via Guernica on January 16, 2024
Latina suffragists Andrea and Teresa Villarreal.

Recovering Histories of Gendered State Violence

And how those with few resources at their disposal found ways to navigate and negotiate even the direst of situations.
by Sonia Hernandez via Process: A Blog for American History on December 19, 2023
Collage of Black woman and marriage certificate.

Why Is America Afraid of Black History?

No one should fear a history that asks a country to live up to its highest ideals.
by Lonnie G. Bunch III via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
Photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald and of George Joannides.

What Really Happened to JFK?

One thing’s for sure: The CIA doesn’t want you to know.
by Scott Sayare via Intelligencer on November 9, 2023
Cover of "Playing for the Man at the Door" album.

Smithsonian Releases an Unheard Treasure Trove of Blues Music

A Smithsonian curator John Troutman and a blues musician discuss a new folk album, "Playing for the Man at the Door," from late chronicler Mack McCormick's collection.
by Dom Flemons, John Troutman, Scott Detrow via NPR on August 5, 2023
A crowd of African Americans watches a group of law enforcement officers.

A Record of Violence

Jim Crow terror, within and outside the law.
by Jeanne Theoharis, Margaret A. Burnham via Boston Review on July 26, 2023
A researcher holds a magnifying glass to an archival photograph.

Looking for a Lineage in the Lusk Archive

The records of a New York surveillance committee from the time of the First Red Scare document a radical world—and its demise.
by Ben Nadler, Oksana Mironova via Jewish Currents on July 18, 2023
The 1622 Hessel Gerritsz map of the Pacific Ocean.

Asians In Early America

Asian sailors came to the west coast of America in 1587. Within a century they were settled in colonies from Mexico to Peru.
by Diego Javier Luis via Aeon on June 13, 2023
A rainbow over a waterscape.

Queer History Detective: On the Power of Uncovering Stories from the Past

With more queer history detectives, what could our future look like?
by Amelia Possanza via Literary Hub on May 30, 2023
A woman behind bars, and hands writing.

A History of Incarceration by Women Who Have Lived Through It

The members of the Indiana Women’s Prison History Project scrutinize official records not only for what they reveal, but also for what they omit.
by Rachael Bedard via The New Yorker on May 22, 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

Who Owns History? How Remarkable Historical Footage is Hidden and Monetised

From civil rights marches to moonwalks, historical imagery that belongs to everyone is locked away behind paywalls. Why?
by Richard Misek via Aeon on April 10, 2023
Collage of images: UC Berkeley clocktower, professor Tim White in 1979, and a collection of boxes of human remains labeled as "clavicle, vertibrae," etc.

A Top UC Berkeley Professor Taught With Remains That May Include Dozens of Native Americans

Despite decades of Indigenous activism and resistance, UC Berkeley has failed to return the remains of thousands of Native Americans to tribes.
by Mary Hudetz, Graham Lee Brewer via ProPublica on March 5, 2023
Two unnamed Black officers in the Union Army.

Richard Wright’s Civil War Cipher

Archival records of Black southerners' military desertion tribunals can be read as a distinct form of political action.
by Jonathan Lande via Process: A Blog for American History on February 14, 2023
Rev. Billy Graham with President Kennedy.

Suing the FBI and Uncovering a History of White Christian Nationalism

A new book calls white evangelicals to reckon with the fact that the groundwork for their movement was laid, in part, by J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI.
by Lerone A. Martin via The Revealer on February 7, 2023
The August 19, 1864 document recording Jacob Hoeflick’s release on bail twice

Uncovering Extrajudicial Black Resistance in Richmond's Civil War Court Records

Historians must read every imperfect archive with a particular perspicacity, to uncover the histories so many archives were meant to suppress or erase.
by Lois Leveen via Muster on February 1, 2023
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