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Label of 16″ transcription disc of the March 13, rehearsal of “Who Knows? Bill Cook Collection, Library of Congress.

Who Knows? Radio and the Paranormal

A radio drama series from 1941 based on Dr. Hereward Carrington's case records of psychic phenomena.
Women working at typewriters in an office.

How ‘Automation’ Made America Work Harder

Computers were supposed to reduce office labor. They accomplished the opposite.

The Five-Day Workweek is Dead

It’s time for something better.
Background photo shows secret deployment of Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. On the right is a photo of Juanita Moody.

The Once-Classified Tale of Juanita Moody: The Woman Who Helped Avert a Nuclear War

America’s bold response to the Soviet Union depended on an unknown spy agency operative whose story can at last be told.
An illustration of a skeleton apparition.

A History of Presence

The aesthetics of virtual reality, and its promise of “magical” embodied experience, can be found in older experiments with immersive media.
A mural of a woman cleaning a turnstile.

How to Remember a Plague

2020 was full of efforts to archive photos and artifacts of the pandemic — an impulse born of a sense of witnessing history, and a desire to speak to the future.
a stadium full of people

McCarthyism Was Never Defeated. Trumpism Won’t Be Either.

Censure brought down a crusading anti-communist senator but fired up his followers.
A screenshot from the movie "You've Got Mail."

The Romance of American Clintonism

The politically complacent ’90s produced a surprisingly large number of mainstream American rom-coms about fighting the Man.

The Forgotten Feminists of the Backlash Decade

The activists of the 1990s worked so diligently that they were written out of history.

The History of the USPS and the Politics of Postal Reform

Reform was framed as a way of removing “politics” from postal affairs and giving more autonomy to postal management. In time, it would prove to do neither.
A campaign illustration supporting Ulysses S. Grant for the Election of 1868.

A World “Transfixed”: The International Resonance of American Political Crises

The world's eyes are upon America as it struggles with racism and inequality. This is nothing new.
1975 digital camera prototype

How the Digital Camera Transformed Our Concept of History

We’re capturing the mundane as well as the memorable.

The History of Loneliness

Until a century or so ago, almost no one lived alone; now many endure shutdowns and lockdowns on their own. How did modern life get so lonely?
Trump through a television camera.

How TV Paved America’s Road to Trump

“A brand mascot that jumped off the cereal box”: a TV critic explains the multimedia character Trump created.
Illustrated figures sit inside a pink triangle embedded with gender markers.

An Oral History of the Early Trans Internet

Trans people have existed since the dawn of time. The internet has not.
Douglas Engelbart wearing an earpiece, sitting at a computer, in 1968.

The Future, Revisited: “The Mother of All Demos” at 50

How the ’60s counterculture gave birth to personal computers and the vast tech industry that builds and sells them.
The inside of the CIA museum.

Notes from the Attic

Displaying the material history of the CIA.

America Descends Into the Politics of Rage

Trump and other peddlers of angry rhetoric may reap short-term gains, but history suggests they will provoke a fearsome backlash.
Lithograph titled "Kiss Me Quick" showing a man and a woman kissing. The woman has her hands on the hats of two children.

Sexual Revolution: Event or Process?

The most important dimension of the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s was the increased freedom of sexual speech.
Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan loading equipment onto her plane.

Researchers Say Dozens Heard Amelia Earhart's Final Moments

They claim Earhart made several attempts to reach civilization in her final days — and her messages got through.
original

What the Viral Media of the Civil War Era Can Teach Us About Prejudice

A recent photography exhibit at the Getty Center raises difficult questions about our capacity for empathy.

The Attention Economy of the American Revolution

How Twitter bots help us understand the founding era.

Nikola Tesla: The Extraordinary Life of a Modern Prometheus

Tesla created inventions that continue to alter our daily lives, but he died nearly penniless.

Jump-Rope Songs Were Once a Cornerstone of American Folklore. Now It’s Memes.

The Library of Congress is turning to the internet for a new generation of shared culture.
People on a rollercoaster

Are We Having Too Much Fun?

In 1985, Neil Postman observed an America imprisoned by its own need for amusement. He was, it turns out, extremely prescient.
Cover of "Ghostland: An American History," made to look like a cemetery headstone.

The Family That Would Not Live

Writer Colin Dickey sets out across America to investigate America's haunted spaces in order to uncover what their ghost stories say about who we were, are, and will be.
U.S. President George W. Bush holds a news conference in the briefing room of the White House in Washington July 15, 2008.

George W. Bush's White House "Lost" 22 Million Emails

The outrage and press coverage was nothing compared with that surrounding Hillary Clinton's emails.
Inaugural oath being sworn by President
partner

Four More Years: Presidential Inaugurations

An hour of stories about a few high-stakes inaugurations from the past.
Illustration of a proslavery mob raiding a post office in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1835.
partner

How Much Is Too Much?

The dramatic story of the abolitionist mail crisis of 1835.
A photograph of a Pony Express employee riding a horse.
partner

Cowboys and Mailmen

Debunking myths about the Pony Express.

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