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Female costars in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" next to a picture of Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins.

The Pioneering Black Sci-Fi Writer Behind the Original Wakanda

Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins invented the setting that eventually became Wakanda in her science fiction, but her name isn't widely known.
Woman standing on a wall of books, holding a megaphone, 1919.

Choice Reading

Nineteenth-century New York City was filled with books, bibliophilia, and marginalia.
Portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville

‘A Great Democratic Revolution’

Alexis de Tocqueville left France to study the American prison system and returned with the material that would become “Democracy in America.”
Dorothea and Gladys Cromwell serving French troops outside the Cantine des Deux Drapeaux in Châlons-sur-Marne.
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Strange, Inglorious, Humble Things

The Cromwell twins fled the constrictions of high society for the freedoms of the literary world. Ravenous for greater purpose, the twins then went to war.
Portrait of Samuel Adams with sunglasses photoshopped onto his face.

How Samuel Adams Fought for Independence—Anonymously

Pseudonyms allowed Adams to audition ideas and venture out on limbs without fear of reprisal.
Drawing of people gathered around a speaker at the liberty tree.
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The Letter That Helped Start a Revolution

The Town of Boston’s invention of the standing committee 250 years ago provided a means for building consensus during America’s nascent independence movement.
Diagram with three mollusks

Edgar Allan Poe: Pioneering Mollusk Scientist

Poe’s work reminds us that the separation of “Arts” and “Sciences” into discrete discourses of knowledge is itself a quite recent invention.
Black and white photo of Lydia Maria Child reading a book

Living in Words

A new biography explores the work of the influential abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, who wrote about the social, political, and cultural issues of her time.
Collage image of Emily Dickinson in Dunkin Donuts

Did Emily Dickinson Have A Boston Accent? An Investigation

An exploration of the potential effects of regional accents on poetry and slant-rhyme.
The author, as a young girl, standing in front of a wall.

As If I Wasn’t There: Writing from a Child’s Memory

The author confronts the daunting task of writing about her childhood memory, both as a memoirist and a historian.
Illustration of fantasy elements including a maze and a crystal ball from a "choose-your-own-adventure" scene from a book.

The Enduring Allure of Choose Your Own Adventure Books

How a best-selling series gave young readers a new sense of agency.
Black and white photo of children holding signs about remembrance, at a depot in New York City to greet their parents after a mass strike parade in 1911.

The Building Blocks of History

A lively defense of narrative history and the lived experience that informs historical writing.
Edna St. Vincent Millay poses for a portrait among magnolia blossoms.

The Wondrous and Mundane Diaries of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Her private writing offers another, more idiosyncratic angle to understand the famed poet.
A page of the census documenting the enslaved people of John Hopkins, 1850.

Owner? Yes. Enslaver? Certainly.

Another chance to examine the terms we use and why they matter.
Hellen Keller portrait

The Atlantic Writers Project: Hellen Keller

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.
Charlotte Forten Grimke

The Atlantic Writers Project: Charlotte Forten Grimké

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.

The Atlantic Writers Project: Harriet Beecher Stowe

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.
Artwork of Congress on July 4, 1776

Eighteenth Century Track Changes: Uncovering Revisions in Founding Fathers’ Documents

Let’s consider the significance and responsibility of outlining, drafting, and shaping our nation as the Founding Fathers put pen to paper.
Invisible Man book cover with Ralph Ellison on the back

Broke and Blowing Deadlines

How Ralph Ellison got Invisible Man into the canon.
Black and white photo of Gertrude Stein writing at desk.
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Gertrude Stein's Pulp Fiction

It has taken decades for an appreciation of Stein’s crime fiction to really take hold.
A family tree relating Aaron Sachs' book "Up From the Depths" with Lewis Mumford and Herman Melville.

Why Reading History for Its “Lessons” Misses the Point

On Lewis Mumford, Herman Melville, and the gentle art of looking back in time.
Ada “Bricktop” Smith (far left) seated at table with other women, the New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1920 – 1929 (Courtesy of the Schomburg Center).

Behind and Beyond Biography: Writing Black Women’s Lives and Thoughts

Ashley D. Farmer and Tanisha C. Ford explain the importance of biographical writing of African American women and the personal connection involved.
Hillary Clinton addresses her supporters in Philadelphia the night before the 2016 presidential election.

Would These Undelivered Speeches Really Have Changed History?

At a time of upheaval, we want to believe that better leaders have the power to change the course of history. But counterfactuals are never simple.
Painting of an ocean by the British painter J. M. W. Turner, 1840-1845. Pictured is a stormy sea, its waves breaking on a shore.

The Sea According to Rachel Carson

Her first three books were odes to the world’s bodies of water and their creative power over all life forms.
Three versions of quote from "Appeal"
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Comparing Editions of David Walker's Abolitionist Appeal

Digitization allows researchers to trace editorial and authorial changes in archival content. Both are central to the study of this famous abolitionist pamphlet.
Man holding a poster of Malcolm X, African American Day Parade, 2010 in Harlem.

Malcolm X’s Gospel

A look into how Malcolm X employed gospel rhetoric to critique the mainstream civil rights movement for catering to white Christianity.
John Gunther sitting in his library.

The Birth of the American Foreign Correspondent

For American journalists abroad in the interwar period, it paid to have enthusiasm, openness, and curiosity, but not necessarily a world view.
Photograph of John Gunther, an American journalist.

The Book That Unleashed American Grief

John Gunther’s “Death Be Not Proud” defied a nation’s reluctance to describe personal loss.
Collage of William F. Buckley by Aaron Martin.

The Conservative and the Murderer

Why did William F. Buckley campaign to free Edgar Smith?
Split frame image of Norman Mailer, in black and white.

My Norman Mailer Problem—and Ours

Digging down into the roots of white America’s infatuation with Black.

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