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Petula Dvorak

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A flour sack with a girl feeding ducks with "Nassogne, 1915" and "Merci, L'Amerique" or "Thank you, America" embroidered on it.

The Beginnings of USAID Can Be Traced to a Famine in Belgium

Trump is freezing the United States’ foreign aid agency, which grew from our relief efforts over the world’s wars and crises.
by Petula Dvorak via Retropolis on February 4, 2025
Print depicting a teacher and students at a freedmen's school in Vicksburg.

Why America’s First Department of Education Didn’t Last

Created in 1867, the short-lived office was mired in the ongoing American strife after the Civil War.
by Petula Dvorak via Retropolis on February 4, 2025
Airplane flying over a muddy, congested road near the Hoover-Washington Airfield in the 1930s.

The Humble Beginnings of the National Airport

A swamp with a busy road going right through the middle, Washington’s airport was called “a disgrace.”
by Petula Dvorak via Retropolis on February 1, 2025
Federal employees wait for treatment at a public health dispensary.

Trump Isn’t the First to Upend the Federal Workforce Because of Race

President Woodrow Wilson presided over the segregation of government workers, putting Black people behind screens and in cages in 1913.
by Petula Dvorak via Retropolis on January 23, 2025
French Jesuits mapped the Gulf of Mexico, “Golphe da Mexique” in 1672 in an expedition lead by Father Jacques Marquette.

The Gulf of Mexico’s Long History of Colonization and Varying Names

Long before Trump expressed interest in a name change, conquerors have battled to claim the wealth of its rich waters.
by Petula Dvorak via Retropolis on January 13, 2025
Residents of the United States' first government-built planned "utopian" community in Greenbelt.

Greenbelt, Future Home of the FBI, was Planned as a New Deal ‘Utopia’

Greenbelt was designed in 1935 as a community created, built, populated and even furnished entirely by the federal government. Now the FBI is set to move in.
by Petula Dvorak via Retropolis on November 18, 2023

This Woman’s Name Appears on the Declaration of Independence. Why Don’t we Know Her Story?

Mary K. Goddard printed one of the most famous copies of our founding document.
by Petula Dvorak via Retropolis on July 3, 2017
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