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National Archives Exhibit Blurs Images Critical of President Trump

Officials altered a photo of the 2017 Women’s March to avoid “political controversy.”
by Joe Heim via Washington Post on January 17, 2020
A poster made by Ghazal Foroutan showing solidarity with the women of Iran
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Was She Really Rosie?

The unlikely, true story of the Westinghouse “We Can Do It” work-incentive poster that became an international emblem of women’s empowerment.
by Michelle C. Smith via JSTOR Daily on March 15, 2023
A photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
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Harry Truman Illuminates Why Trump Having Classified Documents Is Illegal

Presidents used to own their personal papers — but there were real security reasons for changing that.
by Paul J. Welch Behringer via Made by History on November 11, 2022
President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

"What Are They Hiding?"

Group sues Biden and National Archives over delay of JFK assassination records.
by Marc Caputo via NBC News on October 19, 2022
Excerpt from 1950 Census form
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The 1950 Census, a Treasure Trove of Data, Was the Last of its Kind

Unveiling the 1950 Census reveals the value of these types of records.
by Dan Bouk via Made by History on April 1, 2022
Vintage stereogram of Chinatown, San Francisco, ca. 1920s-30s.

How a California Archive Reconnected a New Mexico Family with its Chinese Roots

Aimee Towi Mae Tang’s Chinese American family never talked about the past. She decided to change that.
by Wufei Yu via High Country News on April 1, 2022
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tosses a paper with polling statistics during a town hall event on Oct. 6, 2016, in Sandown, N.H.

‘He Never Stopped Ripping Things Up’: Inside Trump’s Relentless Document Destruction Habits

Trump’s shredding of paper in the White House was far more widespread and indiscriminate than previously known.
by Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, Tom Hamburger, Jacqueline Alemany via Washington Post on February 5, 2022
A picture of Trump going through a shredder.

Will Trump Burn the Evidence?

How the President could endanger the official records of one of the most consequential periods in American history.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on November 16, 2020
Chart of names of and payments to enslaved people.

Confederate Slave Payrolls Shed Light on Lives of 19th-Century African American Families

The Confederate Army required owners to loan their slaves to the military. The National Archives has now digitized those records.
by Victoria Macchi via U.S. National Archives on March 3, 2020

How a Historian Uncovered Ronald Reagan’s Racist Remarks to Richard Nixon

In a taped call with Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan described the African delegates to the United Nations in luridly racist terms.
by Timothy Naftali, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on August 2, 2019

All the Presidents’ Librarians

Presidential libraries are too important for historians to ignore.
by Michael Koncewicz via Contingent on July 19, 2019

Ira Berlin, Transformative Historian of Slavery in America, Dies at 77

He “put the history of slavery at the center of our understanding of American history.”
by Harrison Smith via Washington Post on June 6, 2018

Remembering the Freedom Train

In an effort to awaken Americans to their own history, the Truman Administration conceived of a moving museum.
by Ted Widmer via The New Yorker on November 26, 2017

Trump Plans to Release JFK Assassination Documents Despite Concerns From Federal Agencies

What's still under wraps, and what it might tell us about Lee Harvey Oswald.
by Ian Shapira via Washington Post on October 21, 2017

Keeper of the Secrets

Is there a special value in archives that are not digitized?
by James Somers via Village Voice on September 20, 2017
Obama standing with his official presidential portrait.

There Goes the Neighborhood

The Obama library lands on Chicago.
by Rick Perlstein via The Baffler on July 1, 2015

How the Military Waged a Graphic-Design War on Venereal Disease

"Fool the Axis—use Prophylaxis!"In many ways, such a coordinated public effort to alter sexual behavior was unprecedented.
by Hunter Oatman-Stanford via Collectors Weekly on February 11, 2015
A frame from Zapruder's film.

The Other Shooter: The Saddest and Most Expensive 26 Seconds of Amateur Film Ever Made

For many of us, especially those who weren’t alive when it happened, we’re all watching that event through Zapruder’s lens.
by Alex Pasternack via Vice on November 12, 2012

40 Acres and a Lie

We compiled Reconstruction-era documents to identify 1,250 formerly enslaved Black Americans given land—only to have it returned to their enslavers.
by Alexia Fernández Campbell, April Simpson, Pratheek Rebala via Mother Jones on June 13, 2024
Rows of shelves in a historical archive.

Archival Shouting

Silence and volume in collections and institutions.
by Karin Wulf via Perspectives on History on April 10, 2024
Dred Scott.

Setting the Records Straight: U.S. Officers’ Pay Claims “Vouching” for Slavery

Military archives reveal the brutal history of slavery in the U.S. Army.
by Yoav Hamdani via The Panorama on January 2, 2024
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
James Dent Walker.

A Major Group of Family Genealogists Apologizes For Past Racism

The National Genealogical Society is one of the oldest, largest groups dedicated to helping families trace their ancestries.
by Sydney Trent via Retropolis on May 31, 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
Yellow house where George Washington stayed while in Barbados.

George Washington in Barbados?

How the Caribbean colony contributed to America's fight for independence.
by Erica Johnson Edwards via Age of Revolutions on January 30, 2023
Census grid from 1950

Examining 1950 Census Records Reveals Traces of the Datafied State

What the traces left behind in “antique” US census records can tell us about the life of data and its official uses.
by Dan Bouk via Data & Society on May 4, 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

'Get Out Now' – Inside the White House on 9/11, According to the Staffers Who Were There

A top White House aide recounts her experiences that day.
by Anita McBride via The Conversation on September 2, 2021
A Historian looking at a document

An Archivist Sneezes on a Priceless Document. Then What?

What, exactly, does history lose when an archive-worthy text is destroyed?
by Olivia Campbell via The Atlantic on July 13, 2021
A next-of-kin response card asking for the return of the remains of Pvt. James Argiroplos, who was killed near Hébuterne in France during World War I.

After WWI, U.S. Families Were Asked if They Wanted Their Dead Brought Home. Forty Thousand Said Yes.

In May 1921, President Harding paid tribute to a ship carrying 5,000 fallen Americans returned for burial.
by Michael E. Ruane via Washington Post on May 30, 2021
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