archival discovery — Bunk History

Portrait of a Black woman; artist unknown, American, circa 1830–1835.

In Search of the Real Hannah Crafts

"The Bondwoman’s Narrative" is the first novel by a Black woman to describe slavery from the inside. Recently, scholars have discovered her true identity.

by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on July 25, 2024

Map Green Lawn Cemetery.

An Indianapolis Archivist’s Curiosity Revives Historical Truths

A Black cemetery by the site of the former Greenlawn Cemetery in Indianapolis is now a point of contention as the city plans to develop the area.

by Mary Lee Pappas via Arts Midwest on June 29, 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

A Lost Operatic Masterpiece Written By White Men For An All-Black Cast Was Found And Restored

Can it be produced without controversy?

by Fredric Dannen via Billboard on March 27, 2023

Professor Wendy Roberts holding a book.

UAlbany Professor Finds New Poem by Famed Early American Poet Phillis Wheatley

Discovery of Phillis Wheatley's earliest known elegy in a commonplace book gives us important insights into her early life and how her work circulated.

by Bethany Bump via SUNY Albany on January 17, 2023

Noble Johnson (left rear), Jimmie Smith, and Beulah Hall in “The Trooper of Troop K”

Looking (and Looking Again) at Black Film History

Uncovering the earliest surviving fragment of Black-produced cinema.

by Cary O'Dell via Library of Congress Blog on October 4, 2022

Finger pointing to a writ of habeas corpus filed on behalf of Sojourner Truth

State Archives Find Sojourner Truth’s Historic Court Case

A document thought lost to history shows how Sojourner Truth became the first Black woman to successfully sue white men to get her son released from slavery.

by Kenneth C. Crowe II via Times Union on February 1, 2022

Red binder pulled from row of blue binders

Serendipity in the Archives

Or, a lost freedom story I found while looking for something else.

by Marcus Rediker via Public Seminar on August 25, 2021

An image of the diary of John Claypoole, third husband of Betsy Ross.

Betsy Ross’s Husband’s Diary Turned Up in a Garage. Here’s What it Tells Us About The Flagmaker.

The 240-year-old journal of John Claypoole, a Revolutionary War POW and later the third husband of Betsy Ross, sheds light on the flagmaker.

by Natalie Pompilio via Retropolis on July 12, 2021

Edison vs. Scott

The complicated story behind the invention of sound recording.

by Emma Jacobs via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 31, 2017

People standing around the aftermath of a train accident in 1926.

A Roomful of Death and Destruction

The room at One Police Plaza, jammed to the ceiling with filing cabinets and boxes, and reeking of vinegar, held about 180,000 images ranging from 1914 to 1972.

by Lucy Sante via New York Review of Books on June 22, 2015

Collage art of Supreme Court Justices.

Science Historian Naomi Oreskes Schools the Supreme Court on Climate Change

Scientists and lawmakers in the 70s knew more than we think they did about climate change and the impacts of fossil fuel regulations.

by Naomi Oreskes, Jessica McKenzie via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on August 15, 2024

Edmund Muskie with a concerned expression, next to a globe.

The Lost History of What Americans Knew About Climate Change in the 1960s

It wasn’t just scientists who were worried, but Congress, the White House, and even Sports Illustrated, newly unearthed documents show.

by Kate Yoder via Grist on August 5, 2024

Detail from "the Book of Negroes," listing Arthur Bowler and his family, 1783.

Eight Clues

Recovering a life in fragments, Arthur Bowler in slavery and freedom.

by Jane Lancaster via Journal of the American Revolution on June 6, 2024

AI-generated image of the “shiny object ancestor” experience.

Shiny Object Ancestors: The Ones We Can’t Resist

Tracing the family history of some of today's most popular celebrities.

by Megan Smolenyak via Megansmolenyak.com on May 21, 2024

John Thorn photographed in front of baseball memorabilia.

How Baseball’s Official Historian Dug Up the Game’s Unknown Origins

A lifelong passion for the national pastime led John Thorn to redefine the sport's relationship with statistics and reveal the truth behind its earliest days.

by Frederic J. Frommer via Smithsonian on March 28, 2024

A black and white drawing of Julia Ann Chinn.

Tenuous Privileges, Tenuous Power

Amrita Myers paints freedom as a process in which Black women used the tools available to them to secure rights and privileges within a slave society.

by Keisha N. Blain, Amrita Chakrabarti Myers via Public Books on March 19, 2024

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.

Five Centuries Ago, France Came to America

This is the story of Giovanni da Verrazzano, who never reached Asia, but became the first European to set foot on the site of the future city of New York.

by Diane de Vignemont via France-Amérique on March 5, 2024

UC Berkeley Student Brings to Light Stories of LGBTQ+ Japanese Americans Incarcerated During WWII

A UC Berkeley student’s award-winning research shines a light on LGBTQ+ life in Japanese American concentration camps during World War II.

by Tor Haugan via UC Berkeley Library on February 19, 2024

Mead reading a book, against a psychedelic background.

One of Our Most Respected 20th-Century Scientists Was LSD-Curious. What Happened?

A document in her papers in the Library of Congress sheds new light on postwar research on psychedelics.

by Benjamin Breen via Slate on February 10, 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

Emily Dickinson Museum collection.

What Emily Dickinson Left Behind

The winding story of how a trove of 8,000 of the poet’s family objects were saved.

by Martha Ackmann via The Atlantic on September 20, 2023

Mother-daughter opera singers Givonna Joseph and Aria Mason.

The Black Composers of New Orleans Opera Are Finally Getting Their Due

And it's all thanks to this mother-daughter dream team.

by Shoshi Parks via Atlas Obscura on September 13, 2023

Painting of the english surgeon Edward Jenner inoculating a child.

How Far Back Were Africans Inoculating Against Smallpox? Really Far Back.

When I looked at the archives, I found a history hidden in plain sight.

by Elise A. Mitchell via Slate on September 4, 2023

A Woman Who Composed the First Draft of History Finds Herself Written Out of the History Books

Prominent institutions, such as the Smithsonian, have historically erased or omitted US women from archival records.

by Allison Gilbert via CNN on August 14, 2023

Common black rat in nest.

In Colonial Williamsburg, Thieving Rats Save History

Historians owe a debt of gratitude to these furry pilferers.

by Amy Crawford via Atlas Obscura on August 10, 2023

Dinosaur models and other prehistoric animals designed by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins.

The Bizarre True Story of Central Park’s Doomed Victorian Dinosaur Museum

For centuries, the infamous Boss Tweed was blamed for destroying its dino-models—but what really happened is even weirder.

by Sarah Durn via Atlas Obscura on August 3, 2023

A historical marker for the Broad Street site of domestic slave trade, foregrounding an image of the Exchange Building, located in Charleston, South Carolina.

Activists Have Long Called for Charleston to Confront Its Racial History. Tourists Now Expect It.

Tourist interest is contributing to a more honest telling of the city’s role in the US slave trade. But tensions are flaring as South Carolina lawmakers restrict race-based teachings.

by Jennifer Berry Hawes via ProPublica on July 29, 2023

Solving the Mystery of Arne Pettersen, the Last to Leave Ellis Island

All told, Arne overstayed his welcome at least four times — 1940, 1944, 1953 and 1954. It’s hard to say why.

by Megan Smolenyak via Megansmolenyak.com on July 6, 2023

New Docs Link CIA to Medical Torture of Indigenous Children and Black Prisoners

While we may never know the full truth, we owe it to those harmed and killed to illuminate their stories.

by Orisanmi Burton via Truthout on June 22, 2023

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