An unprecedented survey of US GIs that began in 1941, preserved on microfilm, provides a raw and uncensored story of average Americans grappling with both national ideals and practical necessities.
Thurgood Marshall outside the Supreme Court in Washington in 1958. Marshall, the head of the NAACP’s legal arm who argued part of the case, went on to become the Supreme Court’s first African-American justice.
AP
While the Brown vs. Board of Education case is often celebrated for ordering school desegregation, history shows many black people in the city where the case began opposed integrated schools.
Members of East Baltimore Church of God, which was founded by Lumbee Indians, and was once located in the heart of ‘the reservation,’ in the 1700 block of E. Baltimore Street.
Photo courtesy of Rev. Robert E. Dodson Jr., Pastor, East Baltimore Church of God
The book took eight years from conception to publication. In the earliest dummy, the monsters that millions have grown to love actually started out as horses.
St Augustine Catholic Church Archive.
David LaFevor
Catholic Church records document the earliest black history in the US, going back to the 1590s. These records tell the histories of Africans, free and enslaved, who were part of Spanish expeditions.
Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker during a news interview in 2004.
AP Photo/Frank Franklin II
Rev. Walker worked closely with King and would be the one to bring King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail to public attention. He was the only one who could understand King’s handwriting.
George Stinney, a 14-year old wrongfully executed for murder in 1944.
M. Watt Espy Papers, University at Albany
Howard Thurman, a mentor to MLK, first met Gandhi during a visit to India in 1936. He came to understand nonviolence as a force more powerful than hate that had the power to transform the world.
Archivists put an immense amount of work into organizing, digitizing and maintaining repositories.
AP Photo/Matt Dunham
In 1811 a former slave named Henry Christophe anointed himself ‘First Monarch’ of the ‘New World.’ For 10 years, he ruled over a part of modern-day Haiti, becoming a global media sensation.
Lynes was a highly sought-after commercial and fashion photographer in the 1930s and 1940s. But he had to keep his most important body of work hidden away.
Ready to spatially manipulate 3D bat skulls from the comfort of your own computer?
Shi et al, PLoS ONE 13(9): e0203022
Museums’ collections are a priceless resource for scientists, but they’re not easy to access. Digitizing specimens – like the 700 bat skulls the author studied – is a way to let everyone in.
Record companies released stereo demonstration albums that showcased how sound could move from left to right, creating a sense of movement.
From the collection of Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder
Sixty years ago, stereo promised to forever change the way people listened to music. But how could record companies convince customers to buy a new record player, speakers and amplifier?
Sylvia Plath stuck this bookplate into the front cover of her copy of ‘The Great Gatsby.’
Source
The Slave Societies Digital Archive documents the lives of approximately 6 million free and enslaved Africans in the Americas.
Twenty-nine-year-old Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman to be elected to Congress, talks with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Striking 20th-century garment workers wore their best dresses and hats to send a message that they had the right to be taken seriously and have their voices heard.
For centuries, Pulter’s manuscript lay untouched at the University of Leeds’ Brotherton Library.
University of Leeds Library, Brotherton Collection, MS Lt q 32
In a time when women were expected to be silent, no topic was off limits for Pulter, who penned verses about politics, science and loss. Her manuscript was just published in a free digital archive.
In the 1960s, the Temple established nine residential care facilities for the elderly and six homes for foster children in the Redwood Valley.
Peoples Temple / Jonestown Gallery/flickr
Throughout the movement’s history, African Americans and whites lived, worked and protested side-by-side. It was one of the few long-term experiments in American interracial communalism.
The cover of the ‘GayBlade’ game, scanned by designer Ryan Best.
LGBTQ Game Archive