#united-states-history — Public Fediverse posts

Library of Congress: Become Part of the Legacy of Abolitionist and Educator, Myrtilla Miner. “In 1851, more than a decade before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, the School for Colored Girls opened in Washington, D.C. with the mission of training Black women educators. The institution was the first of its kind in the District and only the fourth in the nation. Today, the Library of […]

KVPR: U.S. historic preservation law faces the most serious threat in its 60-year history. “It’s been exactly 60 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) into law, alongside half a dozen conservation bills. ‘We have come here this morning to give part of our country back to its people,’ Johnson declared at the bill signing on Oct. 15, 1966. […]

National Security Archive: The U.S. and Soviet versions of Reykjavik. “President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev almost achieved a deal 40 years ago at the 1986 Reykjavik summit to abolish nuclear weapons, but the agreement would have required ‘an exceptional level of trust that neither side had yet developed,’ according to previously secret U.S. and Soviet documents posted on […]

Mississippi Today: Grant will expand Fannie Lou Hamer Digital Driving Tour. “The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation awarded $25,000 to the ‘Fannie Lou Hamer’s America’ project to support research and the production of 12 new tour stops and multimedia resources, highlighting historic locations connected to Hamer’s grassroots organizing, voting rights work, civic participation, food justice and […]

Block Club Chicago: Padilla, Schiff, Durbin, Duckworth Introduce Legislation to Protect Regional National Archives Facilities from Closure. “Today, U.S. Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff (both D-Calif.), Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), introduced the National Archives Protection Act, legislation that would require congressional approval […]

Came in over the transom: American History Chronologically. The introductory email describes it as “a free interactive timeline of American history: 10,773 entries from deep geological time through September 2026, laid out on one shared time axis across 25 topics. Alongside the events are about36 chart views built from federal data (energy consumption since 1635, federal spending and debt, […]

IndyWeek: What It Takes to Keep History from Fading, Shriveling, or Molding . “The three documents—the Stone, the Binns, and the Tyler—come from the collection of Duke University alumnus David M. Rubenstein and are all rare copies of the Declaration of Independence made in the early 19th century. Their two-part display comes as the centerpiece of We the People, a collaboration between Duke […]

Mercyhurst University: Mercyhurst marks 25th anniversary of 9/11 with new Homeland Security Collection. “On the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Mercyhurst University is launching a new digital archival collection documenting an important chapter in the nation’s response to 9/11: the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and […]

Buffalo Bill Center of the West: Buffalo Bill Center of the West Authenticates Trove of Historic Early 1800s Medals. “Following a thorough course of testing and analysis carried out earlier this year, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West has definitively authenticated a trove of rare and historically significant medals tied to key periods and events in the history of the American West spanning […]

The Drive: One Dude Mapped Route 66 in Its Entirety, and You Can Scroll Through All 2,199 Miles. “Jake Boyles is the developer of the Pit Stop: Road Trip Exit Guide app, which shows restaurants and other points of interest located near highway exits. He spent this past summer mapping Route 66 to create a version of the app specifically for the historic highway. It lets you scroll through all […]

Library of Congress: Library Makes Nearly 500 First-Hand 9/11 Responder Accounts Available Online. “The Library of Congress has launched an online collection of nearly 500 first-hand accounts from 9/11 responders to mark the 25th anniversary of the World Trade Center attack. Housed in the American Folklife Center, the collection includes 484 full-length video interviews conducted between April […]

Gizmodo: Never Forget, AI Slop Is Polluting 9/11 History on the Internet as We Speak. “Welles Crowther became known as the Man in the Red Bandana after stories spread about his heroism on September 11, 2001. Now, an AI-generated image purporting to show Crowther rescuing people from the World Trade Center is going viral—the latest example of how fabricated images could distort our collective […]

Vanity Fair: 9/11 Changed the World in Many Ways. It Also Spawned the Digital Media Era. “Revisiting the observations I made back then, and since, it’s clear that subsequent advances in media and technology have changed how we disseminate, manipulate, and believe visual information—and how such breakthroughs have changed terrorism, war, the tactics of autocrats, and of those who oppose them.”

NBC News: Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch is leaving amid tensions with Trump. “While the Smithsonian has traditionally operated independently of the party in power, the Trump administration has repeatedly criticized how the institution portrays America’s past. Last week, the Interior Department threatened to cut off support, alleging that Smithsonian facilities present a ‘radical […]

National Geographic: National Geographic Commemorates 25th Anniversary Of 9/11 With The Launch Of A Groundbreaking Interactive Video Archive Featuring Never-before-seen Footage And Eyewitness Testimony. “Today, National Geographic published a landmark, interactive video archive that allows audiences to explore never-before-seen footage and eyewitness testimony from the events of Sept. 11, 2001, […]

GBH: GBH Marks the 25th Anniversary of 9/11 with New PBS LearningMedia Educational Resources and Multiplatform Content. “GBH, the leading multiplatform creator of public media in the U.S., today announced a suite of educational tools and original content dedicated to marking the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001. Anchoring the initiative is a new collection of free digital classroom […]

William & Mary: W&M professor awarded NEH grant to manage Yorktown archaeological collections. “Every artifact tells a story, but without careful preservation, those stories can fade with time. In William & Mary anthropology department, Assistant Teaching Professor Kimberley Connor is cataloging and and digitizing archaeological collections from Yorktown and their associates, preserving their […]

The Guardian: AI slopper in chief: Trump turns to social media amid tough questions. “Donald Trump knows the power of an image – of himself, with everyone from Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un to Kim Kardashian. How about George Washington? As the US president struggles to end his war with Iran, and with his approval ratings hitting the lowest levels of his second term, he has in recent weeks […]

University of Georgia: UGA project receives $743,658 grant to preserve colonial history. “The three-year project, Many Eyes on the Road to Revolution in Colonial Georgia, will examine the state’s history from 1732 to 1798…. The project will digitize more than 12,000 pages of historical documents and make them freely available through the Digital Library of Georgia. Researchers also will […]

Dartmouth College: New Website Investigates Eugenics in 20th-Century U.S.. “An innovative new website, Eugenic States: A Contextual Archive, uses digital storytelling to preserve and illuminate a disturbing and largely unknown chapter in U.S. history. During the 20th century, more than 60,000 people in the United States were sterilized based on state eugenics laws.”

University of Michigan: U-M Clements Library acquires original Revolutionary War-era sermons. “The University of Michigan’s William L. Clements Library recently acquired an archive of 192 original sermons written between 1765 and 1780 by a Revolutionary War chaplain. Coinciding with the final years of the First Great Awakening and continuing through the American Revolution, many of Rev. […]

Google Blog: Take an interactive journey through America’s national parks. “As we honor the National Park Service’s 110th birthday and celebrate National Park Week, we’re launching a new interactive hub bringing historic heritage and 60 of the nation’s protected natural wonders together under one digital roof. You can explore more than 150 curated exhibitions, 30 virtual tours, and over […]

Syracuse University: NEH Grant-Funded Project Will Digitize Pre-Revolutionary War Papers. “Two Syracuse University faculty members have received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to digitize portions of the Jeffrey Amherst Papers—a rare, 54-volume trove of 18th-century documents charting British, American colonial and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy relations in the […]

Richard Nixon Presidential Library: Launch of Virtual Reference Service for Archival Access. “The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum announces the launch of its new Virtual Reference Service (VRS), designed to provide researchers with remote access to archival materials. This innovative service allows users to engage with historical documents through scheduled, staff-mediated […]

Brooklyn Paper: Herd of life-size buffalo puppets will make symbolic journey through Brooklyn this fall. “On Sept. 19 and 20, a herd of 50 life-size buffalo puppets will roam the streets of Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan, running amongst New Yorkers and tourists as they visit historic sites and public parks and plazas. Along the way, the herd — operated by a team of 150 volunteer puppeteers […]

Syracuse.com: A Time Capsule was buried in 1976. Now Nobody Can Find It.. “Nearly 50 years after volunteers buried a time capsule on the Ohio Expo Center grounds during the nation’s 1976 Bicentennial celebration, organizers acknowledge they have been unable to locate the capsule ahead of the 2026 opening that had long been anticipated.”

New York Times: Trump Orders Warnings Placed at ‘Inaccurate’ Smithsonian History Museum. This link goes to a gift article. “President Trump on Friday ordered warning signs and exhibits installed outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to alert the public that the museum does not, in his view, accurately reflect American history.”

Reuters: US history museum head says patriotism is at its best when it is ‘not instructed but inspired’. “The director of the Smithsonian Institution’s ​National Museum of American History, which has been under attack from President Donald ‌Trump’s White House, said on Tuesday the museum is at its most powerful when patriotism is ‘not instructed but inspired.'”

Library of Congress: New Online at the Library of Congress: July 2026. A list of headers: George and Ira Gershwin Treasures, two new Community Collections Grant recipients, New foreign legal gazettes, world newspapers, and more, Silent film score transcriptions now available, New old news from Rhode Island, New onsite-only digital content, New web archives now available.

ARTNews: Congressional Representatives Introduce New Bill to Protect Public Artworks in Government Buildings. “The PRESERVE Act (‘Protecting Resources and Ensuring Stewardship of Enduring Records of Visual Expression Act’) would require the General Services Administration, which manages federal agencies, to identify any artworks contained within government buildings deemed ‘surplus property’ […]