Postal worker sorting letters and newspapers 1901

The Post Office and Privacy

We can thank the postal service for establishing the foundations of the American tradition of communications confidentiality

The British Empire’s Bid to Stamp Out “Chinese Slavery”

The mui tsai custom, which the British saw as a Chinese practice, relied on connections made across the multiracial landscape of colonial Malaya.
1936 map of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Tramping Across the USSR (On One Leg)

Historian Sheila Fitzpatrick explores the limits of the Stalinist system through the biography of a marginal figure, one Anastasia Emelianovna Egorova.
Postcard photo of the lunchroom of the Santa Fe Hotel at Canadian, Texas, 1913

Harvey Houses: Serving the West

In 1875, Fred Harvey had an idea for improving dining on passenger rail lines. He changed the face of food service in the West forever.
A drawn portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Pakistan’s Ambiguous Islamic Identity

Pragmatism, not faith, drove Muhammad Ali Jinnah to lead the call for the founding of the new Islamic state of Pakistan.
A statue of Zheng He in Jurong Gardens, Singapore

Zheng He, the Great Eunuch Admiral

Captured, castrated, and forced to serve the Hongwu Emperor, Zeng He subsequently led a massive Ming fleet of treasure ships across an ever-expanding empire.
Fredric Wertham

Fredric Wertham, Cartoon Villain

Wertham convinced 1950s America that comic books led to depravity. He also used his extremist views to raise money for an anti-racist clinic in Harlem.
From Orbis habitabilis oppida et vestitus, centenario numero complexa, summo studio collecta, atque in lucem edita à Carolo Allard, c. 1700

The Power of the Veil for Spanish Women

In sixteenth-century Spain, veiling allowed women to move freely through cities while keeping their identities private.
An illustration depicting how to write certain characters in cursive from Art of Writing by John Jenkins, 1818

Before Palmer Penmanship

The creation and propagation of standard penmanship in the American education system is almost as old as the United States itself.
Group portrait of members of the Blackwell and Spofford families outside on a lawn. Photograph probably shows (back row, left to right): Dr. Emily Blackwell, Mr. Ainsworth Spofford, Alice Stone Blackwell, and Lucy Stone; (front row, left to right): Henry Browne Blackwell, Florence Spofford and Mrs. Sarah (Partridge) Spofford. (Source: similar image at Harvard University, Schlesinger Library, Blackwell Family Papers)

Archival Adventures in the Abernethy Collection

An archival collection shared by Middlebury College invites the curious to make connections across the history of American literature.