Alexander Hamilton by Albert Rosenthal

The Federalist No. 1: Annotated

Alexander Hamilton’s anonymous essay challenged the voting citizens of New York to hold fast to the truth when deciding to ratify (or not) the US Constitution.
US President Ronald Reagan waves as he stands at the top of a stairway, preparing to board Air Force One, Dothan, Alabama, 1986

Ronald Reagan’s Library Legacy

Archival material shows the hefty and careful investment the president and his team put into crafting his image for perpetuity.
Lucretia Newman Coleman

Finding Lucretia Howe Newman Coleman

Once a powerful voice in the Black press, Coleman all but disappeared from the literary landscape of the American Midwest after her death in 1948.
Design shows female with flag with "for the Union"

Capturing the Civil War

The images, diaries, and ephemera in Grand Valley State University’s Civil War and Slavery Collection reveal the cold realities of Abraham Lincoln’s world.
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
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.
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.
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.
A Navajo Nation volunteer collects coal to distribute to Native Americans in need at a free wood collection site on December 17, 2021 in Tuba City, Arizona.

Renewable Energy and Settler Colonialism

What can we learn from colonial legacies in pursuit of sustainable futures?