America’s First Ventriloquist
Richard Potter, the first American-born ventriloquist and stage magician, learned his trade after being kidnapped and abandoned as a child in Great Britain.
“What to the Slave is The Fourth of July?”: Annotated
On July 5 1852 Frederick Douglass gave a Fourth of July speech that became his most famous public oration.
Hold the Line
As telephony developed, so did a workforce of switchboard operators—all women—who were ultimately rendered obsolete by technological progress.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: Annotated
Jonathan Edwards’s sermon reflects the complicated religious culture of eighteenth-century America, influenced not just by Calvinism, but Newtonian physics as well.
A Bank of Her Own
The first US bank for women was opened by a fraudster in 1879. It took 40 years for a reputable women’s bank to be founded in Tennessee.
On Your Mark, Get Set… Print!
The Boston Typesetting Races of 1886 demonstrated the speed of women compositors, helping to lower the barriers to workplace equity for female “swifts.”
Temperance Melodrama on the Nineteenth-Century Stage
Produced by the master entertainer P. T. Barnum, a melodrama about the dangers of alcohol was the first show to run for a hundred performances in New York City.
So You Plan to Teach Moby Dick
The study of Melville’s novel is enhanced by contextualizing it with primary and secondary sources related to the American sperm whaling industry.
The Hunt for the Massachusetts “Wild Man”
In a tale with as many false identities as supposed crimes, investigative reporter Annie “Londonderry” Kopchovsky gets her man (maybe).
Comparing Editions of David Walker’s Abolitionist Appeal
Digitization allows researchers to trace editorial and authorial changes in archival content. Both are central to the study of this famous abolitionist pamphlet.