Coined as the Hello Girls as early as the late 19th century, female telephone switchboard operators were widely known as having gentle and polite voices regardless of demanding and impatient callers. During World War I, French-speaking Hello Girls were enlisted to improve wartime communication, transmitting crucial information over a battlefield phone system to troops on …
Theodosia Burr Alston, the beloved daughter of disgraced vice president Aaron Burr, left the port of Georgetown, South Carolina on the schooner Patriot in 1812 and was never seen again. Throughout the 19th century, newspapers titillated readers with lurid stories of her alleged fate, including captivity, murder, and deathbed confessions of former pirates. Yet her …
One hundred years ago, on January 25, 1919, the delegates to the Paris Peace Conference approved a proposal to create the League of Nations. Nearly a year later, on January 16, 1920, the League held its first meeting with its stated principal mission of maintaining world peace. American newspapers presented conflicting views of the League …
On January 1, 1892, Ellis Island began welcoming immigrants along its shores at the first federal immigration station. The iconic building that stands there today, known as a symbol of history and new beginnings, is still visited by thousands of people each year. Between 1892 and 1954, over twelve million immigrants came through the station …
Happy New Year!...For the first time since 1999 we celebrate Public Domain Day here in the United States - on January 1, 2019, content published in 1923 in the US enters the public domain!
