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Posted by: Josh Levy
In December 1889, an elaborate scientific expedition arrived on the coast of Angola to view a total solar eclipse. Its story vividly reveals intersections of science and militarism, scientific fieldwork and leisure travel, and holds important lessons about scientific failure as well.
Posted in: International History, Science and Technology
Posted by: Josh Levy
Anna Freud knew the importance of her father's book and article drafts to history, but she couldn't bring herself to part with them. The manuscripts remained in her home for decades, until a visit by a Library of Congress staff member in 1975 helped persuade her to begin to let go.
Posted in: International History, Science and Technology
Posted by: Josh Levy
A valuable new resource guide for a rich collection of materials from British archives related to the history of the United States is now available online.
Posted in: International History, Library of Congress History, Researcher Resources
Posted by: Josh Levy
Join the Manuscript Division and an interdisciplinary panel of scientists and scholars on August 1, at 12:00pm (EDT) to reflect on the global legacies of the atomic bomb.
Posted in: Events, International History, Native American History, Science and Technology, War and Society
Posted by: Josh Levy
Join historians Meg McAleer and Josh Levy at noon (EDT) on Thursday, May 11, as they discuss founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud’s narrow escape from Nazi-controlled Vienna with Andrew Nagorski, author of the new book Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom.
Posted in: Digital Collections, Events, International History, Science and Technology, War and Society
Posted by: Josh Levy
Manuscript collections often include scrapbooks, which tell unique stories but can be challenging to preserve. With Edwin Swillinger’s scrapbook, archivist Katherine Madison chose to disassemble it in order to provide the best care for the many photographs and other documents depicting Swillinger’s military service and life in post-World War II Japan.
Posted in: Behind the Scenes, International History, War and Society
Posted by: Josh Levy
On September 25, 1910, in Aotearoa New Zealand, a stunning Maori kite caught Alexander Graham Bell's eye. His journals show Bell's brief encounter with an indigenous scientific tradition and reveal his own obsession with transporting human beings through the air in enormous tetrahedral kites.
Posted in: Aviation, International History, Of Note, Science and Technology
Posted by: Josh Levy
In the late 1960s, Barry Commoner and the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems became involved in an ambitious, federally funded effort to understand the ecology of the sewer rat, and then kill it. That project’s failure at a moment of heightened political radicalism reveals how the rat-human relationship can highlight histories of economic injustice. With a major reprocessing of the Barry Commoner Papers now complete, those stories, and more, emerge with far greater clarity.
Posted in: International History, Science and Technology
Posted by: Josh Levy
The Herman Hollerith papers offer a window into an unexpected story about war, governance, and the power of data: one that unfolded in the Philippines, more than 8,000 miles from Washington, D.C.
Posted in: International History, Science and Technology