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Hahaha

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Corsets

Corsets on Twitter

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Our new exhibit “Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction, 1780-1910″ officially opens tomorrow (July 1)! If you can’t make it to DC to see it in person, we have an online version that’s already up - a new “Chapter” each Tuesday!

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Now Available: “Songs My Mother Taught Me” by Fannie Lou Hamer

On June 30, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings releases Fannie Lou Hamer’s Songs My Mother Taught Me, based on a rare, limited-edition 1963 recording of the inspirational civil rights activist. The compilation features raw recordings of Hamer singing spirituals, many of which became civil rights anthems, both alone and with a congregation of vocalists. It also includes monologues from Hamer about her difficult childhood and her experiences as an early leader of the American Civil Rights Movement. 

This album, featuring 1965 interview with Hamer by Julius Lester and new liner notes by folklorist Mark Puryear, is the only known publicly available recording of Hamer singing. She is best-known for her sharp-witted speeches, having coined the phrase “I’m just sick and tired of being sick and tired” in her testimony before the Credentials Committee at the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, NJ. On this album, listeners will hear her powerful voice singing with the same passion.

Find Songs My Mother Taught Me on the Smithsonian Folkways website.

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Fannie Lou Hamer’s Testimony before the Credentials Committee at the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, NJ. On the new Smithsonian Folkways release Songs My Mother Taught Me,  hear Hamer’s powerful voice singing with the same passion.

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Human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson spoke to Fresh Air last fall about changing the conversation about race:

“Our newest project at the Equal Justice Initiative is really trying to change the conversation about race in this country. We’ve done a very poor job at really reflecting on our legacy of racial inequality. … You see it in the South, but it’s everywhere.

And we want to talk more about slavery and we want to talk more about this era between Reconstruction and World War II, which I call “An Era of Racial Terrorism” — of racial terror and violence that shaped attitudes. I want to talk more about the civil rights era, not through the lens of celebration. We’re too celebratory of civil rights these days. We have these 50th anniversaries and everyone is happy and everybody is celebrating. Nobody is talking about the hardship.

It’s almost as if the civil rights movement was this three-day event: On Day 1, Rosa Parks didn’t give up her seat on the bus. On Day 2, [the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.] led a march on Washington. And on the third day, we signed all of these laws. And if you think about that history in that way, you minimize the trauma, the damage, the divides that were created. You can’t segregate and humiliate people decade after decade without creating long-lasting injuries. …

Our newest project is really trying to introduce some concept of what transitional justice requires: some commitment to truth and reconciliation.”

Stevenson’s memoir is called Just Mercy. 

Photo: South Carolina governor calls for confederate flag’s removal. 

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The Statue of Liberty under construction in Paris, 1883. The statue arrived in New York Harbor today in 1885. 

Source images (1, 2, 3) from The New York Public Library.

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Happy Flag Day!

50 Stars – How was the Current United States Flag Designed?

During Eisenhower’s Presidency the public anticipated that Alaska and Hawaii might be added as new states, and that a new flag design would be needed. 

The earliest submission of a 50-star flag design came in 1953, but the bulk of the submissions began pouring in after the admission of Alaska in 1958. 

By the time the official design was declared for the 50-star flag more than 3,000 people had sent in their ideas, some of them submitting multiple designs. 

The designs came in a wide range of media from simple pencil sketches to professionally constructed flags. This was an especially popular project for elementary school children who expressed their ideas with construction paper, crayons, tempera paint and tiny stick-on stars.

This flag was sent to the White House by Jim Lamparyk of Cleveland, Ohio in June 1959.

Happy Flag Day!

More – flag designs submitted by the public to President Eisenhower

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Happy Archives Day!

Today is International Archives Day! Did you know that Congress established the National Archives of the United States in 1934 to preserve and care for the records of the U.S. Government?

Previously, Federal records were kept in various basements, attics, and abandoned buildings with little security or concern for storage conditions. This photo shows Shipping Board Bureau records that were being stored in the White House Garage!

In 1935, Archives staff began to survey Federal records and the next year they began transferring records to the new National Archives Building in Washington, DC.

The National Archives now has over 40 facilities nationwide including field archives, Federal Records Centers, Presidential Libraries, the Federal Register, and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

Learn more about the National Archives and our many locations on our website http://www.archives.gov

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Today is International Archives Day! Did you know that Congress established the National Archives of the United States in 1934 to preserve and care for the records of the U.S. Government?

Previously, Federal records were kept in various basements, attics, and abandoned buildings with little security or concern for storage conditions. This photo shows Shipping Board Bureau records that were being stored in the White House Garage!

In 1935, Archives staff began to survey Federal records and the next year they began transferring records to the new National Archives Building in Washington, DC.

The National Archives now has over 40 facilities nationwide including field archives, Federal Records Centers, Presidential Libraries, the Federal Register, and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

Learn more about the National Archives and our many locations on our website http://www.archives.gov

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Les Paul was born 100 years ago today.  He spent his life playing guitar, inventing guitars to play, and inventing devices to record himself on.  He  invented the solid body electric guitar, overdubbing, reverb, and multitracking–inventions that helped make rock ‘n roll possible. As a musician, he usually stuck to jazz, and a more middle of the road pop. In the 1950’s he had several hits with his wife Mary Ford, including How High the Moon, Vaya Con Dios, and Bye Bye Blues.  Paul died in 2009, at the age of 94.  Terry spoke to him in 1992.

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Kalief Browder, 1993-2015

Jennifer Gonnerman writes on the young man who spent three years on Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime. This weekend, he committed suicide.

“He wanted the public to know what he had gone through, so that nobody else would have to endure the same ordeals.”

Photograph by Zach Gross

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Alright Mr President!

Some retro running gear for National Running Day–

President Jimmy Carter jogging, 11/20/1978.

-from the Carter Library

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Happy birthday Dracula!

TDIGH (This Day in Goth History): Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published May 26, in 1897. 

Though we don’t have much fiction in our collections, it turns out we have an author-inscribed copy of Dracula in our Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology! This signed copy of the first American edition (1899) was presented to B.B. Comegys (1819-1900) president of the Philadelphia National Bank.

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For those who served...

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." 

- John F. Kennedy

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Wow, we have come a long way

May, 21 1927 Charles Lindbergh touched down in his custom Ryan monoplane at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The flight lasted over 33 hours, and he was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of 100,000.

The image on the left with an atmospheric print showing the Spirit of St. Louis flying over the Atlantic is inscribed by Donald A. Hall - a pioneering aeronautical engineer and aircraft designer who designed the Ryan NYP (known commonly as The Spirit of St. Louis) in only sixty days.

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Welcome...

Photo of the Day: Fire Portal

Photo by Ryan Doble (Perth, Australia); Australia