By Marielle Gage, HAI Archivist American History is filled with mythic moments: Washington crossing the Delaware, Rosa Parks refusing to stand on a bus, and Reagan challenging Gorbachev in front of the Berlin Wall. Moments that encapsulate a long-standing struggle in a single, comprehensible, inspirational …
LGBTQIA+ History in the Making: Celebrate Pride Month
By Laura Bell, Archivist June is National Pride Month, a celebration of LGBTQIA+ rights, community, and freedom across the country. It’s also a commemoration of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 (also known as the Stonewall Riots), and of the many protests, marches, and events that …
To Crown a King: A Material History
By: Kaitlyn DeLong, Historian For over a thousand years, British kings and queens have been crowned at Westminster Abbey in an elaborate ceremony filled with tradition, pomp, and some very old objects. These objects, known as the coronation regalia, have been used by countless monarchs …
Tale of Two Teams: A Football (Soccer) Story
With the excitement buzzing around the new season of Ted Lasso, the Wrexham football season, and Ryan Reynold’s sale of Mint Mobile, Beth Maser, HAI’s CEO shared some thoughts on the art of storytelling in different mediums – in sales, football, and television. I have …
Two archivists walk into a bagel shop: a blog on regional phrases
By Katie DeFonzo and Laura Bell, Archivists “What’s in a name?” Shakespeare once asked. At HAI, archivists and historians make it a point to learn about the history behind names, phrases, places, and more in our work as we preserve and share the histories of …
Falling Waters Battlefield: a new survey
In July 1863, a tired and defeated Army of Northern Virginia arrived at the banks of the Potomac River at Williamsport, Maryland. Its invasion of the North, its second in two years, had met a bloody end at the Battle of Gettysburg in nearby Pennsylvania. …
Why do we love bad movies?
I’m getting ready to go to a screening of one of my brother’s favorite movies. He’s talked about it from time to time and has gone to screenings of it before and has warned me what to expect: yelling, jeering… spoons. I think okay, that …
It’s a Wonderful [Historical] Life!
Just in time for the holidays, the latest episode of HAI’s Reel History analyses the Christmas classic, It’s A Wonderful Life (1946). Archivist Katie DeFonzo and Historian Taylor Hefka dive deep into the montage that showcases how the town of Bedford Falls contributed to the war …
The Simpsons seems to predict the future, but how is it with detailing the past?
For this month’s episode of Reel History with HAI, Senior Historian and Interpretative Planner Scott Vierick analyzes a particular scene from The Simpsons that depicts the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Does the 1990s episode provide any accuracy? Let’s find out! About The Series: Reel …