Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Historical Insights”
By Marielle Gage, Archivist Viruses have been the scourge of humanity since before the dawn of recorded history. From the earliest communities along the Tigris and Euphrates to the American Revolution, the fates of men, rulers, and even civilizations could …
By Margaret Long, Archivist In 2015, Lin Manuel Miranda’s musical, Hamilton took Broadway—and the world—by storm. What started off as a hip-hop/R&B musical about Alexander Hamilton’s life has turned into a smash hit that has played to sold-out audiences for …
By Mimi Eisen, Historian For most of 2020, people across the globe anticipated the development of a vaccine to safeguard against COVID-19. The arrival of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines at the end of the year signaled a new phase …
By Scott Vierick, Historian By 1814, the War of 1812 between the United States, Great Britain, and their American Indian allies had been raging for over two years. While most of the fighting had occurred along the border with Canada, …
By Mike Reis, Senior Vice President The current rodeo of the GameStop bulls versus the hedge fund bears is tearing up any remaining old cobblestones on Wall Street, not to mention the sheer capacity of the stock markets and its …
To fully understand the current relevance and application of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency, it helps to remember the two extraordinary wartime crises faced by Americans in the space of 10 …
By Scott Vierick, Historian In November 1860, the election of Abraham Lincoln sent shockwaves through the country. The winner of a bitter four-way contest, Lincoln’s platform, which including halting the westward expansion of slavery, was seen as a serious political …
By Scott Vierick, Historian Since HAI’s three-part blog series on the story of John Brown, millions of people have tuned into Showtime’s The Good Lord Bird, about Henry “Onion” Shackleford, a fictional formerly enslaved teenager, and his encounters with the …
By Jen Giambrone, Historian Back in the spring, when quarantines and stay at home orders still felt new, I wrote a blog exploring reactions to the 1918 influenza pandemic. Now, as Americans everywhere ponder how their Thanksgiving celebrations might look …
By Mimi Eisen and Colleen Kim, Historians As the days turn colder and darker, we couldn’t let autumn slip away without paying homage to its most iconic bastion: the pumpkin spice latte (PSL). From its sweet, humble beginnings at Starbucks …
By Scott Vierick, Historian Tonight on Frontline. This is Masterpiece Mystery! Let’s build a happy little cloud. Won’t you be my neighbor? Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street? Fifty years ago, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) …
By Margaret Long, Archivist Archives have long been a part of society’s infrastructure as they contain vital documents, objects, and information about various operations of organizations or even society as a whole. It is no surprise, then, that archives have …
