William previously served as Senior Editor, Readex Digital Collections and was the Editor of the Readex edition of the U.S. Congressional Serial Set since its early days. Before that, he was Editor of NewsBank Global Products and Assistant Vocabulary Editor.
The Smithsonian Institution and its twenty museums and galleries have been in the news recently. There is controversy. If you would like to know more, we encourage you to do your own research and urge...
On September 25, 1775, Ethan Allen of Vermont was captured during the Battle of Longues-Pointe, his failed attempt to wrest Montreal from the British. After his storied capture of Fort Ticonderoga...
On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress established the Continental Army, which was led by George Washington throughout the Revolution. In October, they established the Continental Navy, and...
In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson, sequestered in a Philadelphia boarding house, drafted the Declaration of Independence as an "expression of the American mind." Just weeks later, on July 2, Congress...
Tariff: "a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports" per Oxford Languages. It seems simple on the surface. It has never been. A simple search using Readex AllSearch and...
The so-called eugenic marriage of today is a happy combination of the ideality of a stockyard with the practicality of a hummingbird. - Dr. Edward Earle Purinton Eugenics: "the practice or advocacy of...
The Comstock Act (or Law), enacted on March 3, 1873, was formally titled "Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use" thereby, according to...
December 23, 2023, marked the 200th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine has ebbed and flowed in the American public’s awareness throughout two centuries, often dormant, but resurgent when...
In many of its primary source collections, Readex provides a significant enhancement for the user by including Suggested Searches to jumpstart research. Created and curated by the Readex editorial and...
Earlier this year, Readex announced the launch of the newly-digitized BBC Monitoring: Summary of World Broadcasts collection. Below is a look into intercepted communications during the last week of...
Explore Black history and American history with these resources and articles for research, teaching and learning. Discover more in the Readex blog archives. Celebrating the Remarkable Life and Work of...
W. E. B. Du Bois was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1868. He died ninety-five years later in Accra, Ghana in 1963. During his long life he rose rapidly to become and remain a powerful...
A recent journey into the Readex archives reveals just how much clothing and fashion informed social, political, religious, and health opinions and commentaries in the 19th and early 20th centuries...
Booker Taliaferro Washington was born April 5, 1856 in Virginia the son of an enslaved woman named Jane who later, after emancipation, was able to reunite with her husband, Washington Ferguson, in...
The search for inoculation from the most dreadful diseases that afflict humankind has been relentless for centuries. The history of the American colonies was affected by the decision of George...
Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee opened on January 9, 1866 more than year before Howard University. While Howard was beset by controversy from its beginning, Fisk seems to have had a...
“This institution bids fair to do great good.” — New York Evening Post (1867) Historically Black Colleges and Universities, commonly referred to as HBCUs, have graduated tens of thousands of men and...
The history of Chinese immigration to the United States, from the Gold Rush to World War II, is uniquely the one instance in which American law has specifically barred an entire national or ethnic...
The Methodist Episcopal Church was the first and largest denomination to establish the practice of organizing outdoor religious worship. It originated in the wild frontier of Kentucky and quickly...
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the adult education and social movement known as Chautauqua blossomed in the United States. The original Chautauqua was the concept of a Methodist...
Before the American Revolution, postal service, such as it was, was administered by the British. Mail within the colonies was sparse, while the preponderance of mail was between North America and...
In 1890 the Paiute shaman Wovoka gained a reputation among Western tribes as a visionary and teacher. Central to his teaching was the Ghost Dance which, properly practiced, would halt the expansion of...
Between early August and early November of 1793 almost ten percent of the population of Philadelphia died after contracting Yellow Fever. At that time Philadelphia was the capital of the young nation...
The story of immigration to the United States is essential to understanding the country’s history. One excellent source for researching this history is Readex’s Ethnic American Newspapers from the...
![Boxing mail -- N.Y. Post Office (LOC). Bain News Service, publisher. [between ca. 1914 and ca. 1915].](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_image/public/2024-07/Comstock_Cover.jpg?h=a1449924&itok=qAbEZ1Rw)
