This year marks the 80th anniversary of the community garden at Cleveland Park. It started as a Victory Garden in another time of unpredictable supply chains when lethal threats from America’s enemies prompted people to grow vegetables for self-sufficiency.
David Taylor Umran Safter is a Turkish filmmaker who brings a fresh eye to D.C. history in her new film about 1940s Washington, Leave the… Read More »New Film on Washington in Jazz History
One of my favorite history podcasts, BackStory, selected my book Cork Wars for its monthly book club, BookStory. So the other day I joined the… Read More »Cork Wars in BookStory
Not long ago I had the pleasure of talking with the fine writer Cathy Alter for the Washington Independent Review of Books.
At the Virginia Festival of the Book’s panel “Commonplace to Critical” Matthew Roth and I spoke with moderator Nina Earnest about everyday items that became sensations. They either went big overnight in wartime, or over the course of a century. Who gets caught in the middle?
When we arrived in Porto in December 2016, one of the first things I did was try a port wine tasting near the banks of… Read More »Porto’s Unexpected Cork Country
Interesting post today on a blog about historic preservation in Mississippi, on the evolving understanding of the state’s architectural roots. The WPA guide held one… Read More »Retracing Architecture in the Magnolia State
Last Friday marked the 112th anniversary of the birth of Juanita Brooks, premier Utah historian. Brooks was born January 15, 1898. This year also marks… Read More »Juanita Brooks, Courageous Historian of the Southwest
Seventy years ago this week, the WPA Guide to New York City came out amid a campaign blitz of jingles and quiz games. In 1939,… Read More »Seeing the Shadow City: Anniversary for the WPA Guide to New York City
In an article about life in China today you wouldn’t expect to find a reminder of 1930s America and the Writers’ Project, but yesterday’s New… Read More »Personal Efforts for Democracy
