McKnight Public History & Genealogy Services

08/21/2025

08/19/2025

Museums are among the most trusted institutions in American life.

But growing external pressures to change or limit what they display risk narrowing the public’s access to ideas, evidence, and diverse perspectives.

We call on all who value our shared heritage to join museums in resisting censorship so they can continue to educate, connect, and inspire.

Read our full statement: https://www.aam-us.org/2025/08/15/aam-statement-on-the-growing-threats-of-censorship-against-u-s-museums/

07/05/2025

An ode to a disappearing America

06/28/2025

https://open.substack.com/pub/billmckibben/p/a-great-and-good-man?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4weiu8

On the passing of Bill Moyers

06/25/2025

The latest issue of City & State New York has an excellent feature on New Amsterdam, including an interview with Russell Shorto about Taking Manhattan and an excerpt from Mr. Shorto's book as a well as a fascinating feature on Hart Island, New York's potter's field. The magazine is open access and you can find it here: https://www.cityandstateny.com/latest-issue/?oref=csny-magazine-lander

06/23/2025

Cornell University Press is having a 50% off sale on all books in print (for delivery in the US only) including our Hendricks Award winning titles! Visit https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/books/ and use the code 095000 to get the discount.

06/19/2025

05/25/2025

"Mildred Harnack was beheaded on Hi**er’s direct order. Born in Milwaukee, she was 26 when she moved to Germany to pursue a PhD. As an American grad student in Berlin, she saw Germany swiftly progress from democracy to fascist dictatorship. She and her husband Arvid began holding secret meetings in their apartment. She recruited working-class Germans into the resistance, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated in writing leaflets that denounced Hi**er and called for revolution.

"Mildred Harnack nicknamed their resistance group “the Circle.” The group was diverse: its members were Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, atheist. They were factory workers and office workers, students and professors, journalists and artists. Over 40% were women...
"The Gestapo arrested Mildred Harnack on Sept 7, 1942 and gave her group a name: the Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra). Postwar testimonies and notes smuggled out of a Berlin women's prison describe the daily interrogations and torture that Mildred and others in the group endured.

"Mildred Harnack and 75 of her German coconspirators were forced to undergo a mass trial at the highest military court in N**i Germany. A panel of 5 judges sentenced her to 6 years at a prison camp but Hi**er overruled the decision and ordered her ex*****on

"Before her ex*****on Mildred spent the last hours of her life in a prison cell translating poems by Goethe. The title of my book ALL THE FREQUENT TROUBLES OF OUR DAYS is a line from one of them. A prison chaplain smuggled out the book of poems under the folds of his robe

"On February 16, 1943 at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin, Mildred Harnack was strapped to a guillotine and beheaded. According to all available records, she was the only American in the leadership of the German resistance to Hi**er."

More great pictures and info here:

https://twitter.com/RRRDonner/status/1493952833846140935

05/24/2025

On May 24, 1626, Peter Minuit bought the island of Manhattan. Information about this transaction comes from a letter by Pieter Janszoon Schagen. He writes that Minuit bought the land from unnamed Native American people, probably the Canarsee Indians of the Lenape, in exchange for traded goods worth 60 guilders. Historians debate what the value of what the 60 guilders would mean in today's currency and it ranges from $24 to $15,000. One of the points to this that is often lost is the Native American understanding of this deal. They did not simply vanish from the island and many were still present going into the Revolution and beyond. From their prospective, this was most likely viewed as an alliance deal with the goods being an incentive for mutual protection. However, this is still one of the greatest land deals ever pulled off.
Image: 1909 drawing of The Purchase of Manhattan Island by Alfred Fredericks. Popular Science Monthly Volume 75/Brittanica

05/13/2025

"The Slow Death of Slavery in Dutch New York" with author, Michael J Douma in conversation with Robert W Snyder. This remarkable analysis dispels many myths. Watch:

01/26/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/12DWh36W4mP/