Before the advent of infant formula and the regulation of the dairy industry, babies who were not breastfed faced mortal […]
Accidental Traces: Stowaway Objects in the Radio Haiti Archive
From the early 1970s until 2003, Radio Haïti-Inter, or simply Radio Haiti, was the country’s most prominent independent radio station. […]
“o what happiness it wood be for me to see you once more”: A Mother’s Letter, a Royal Navy Sodomy Hanging, and the Tragic in Queer History
Content warning: Sexual violence and rape; sexual abuse of minors; state violence against queer people. Late in 1800, Britain’s Royal […]
“Discharged Well”: or, How I Learned to Feel in the Archive
This story begins in the fall of 2007. I was on my first research trip to look through various records […]
Bloody Archives: An Archival Insight into the History of Sanitary Towels
Given the number of people menstruating at any one time in the United Kingdom, you would have thought it would […]
Manslaughter or Necessary Operation? Abortion and Murder in Early 20th-Century Missouri
In April 2021, I was part of an exciting experimental conference, hosted by Dr. Courtney Thompson through Mississippi State University: […]
Blood, Teeth, and Fire: A Dispatch from Cincinnati, 1844
This is a story about walking between worlds. It happens now (more or less; December 2020) and also then (October […]
Whale, Actually
Across the cover of the worn brown file, now property of the British National Archives, someone had written “Rations and […]
Finding Friendship and Frustration in the Archive of an Institution for the “Feebleminded”
The methodology proposed by “Archival Kismet” is to go where the archive leads you (while bearing in mind, of course, […]
Archival Kismet: A Manifesto
In a fit of spring-cleaning early last year, my mother sent me a series of boxes filled with various mementos […]
