History

When Pearl Bailey checked into that Philadelphia hospital in August 1990, she expected to walk out in a few days, recover from a routine knee procedure, and get back to the life she had spent more than six decades building. She had survived heart seizures, collapses backstage, and a skull split open by an abusive … Read more

In the winter of 1909, the East Orange police department received a call from a soft southern voice that asked for a coroner. It was half past four on the afternoon of November 29th, and no coroner was available at that hour, but a physician could be sent. The woman paused before giving an address … Read more

On February 17, 1906, more than a thousand guests packed the East Room of the White House to watch the most famous young woman in America cut her wedding cake with a borrowed sword. The bride was twenty-one years old, dressed in cream white satin with an eighteen-foot train, and the photograph of that moment … Read more

On the morning of May 3, 2003, Darlene Hetherington called her husband David from Great Falls, Montana, and told him she still had a few important meetings to attend. She would have to stay a little longer than planned. David did not think much of it at first. Their daughter had a piano recital that … Read more

On September 28th, 1946, General Dwight Eisenhower stood frozen at a grave in Luxembourg for so long that the photographers grew uncomfortable. Five minutes of absolute silence. No movement, no prayer, just staring at a white marble cross. The other generals who had come with him shifted their weight, cleared their throats, and wondered when … Read more

The photograph shows a young woman in a tight sweater walking down a street, her face turned just so toward the camera. America looked at that picture and decided she was the most desirable girl alive. They called her the sweater girl, and they put her on magazine covers and movie screens for twenty years, … Read more

The photograph looked ordinary at first glance: three children standing on a train platform, two girls and a boy, dressed in dark coats that appeared new. They held hands, the boy in the middle, and stared solemnly at the camera. But when curator Rachel Morrison pulled it from an archival box at the Nebraska State … Read more

In the spring of 1942, an eighteen-year-old named Betty Jane Greer posed for Life magazine in a crisp new uniform of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, a nameless model hired on the strength of her mother’s connections to the War Department. The shoot was so minor that she went uncredited, and nothing about the formal … Read more

Friday, October 12, 1951, 9:30 in the evening. Malcolm Little stood outside Wells Restaurant in Harlem with blood on his hands and desperation in his eyes. He was twenty-six years old, a recent convert to the Nation of Islam, working as a low-level recruiter for Temple Number Seven. Nobody knew his name yet. In another … Read more