NOT EVEN PAST

20 years after the launch of Sputnik heightened American fears...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:04:47 -0500

20 years after the launch of Sputnik heightened American fears of Soviet dominance in space, representatives of both nations were shaking hands in space, offering a powerful symbol of cooperation. How did this transformation take place?

For her Texas History Day research paper, Rockport-Fulton High School student Kacey Manlove explores the history of Soviet-American space exploration—a story of both the “fire” of distrust and the “ice” of détente. And be sure to check out the appendix, which includes Kacey’s first person interviews with former NASA officials!

Photo Credits:

1975 issue of Time examining American-Soviet cooperation in space (Image courtesy of “Fire and Ice: How a Handshake in Space Turned Cold War Agendas from Competition to Cooperation”)

The Emancipation Proclamation for the Disabled | Not Even Past

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 11:47:06 -0500

The Emancipation Proclamation for the Disabled | Not Even Past:

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal law explicitly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability. This seminal piece of legislation represented the culmination of a decades-long struggle to guarantee disabled Americans the same access to jobs, housing, education, and public services.

In the website “The Emancipation Proclamation for the Disabled,” Noel Grisham Middle School students Khira Patel, Hamsini Nathan, Niti Malwade, Devika Patel and Srija Reddy argue that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) was a “turning point in history, which ensured disabled citizens equal access to every aspect of society” and became a “catalyst for disability rights worldwide.” The site explores the fascinating history behind the ADA, including conditions for disabled Americans prior to 1990, the movement that emerged fighting for reform and the impact of the law. Ultimately, the group concludes that the Americans with Disabilities Act represented a positive historical development, creating a “legal foundation for continuous improvement to the lives of people with disabilities.”

The Devil's Rope | Not Even Past

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:40:53 -0500

The Devil's Rope | Not Even Past:

Barbed wire is a commonplace sight across much of America, but it has an extraordinary history. In “The Devil’s Rope,” first place winner in the Texas History Day Senior Individual Website category, Andrew White argues that this seemingly simple technology has exerted a huge impact on the American West and battlefields across the world.

The Internet: A Powerful Changing Force of the World | Not Even Past

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 11:16:52 -0500

The Internet: A Powerful Changing Force of the World | Not Even Past:

What are the origins of the Internet? And what kind of changes in society has it wrought? Check out Cypress Lakes High School student Maryam Ali’s site, “The Internet: A Powerful Changing Force of the World,” which was a winner at the 2013 Texas History Day Contest, and find out.

Does the new Jackie Robinson biopic, 42, accurately portray this...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:18:52 -0500

Does the new Jackie Robinson biopic, 42, accurately portray this courageous individual? Read Dolph Briscoe IV’s review on Not Even Past.

Jackie Robinson signing autographs in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ dugout, Ebbets Field, April 11, 1947 (Image courtesy of Corbis Images)

“I would like to share with you my views on the political...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:56:51 -0500

“I would like to share with you my views on the political consequences of certain courses of action that have been proposed in regard to U.S. policy in Southeast Asia.”

This is the first line of a 1966 White House memo written by Vice President Hubert Humphrey warning that Americans would have little enthusiasm for war in Southeast Asia. Read more about this incredibly prescient document here.

Photo Credit: Members of the 101st Airborn Division aboard a USAF C-130 at Pham Thiet Air Base, Republic of Vietnam, for airlift to Phi Troung Air Base (Image courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration)

Imagine a resource that allows historians to evaluate the impact...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:26:00 -0500

Imagine a resource that allows historians to evaluate the impact of mistakes over time. This isn’t a history book—it’s the new video game, BioShock Infinite. Today on NEP, Robert Whitaker reviews the game and discusses its use of history.

Photo Credits: Promotional Photo of BioShock Infinite (Courtesy of Irrational Games and 2K Games)

In 1950, the CIA was already deeply concerned with the...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:30:50 -0500

In 1950, the CIA was already deeply concerned with the possibility of communist incursion into southeast Asia. On October 13th, they published “Consequences to the US of Communist Domination of Mainland Southeast Asia,” which formally outlined the possibilities. Read more about it here.

Photo Credit: U.S. air and ground Marines fighting Chinese forces in Korea, 1950 (Image courtesy of the United States Federal Government)

Who were the people committing atrocities in the Yugoslav War?...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:09:00 -0500

Who were the people committing atrocities in the Yugoslav War? Were they “predisposed” towards murder and violence? Or were they “ordinary” people changed by their environment? Today on Not Even Past, UT undergraduate Daniel Rusnak reviews “They Wouldn’t Hurt a Fly,” which argues that anyone—including you or me—can become a war criminal under the right circumstances.

Photo Credit: UN Peace keepers collecting bodies from Ahmići, Bosnia and Herzegovina, April 1993 (Image courtesy of the ICTY)

Who was Bartolomé de las Casas? A reformer? A champion of...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:59:19 -0500

Who was Bartolomé de las Casas? A reformer? A champion of indigenous peoples? Or was a he virulent racist and an enabler for Spanish imperialism? Today on Not Even Past, UT undergraduate Allegra Geller reviews “Another Face of Empire,” a history of this complicated and iconoclastic figure.

Photo Credit: An illustration of Spanish atrocities against native Cubans published in Las Casas’s “Brevisima relación de la destrucción de las Indias” (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Could a Muslim be President of the United States? Could a Jew?...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:52:00 -0500

Could a Muslim be President of the United States? Could a Jew? What about a Catholic? In 1788 Americans debated the Constitution’s “no religious test” clause that declared that there would be no religious requirements for people running for office. Read Denise Spellberg’s essay at Not Even Past.

Photo Credit: Thomas Jefferson’s 1764 edition of the Qur’an in English translation (courtesy Library of Congress)

This month we’re featuring Brian Levack’s new book,...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:54:00 -0500

This month we’re featuring Brian Levack’s new book, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West. Read his short essay about the book, watch an interview with the author, check out related books, including one by Aldous Huxley. At Not Even Past, UT Austin’s public history website.

painting credit: Girolamo di Benvenutto via Wikimedia Commons

Atari History for Pong's 40th Birthday

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 11:22:00 -0600

Atari History for Pong's 40th Birthday:

When Pong came out I was going to college in a small town in Iowa. My friends and I would drive 30 minutes down I-80 to play Pong at a truck stop. For HOURS. [Click on the link to get the whole story.]

mentalflossr:

On November 29, 1972, a startup called Atari announced the release of Pong, a coin operated “video game.” The company’s name was taken from the ancient Japanese board game Go, and vaguely translates as “to hit the mark.” In celebration, here are some things you might not know about Atari.

1. In today’s dollars, you could found Atari for the price of a MacBook Pro.

This week we posted a review of Greg Grandin’s Fordlandia...

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 08:18:33 -0500

This week we posted a review of Greg Grandin’s Fordlandia by Cris Metz. Fordlandia was Henry Ford’s ill-conceived rubber production labor colony experiment established in Brazil beginning in the 1920s. Over the next few decades thousands of workers died as a result of Ford’s poor planning, arrogant ignorance of natural and cultural conditions, and corruption on the part of local and international officials. You can see more photos of Fordlandia during its existence on the Fordlandia set of The Henry Ford page on Flickr. Years of deforestation, attempts to cultivate non-native species, and the use of toxic chemical treatments took their toll on the region, even as native plants have reclaimed the abandoned colony. A reader alerted us to this collection of photographs by Scott Chandler of Fordlandia today.

Today on Not Even Past, you can find Dolph Briscoe’s...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:31:00 -0600

Fairfield resident shows black soot

Peabody strip coal mining

Today on Not Even Past, you can find Dolph Briscoe’s review of Bruce Schulman’s book, The Seventies. These photos come from Documerica, a project to document the state of the US environment in the 1970s by one of the government agencies created in the 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency. Between 1971 and 1977, the EPA hired photographers to take pictures of environmental damage, EPA activities, and everyday life. The photos, more than 15,000 of them, are now held at the National Archives. Some are digitalized and available on the Documerica website, and many more are available on wikipedia (where I got these two) and here on Flickr. In the first, a man wipes black soot from the roof of his car, located near a US Steel plant, by LeRoy Woodson. The second, by Bill Gillette, shows the destruction caused by strip mining in Colorado.

And now the EPA is using Flickr to invite everyone, from around the world, to submit photographs that document the state of the environment today. You can find their State of the Environment Photo Project here. Join up and send in your own photos.

This image is a close-up of a map by the British geographer...

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 08:34:00 -0600

This image is a close-up of a map by the British geographer Thomas Jeffreys entitled “The Coast of Caracas, Cumana, Parla, and the mouths of the Rio Orinoco” from 1775. The map comes from the David Rumsey Map Collection, an unusually deep and well-indexed collection of historical maps. This week on NEP, our “Making History” podcast features Jesse Cromwell, who talks about his doctoral research on contraband trade in the Caribbean during the 18th century.

African American Family, c. 1940 by Black History Album on...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:59:00 -0600

African American Family, c. 1940 by Black History Album on Flickr.

Today on NEP we are blogging about sites to find collections of historical photographs of African American everyday life. This one, a family shot from 1940, comes from the Flickr site called Black History Album. See the blog for more.

This week on Not Even Past we posted a new “Making...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 10:57:00 -0600

This week on Not Even Past we posted a new “Making History” interview podcast with Christina Salinas, who is writing her dissertation on the Border Patrol at the Mexican-American border in the 1940s. This photo shows the border in an even earlier period at the beginning of the 20thc: “Cavalry Patrol at the Mouth of the Rio Grade, 1916.” It comes from the Robert Runyon Photograph Collection of the South Texas Border, a collection of more than 8000 items held at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at UT Austin. Other photos show a variety of people and scenes from the border region. (The Robert Runyon Photograph Collection, [image number 00615], The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.)

Today at Not Even Past, we are blogging about the Great Flu...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:36:23 -0600

Today at Not Even Past, we are blogging about the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918-19. The flu that carried off sweet Lavinia Swire last week on Downton Abbey killed more people than the Great War that had just ended. The US Department of Health and Human Services devotes a website to the flu. In addition to material about public health and medicine, The Great Pandemic includes photographs, posters, ads and other illustrations about daily life in 1918 and the effect of the flu on everything from nursing to movie theaters.

Today we posted an article by our colleague, Ruramisai...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 09:29:00 -0600

Today we posted an article by our colleague, Ruramisai Charumbira, about Mbuya Nehanda and the changing uses of her historical legacy. Mbuya Nehanda was a spiritual leader who galvanized protest against the British colonial powers in what is now Zimbabwe, and was hanged for it in 1898. Photographs of Africa during this period are abundant for cultural reasons you can read about on the Museum of African Art’s website. This photograph of “Umtali girls carrying loads,” comes from the large Winterton Collection of East African Photographs at Northwestern.