Archive • Archival Magic • Buttondown

“The baseball diamond as an important part of our general landscape” was one prompt for government photographers making images to reflect America in the...

Lynda Benglis pours latex as she creates a floor sculpture in 1969. / LIFE magazine If you ask me about colors, three fragments from a decade ago pop into my...

An 1851 illustration of the universe inside a drop of water, found in a book written by Agnes Catlow. / Public Domain Image Archive The ceaseless drip of...

Girl Scouts gather around a campfire in 1925. / Courtesy of the Girl Scout Museum at Cedar Hill, Waltham, MA I’m SO EXCITED to reveal my latest National...

February 28, 2025

I really, really, REALLY wanted this photo as my hero image, but it’s not in the public domain, and I didn’t receive the appropriate permissions in time...

February 6, 2025

U.S. Navy chefs learn new recipes, circa 1915. / LOC I saw a new word last year that has stuck in my mind ever since, along with my competing emotions of...

December 31, 2024

Winteravond (“Winter Evening”) says everything about the beauty of this season. / Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam As the year turns, the importance of archives can...

December 6, 2024

Wallpaper on the first floor of Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst, Massachusetts. / Dustin Renwick November was a month full of thinking about big narrative...

October 31, 2024

The deathwatch beetle has inspired superstitions and a full Radiolab podcast episode. / Gilles San Martin If you plot the completion of my letters on the...

October 1, 2024

A cake sits ready for some special occasion in the 1920s (unknown photographer). / National Gallery of Art You made it through [today / this month / ten...

September 6, 2024

Ten painters fill in spaces among the Brooklyn Bridge cables in 1914. / NYC Municipal Archives One of the summer interns asked to meet with me as our...

A circle of imagination and engineering in 1893. / LOC I’ll happily admit that when I first saw a photo of the Olympic medals for Paris, I said, “What are...

Maryland kids slide and splash in summer 1942. / LOC When I talk to people about archives and their potential, I highlight the surprising expansiveness well...

An unidentified model poses in an image by renowned photographer Nina Leen. / LIFE I was wandering through the library of a small local college several years...

A mosaic image of the lunar north pole in 2010. / NASA JPL The drive was projected at a sprightly four hours and change, but eight hours later, we were only...

A phonelescope, patented in 1912, converts sounds into drawn waveforms. / U.S. Military Academy and NMAH For those who celebrate, Easter is arguably the most...

February 29, 2024

Trash collectors in Antarctica in the late 1980s. / National Science Foundation The switch is complete, but the process wasn't interesting or satisfying. Not...

Archival Magic | Chance

January 31, 2024

[no photo!] ... TinyLetter is shutting down, so the next dispatch will arrive from a new sending address. I wanted to write this particular newsletter a year...

Archival Magic | Bicentennial

December 31, 2023

What I wanted to show you as the header image.*** One of my favorite topical overlaps for this newsletter happens when I can share a story of archives and...

Archival Magic | Levity

November 30, 2023

Highbrow meets lowbrow in this 1923 advertisement for "America's Most Famous Dessert." / LOC Four years ago, I first submitted the phrase "archival magic" in...

Archival Magic | Cemetery

October 30, 2023

This shell necklace reflects the balance of life and death in Aztec culture. / Dumbarton Oaks As I was finishing a project last October, I came across an...

Archival Magic | Hodgepodge

September 29, 2023

Marie Dressler, a comedian, wears a lampshade in 1909. / LOC We're still in September, right? Oops. This newsletter is all cabinet-cleaning and no sharply...

Archival Magic | Wyoming

August 31, 2023

Horses pull a wagon and a Model T in Yellowstone in an undated photo. / NPS I'm just back from an assignment in Yellowstone National Park and have finally...

Archival Magic | Process

A letter and poem from the 1870s in a collection of documents at the LOC. / Dustin Renwick With a heat index of 100+ degrees last weekend, I scheduled my day...

Archival Magic | Ecstasy

A riot of color on the cover of a psychedelic book. / Bloomsbury Turtles weren't a new writing topic for science journalist Rachel Nuwer, but the context of...

Archival Magic | Memorials

Unidentified friends smile in a field, circa 1900. / Smithsonian American Art Museum A few days ago, I started my morning by running to Arlington National...

Archival Magic | Universal

Ice ridges cover the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, photographed in 1997. / NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU As I walked the west side of Lake Union, the words...

Archival Magic | Cleaning

A roadside stand photographed in 1980 by John Margolies in Seattle, Wash. / LOC Welcome to the Spring Cleaning Edition! Blossoms are blowing, baseballs are...

Archival Magic | Data

February 28, 2023

How much data in a single leaf? In a century of growth? / Dustin Renwick Wowowow. This newsletter marks an anniversary for me. Five years ago, I sent the...

Archival Magic | Forces

January 30, 2023

Patent number 251,338 was granted in 1881 for this early typewriter that allowed both lowercase and capital letters. / Smithsonian You know I typically lace...

Archival Magic | Family II

December 31, 2022

An anonymous traveler stands beside his car in October 1940 — my favorite photo in the mystery album. Years and years ago, I saved a photo album from the...

Archival Magic | Entertainment

November 30, 2022

Bess Wallace (left) and Mary Paxton in 1901. / NARA My internal conflict has raged the whole year. Longer, really. Since the insurrection. Since the pandemic...

Archival Magic | Legends

October 30, 2022

An estimate of the original colors from chemical residues on the stone. / Drini, Wikimedia In 1978, utility workers in Mexico City clanked their equipment...

Archival Magic | Instruments

September 30, 2022

Lizzo plays an archival flute in the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress. / LOC The story about the War of 1812 that you probably remember from your...

Archival Magic | Life

August 31, 2022

Mabel Harvey tags out Virginia Smoot at a junior high baseball game in DC in May 1925. / LOC I pick a seat on the right side of the Amtrak train whenever I'm...

Archival Magic | Heat

This 1948 picture from legendary photographer Toni Frissell depicts the estimated mental state for much of America this summer. / LOC The head lifeguard at...

Archival Magic | Hand Talk

Deaf children in Cincinnati, Ohio, sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in sign language in 1918. / LOC The older gentleman nodded at me from the pool deck as I...

Archival Magic | Night Sky

This 2018 lunar eclipse was photographed from Texas. / NASA, Robert Markowitz My reward for fitful sleeping arrived in a red robe. The moon's dimmed rusty...

Archival Magic | Unexpected

A line from one of Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnets. / Dustin Renwick DC remains an exceptional city for so many reasons – let me know when you come visit –...

Archival Magic | Railroads

The Union Pacific Railroad crossed the 100th Meridian in Nebraska in 1866. / LOC Growing up, I loved listening to the whistles of trains blowing in on the...

Archival Magic | Threads

February 28, 2022

Unidentified soldier sewing, circa 1915. / LOC That calm I wrote about last month has gone the way of snowflakes in DC. I've been working these past weeks to...

Archival Magic | Calm

January 31, 2022

A snowy start in DC. / Dustin Renwick The opening weeks of 2022 hummed with a calm that I could not recall from last year. Same pandemic. Same furniture in...

Archival Magic | Thief

December 31, 2021

Two boys steal apples from a New York City fruit barrel in 1910. / LOC The refrigerator at my childhood home has for many years mimicked a fallen tree in...

Archival Magic | Delicious

November 30, 2021

This grocery list from the 1800s feels familiar, right? / with permission from Deborah W. Drank all the milk and needed more for baking? Same. The grocery...

Archival Magic | Cities

October 31, 2021

The unburned area of San Fransisco after the 1906 earthquake as seen from a "captive airship," a system of kites and piano wire that suspended a camera 2,200...

Archival Magic | Exhibition

September 30, 2021

by way of cherries, white gloves, and patience Eight prints of photos find their home back in the Midwest nearly 90 years after the original pictures were...

Archival Magic | Landscapes

August 31, 2021

by way of Route 66, copyrights, and Bob The comet NEOWISE glides along the northern California coast in July 2020 above King Range National Conservation...

Archival Magic | Summer

by way of morning, noon, and night Gone now, this drive-in theater scene was captured by John Margolies in 1980 near Pinellas Park, Florida. / LOC Recent...

Archival Magic | Juneteenth

by way of joy, humility, and one more step Bill and Ellen Thomas were formerly enslaved in Hondo, Texas – pictured here in 1937. / LOC Jubilant noise greeted...

Archival Magic | X

by way of cowbells, crystals, and nail polish Stained-glass window? Bronze lattice? Cicada wing at 10x zoom? / Dustin Renwick An insect that aligns itself so...