Asteroids and Meteors and Lawyers: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Copyright Law

This post highlights Maryland Civil Case No. 81-803, Atari, Inc. v. Amusement World, Inc., Box 1123, which is one of the many court records held at the National Archives at Philadelphia. It comes from Andrew Salyer, an archives technician at the National Archives at Philadelphia. Detail from advertisement for Asteroids, Play Meter Vol. 7, July … Continue reading Asteroids and Meteors and Lawyers: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Copyright Law

Chinese Exclusion and the 1899 National Export Exposition: Imagining the View from Inside an Ethnographic Showcase

Today's post comes from Maria Adamson, a history education graduate student at Temple University. Maria interned with the National Archives at Philadelphia virtually this fall as a part of the Cultural Fieldwork Initiative (CFI), a partnership with the Temple University College of Education Social Studies faculty and more than 30 regional cultural institutions. The Research … Continue reading Chinese Exclusion and the 1899 National Export Exposition: Imagining the View from Inside an Ethnographic Showcase

Navigating the Law: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Trials of a Journey Home

Today’s post comes from Andrew Salyer, an archives technician at the National Archives at Philadelphia. The U.S. Congress passed the first Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, though the conditions its passage sought to remediate had been brewing as early as the 1850s. From the 1850s to the 1880s, Chinese workers migrated to the United States and … Continue reading Navigating the Law: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Trials of a Journey Home

What’s Cooking Wednesdays: The case of the buttered pretzel

Since it's fall and October, our thoughts naturally turned to Oktoberfest as a possible topic for What's Cooking Wednesdays. However, one too many encounters with Upton Sinclair's letter to President Teddy Roosevelt about the working conditions in meat factories had us avoiding the bratwurst. And, apparently, drinking beer in the office is hugely frowned upon by the management. So … Continue reading What’s Cooking Wednesdays: The case of the buttered pretzel