Book Review: Fateful Lightning
Civil War scholar Allen C. Guelzo offers a fresh, complete account of the epoch that defined our nation.... More
About: Jeff Nilsson
Jeff Nilsson is the director of Post archives and a website editor. He is a specialist in American History, with graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, University of New Mexico, and Eastern Michigan University. He writes our website's weekly Retrospective feature, and is directing the program of digitally converting the magazine's 190 years of issues.
Posts by Jeff Nilsson:
All first-class music dealers keep them.
This advertisement from an 1899 issue of the Post features Washburn Guitars. After finding it, I wanted to learn in what year Washburns went out... More
Simonds hacksaw blades
It happens more often than you would expect. I find an interesting old ad from the 1900s and I go online to learn when the... More
The Long Delayed Future of the Automobile
The Post announced the imminent arrival of the electric car in 1960. And in 1962. And '63. And '67. Why did it take another... More
1912: Life before the cellphone camera—
... More
Undiscovered Poe? Early Works Before ‘The Black Cat’
Did the Post print several anonymous pieces by Edgar Allan Poe before we printed his classic short story, The Black Cat?... More
“For in that sleep of death…”
An Edgar Allan Possibility: The following article appeared in the August 13, 1831 Post. We believe it may have been written by Edgar Allan Poe... More
Still Learning
When I began working in the archives in 2009, I thought I’d soon get a fairly good idea of the Post’s archives. That was before... More
Big Money and Women Voters: Who Really Chooses the President?
In the 1940s, George Gallup tested his theory that presidential elections are decided long before they even begin.... More
The Rock Revolution in the Dick Clark Days
When Dick Clark told the Post, "I don't think some people's attitudes about rock 'n' roll can stop a way of life," he was including... More
Jonathan Frid 1924 – 2012
“Can Barnabas Collins, a 172-year-old vampire with a guilt complex, find love and happiness in a typical New England town?"... More
Dick Clark: Rock’s Clean-Cut Champion
"l am always puzzled why anybody should dislike me because I am associated with young people, and because I defend teenagers' musical likes and... More
The Assassin’s Mummy; or, John Wilkes Booth’s Second Career
More audiences may have seen the infamous actor in 1938 than when he was alive.... More
The Cover Girl on the Titanic
It was a life that included a successful film career, a highly publicized scandal, an arrest and imprisonment in a fascist prison, and an... More
The Inevitable Tragedy of the Titanic
100 years after the Titanic sank, we explore the Post's 1912 editorial on the great tragedy. Were the British and American governments to blame for... More
Relativity: Einstein’s Explanation
"Relativity" is a term that everyone uses but few people understand, so—just as we did in 1959—we're letting Einstein explain it in his own words.... More
Star-Spangled Fascists
White Shirts, Silver Shirts, White Camellias, and plain, old Nazis: here is the Post’s 1939 field guide to America's hate groups.... More
