Omaha’s Lillie Williams became a professional bicycle racer in 1889
Starting in the high-wheel bicycle era, Lillie Williams of Omaha became a multi-sport professional athlete at a time when women’s sports were widely regarded as improper ...
Omaha
What We Found
Who killed South Omaha’s mayor? Anti-Catholicism in Omaha in 1892
Though it looked like a suicide, an organization called the American Protective Association was convinced that the death of South Omaha’s mayor was a Catholic plot. The ...
A Farm Boy Comes to Omaha, 1888
"I guess there ain’t any end to Omaha,” wrote sixteen-year-old Frisby Rasp in a letter to his parents in 1888. “You can walk till you are tired out in any direction you ...
Conserving a 224-Year-Old Gift Given to Chief Blackbird
When this document arrived at our Ford Conservation Center, it was in pretty rough shape. Thankfully, Hilary LeFevere, our expert Paper Conservator at the Ford Center, ...
Retrospective on 1968
TV was full of protesters demonstrating everywhere, sometimes setting fires and breaking windows. What was happening to our country? I’ve been asking that same question ...
The Girls of Company Z
An 1890s Omaha photo shows three young women dressed in what look like men’s military cadet uniforms. It was frowned upon for women to be dressed in such a manner, so ...
Oreapolis: Nebraska’s Ghost Town
In the 1850s, Nebraska was a newly-established US territory whose only towns lay along the Missouri River. Many of the new settlements were little more than “paper ...
Omaha Airfield Challenging Radios in Planes
As an emerging invention in the early 1920s, radios became popular as entertainment and as a means of communication. The potential use of radios in airplanes intrigued ...
Triumphs and Troubles: The Early History of the NAACP in Nebraska, 1918-1940
By Breanna Fanta, Editorial Assistant
In a period of intense racial discrimination, groups like the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of ...
Nebraska’s first school newspaper celebrated a radical idea: free schools
Published weekly by Omaha high school students starting in 1859, the Free School Advocate celebrated an idea that was was not yet fully embraced across the US: free ...
The Ford Conservation Center: Here to Help
It’s a new year and a good time to remind our blog readers of what we do at the Ford Center. The Ford Conservation Center is the conservation division of History ...
Treating Certificates at the Gerald Ford Conservation Center
These certificates are now more stable and with proper storage and handling will be for many years to come.
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