The Vault

"Harry Kahne, mental marvel and daredevil from Keiths Theatre, amuses the cross word puzzle fans as he works a puzzle backwards, while being hung from the top of one of Washington's tall office buildings," 1925. Library of Congress, National Photo Company Collection.

During the 1920s, people had a taste for “Jackass”-style daredevil spectacles. Barnstorming pilots and wing walkers dazzled crowds at traveling aerial shows. Flagpole sitters, including Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly, perched atop poles for up to 49 days in a row.

In 1926, the American Museum of Natural History trustee William Douglas Burden set sail with a team of adventurers that included a hunter, a herpetologist, a cameraman, and Burden’s wife. They were off to capture dragons.

"Execution of the thirty-eight Sioux Indians at Mankato, Minnesota, December, 26, 1862." Milwaukee: The Milwaukee Litho & Engr. Co., 1883. Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1883 by John C. Wise in the office of the librarian of Congress at Washington. American Antiquarian Society copy the gift of Jay Last, 1997.

Last weekend’s “This American Life” told the story of the execution of 38 Dakota Indians in the frontier town of Mankato, MN. This event took place 150 years ago this month (December 26, 1862), and was the largest mass execution in American history.

Online Collections, The Strong National Museum of Play. Object ID 112.135; gift of Margaret Zanghi in memory of Magdalena Lahm Belanger.

Little misses in the first decades of the twentieth century were expected to learn how to cook for a household, so they needed something to practice on—something real. The Queen, a cast-iron and tin baby stove from 1915, burned coals or wood in its belly, while this lime-green metal toy stove from 1930 plugged into the wall. Both stoves had open burners, just like Mom’s.

From "Three Who Came Back!," 1965. Published by the Social Security Administration.

The Social Security Administration’s website hosts full scans of comic books that the government published in the 1950s and 1960s in order to inform young citizens about their rights. These pamphlets were printed at a time when everyone was trying to reach kids through comics; government agencies were no exception. 

"Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, half-length portrait, standing, facing front, holding her pet raccoon." Taken between 1921 and 1923. Library of Congress, National Photo Company Collection.

Imagine Michelle Obama cradling a raccoon in her buff arms. Grace Coolidge’s pet raccoon, Rebecca, was a celebrated resident of the White House, dragged out for Easter egg rolls and held like a cat while the First Lady posed for the camera.

Courtesy of The New York Public Library

This hotel menu from an 1899 Thanksgiving feast is one of many held by the New York Public Library. While late-nineteenth-century Americans did think of Thanksgiving as a domestic occasion, there was some (people without the big kitchens necessary to produce a giant dinner, for example) who preferred to spend the day in a hotel.

From the book Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, edited by Dan Wakefield. Copyright © 2012 by Kurt Vonnegut. Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

In 1967, Kurt Vonnegut corresponded with magazine writer and novelist Richard Gehman, who was about to head off to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop to start a teaching gig. Vonnegut, who taught at the Workshop from 1965 to 1967, had many tips to share.

The John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. See a full scan of this copy of the Bay Psalm Book at the World Digital Library.

The Vault is Slate's brand-new history blog. Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter @slatevault. Find out more about what this space is all about here.

In a hidden corner of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, inside a box with a false title (to ward off thieves), lies a book of legendary rarity.  A recent appraiser from Sotheby’s pegged its value at $10 million. 

This standard-issue test tube, held at the Henry Ford Museum, was for years believed to contain Thomas Edison’s last exhalation.