About

Drawn From the Record

Last updated 17 September 2026

The internet has a version. The record has another. This is a small independent project that goes back to primary sources — newspapers, government files, photographs, survey maps — and tells one place's story from what the documents actually say.

What gets published

Two kinds of thing, both short:

• Episodes — narrated history built from archival footage and scans, posted on TikTok and listed on the home page.
• Map posts — a single place, a single detail, and the record it came from.

Where the material comes from

Every episode cites what it was built from. The sources page lists each one: the collection, the identifier where there is one, and the rights statement the holding institution publishes. Material is used only where the rights are clear — most often the Library of Congress and the U.S. National Archives, whose holdings carry no known copyright restriction.

Where a record is uncertain, disputed, or simply missing, the episode says so. A gap in the archive is part of the story, not something to paper over.

Corrections

If something here is wrong, it should be fixed rather than defended. Corrections and pointers to better sources are welcome — reply to any email from the mailing list, or use the contact details on the terms page.

Prints

Some of the maps become posters, sold through an Etsy shop. That is the only thing on this site that earns anything. There is no advertising here, and nothing in an episode is chosen because it sells a print.