Archive
Your resource for research. Explore the ideas and stories that shaped American history, from 1857 to today.
Or, select a topic below to start your search.
Browse By Collection
Melanie Lambrick Life Up Close
Travel the world to see microbes, plants, and animals in oceans, grasslands, forests, deserts, the icy poles—and wherever else they may be.
Carlos Javier Ortiz The Case for Reparations
Atlantic writers reckon with America's history of racial plunder.
The Atlantic KING
Fifty years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., a commemoration of his life and work—and a reflection on the reality of today's America.
Aubrey Trinnaman Planet
A guide to life on a warming planet, featuring the biggest ideas and most vital information to understand Earth’s changing climate, climate policy, and more.
The Atlantic Votes for Women
The signing of the 19th Amendment in 1920 gave women the right to vote, but the complex fight for suffrage didn’t end there.
Olivia Locher On Teaching
From 2018 through the first year of the pandemic, the most experienced teachers in America’s education system reflected on their careers, their schools, and the history they’ve witnessed.
Illustration by The Atlantic Artificial Intelligence
Making sense of the dawn of a new machine age.
Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty 2024 Elections
Coverage from the latest election cycle, including campaigns, primaries, and conventions.
Special Project
The Atlantic Writers Project
Contemporary Atlantic writers reflect on 25 voices from the archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.
Editor’s Picks
Bettmann / Getty 
Bob Nye / NASA / Donaldson Collection / Getty Science: Careers for Women
The growing need for research workers and scientists has opened new doors for both single women and those combining marriage and a career.
October 1957 Issue
Mendelsund & Munday What Really Happened to Malaysia’s Missing Airplane
Five years ago, the flight vanished into the Indian Ocean. Officials on land know more about why than they dare to say.
July 2019 Issue
Mirrorpix / Getty Pasta
An inquiry into a few fundamental questions: How did spaghetti and meatballs, a dish no Italian recognizes, become so popular here? What makes some brands of pasta much better than others? What’s so special about fresh pasta? What do Italians know about cooking pasta that Americans don’t?
July 1986 Issue
All photos courtesy of Alex Tizon and his family My Family’s Slave
She lived with us for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings without pay. I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized who she was.
June 2017 Issue
Associated Press The Open Mind
Four years after directing the construction of the world’s first atomic bomb, Oppenheimer offers advice on advancing peace in the nuclear age.
February 1949 Issue
Library of Congress The English Governess at the Siamese Court
The author recounts her adventures with the King of Siam.
April 1870 Issue
Browse by Issue
Notable Writers
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates, the author of Between the World and Me, wrote “The Case for Reparations” as a national correspondent for The Atlantic.
Virginia Woolf
Woolf was a novelist and a pioneer of literary modernism.
Rachel L. Carson
Before writing Silent Spring, Carson made her mark as an environmental journalist with the Atlantic essay “Undersea.”
E. B. White
White was an essayist, a novelist, and a grammarian. His Atlantic essay “Death of a Pig” was a nonfiction prototype for Charlotte’s Web.
Rebecca West
West’s reporting on her travels through the Balkans, published in The Atlantic in 1941, was compiled in the book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
Charles Dickens
One of the most popular writers of his time, Dickens was the author of works including A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities.
Anna Deavere Smith
Smith is an Atlantic contributing writer, a playwright, and an actor.
W. H. Auden
Auden published his first poem for The Atlantic in 1939, the year he emigrated from England to the United States.
Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut was the author of 14 novels, as well as numerous short-story collections, plays, and works of nonfiction.
Scroll →
When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
