In this Cool Things podcast, curators at the Kansas Museum of History follow the story of a revolver owned by Albert Hazlett, one of John Brown's men during the raid at Harpers Ferry.

Ben Click looks at the National Portrait Gallery's portrait of Mark Twain by John White Alexander and tells the stories of some of Mark Twain's portrait sittings.

Linda B. Osborne discusses her book, Traveling the Freedom Road, which draws on interviews with former slaves in the Library of Congress collections to convey the aspirations, sorrows, courage, and hopes of ordinary people living through this period. More than 80 archival images complement the text. Major events covered include the rise of the domestic slave trade, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Republican Congress' Reconstruction policies.

As described on the Library of Congress website: "The assassination of the 16th president is one of the singular events in American history, and historian Anthony Pitch uses primary source material to document and reveal previously unknown facts about Lincoln's death...Pitch details the murder plots that were unsuccessful as well as the successful one by referencing hundred of sources." Most of his research was conducted at the Library of Congress, and Pitch discusses the sources he discovered and referred to while writing his book.

In this Face-to-face Talk, Ann Shumard of the National Portrait Gallery details the life of Samuel Morse (1791-1872), including his early interest in portraiture and art, his career as an inventor and his work on the telegraph, and his support of Louis Daguerre's daguerreotype.

This podcast from the Smithsonian American Art Museum details the history of the museum's building, once the U.S. Patent Office, or "Temple of Invention."

To listen to this podcast, scroll to the bullet point which reads, "Listen to our podcast about the magnificent building that houses the Smithsonian American Art Museum," and select a file type.

In this oral history, Hermond Norwood of the Library of Congress interviews Fountain Hughes regarding his time as a slave in Charlottesville, VA.

Heather A. Williams of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill discusses the paradox of Abraham Lincoln's legacy in popular culture—the simultaneous desire to "know" Lincoln and the impossibility of reconstructing a totally complete and objective picture of the man.

Loren Schweninger of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro describes the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, including their meeting in the White House following Lincoln's inaugural address.

John David Smith of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte considers Abraham Lincoln's reasons for allowing black troops to fight in the Civil War and for issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.