Today’s What We’re Reading features a roundup of articles related to recent cinematic treatment of history, a new “color enhanced” look at Abraham Lincoln, and a crowdsourcing opportunity focused on the history of the Bay Area. 

Readings Related to Higher Education

Elite Education for the Masses
The Washington Post throws more fuel on the MOOC fire, with an article that emphasizes the increased access afforded by the online courses.

The Power of Small Moments
Jeff Haden for Inc. has written a powerful essay on a personal moment he shared with a professor that inspired him to begin to read for fun-and it changed his life.

Should Science Majors Pay Less for College Than Art Majors?
Found in the Atlantic, Jordan Weissmann reports that a task force, commissioned by Florida Governor Rick Scott, is drafting a proposal that would allow public universities to charge undergraduates differing tuition rates depending on their major.

History and Hollywood

British cinema poster for Skyfall

Shake us. Stir us. James Bond is back and cooler than ever. The iconic spy at 50.
Historian Simon Schama, for Newsweek, discusses the relationship between the evolution of the James Bond character, and British conceptions of masculinity and sexuality.

Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times Britain in the 1950s
Sandra Trudgen Dawson, writing for Nursing Clio, offers a personal comparison between her own experience working as a midwife for the NHS in the 1980’s, and what is depicted in the PBS miniseries Call the Midwife.

A Story Told Before
The Weekly Standard reviews the upcoming Showtime miniseries by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuzick, The Untold History of the United States. The series begins airing on November 12.

Fun with History

Image courtesy of Time

A Vibrant Past: Colorizing the Archives of History
Time commissioned Sanna Dullaway to remove spots, dust and scratches from of history’s most renowned images, including a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.  The results are color enhanced images that look they could have been produced today.

Year of the Bay
Historypin is crowdsourcing a new history of the San Francisco Bay by gathering photos, videos, audio recordings and personal memories from  the public in the hopes of creating a new narrative of the Bay Area.

Vintage Pharmacy’s Shelves Groan With Patent Medicines
The Los Angeles Times covers an 85,000-item collection of old “Pharmaceuticals and botanicals, rouges, deodorants and still-sealed packs of cigarettes” from the heyday of the five-and-dime. H/t to Kathleen Shldon at UCLA.

History in the Walls
The Wall Street Journal’s Ralph Gardner takes a road trip to several presidential homes, in an attempt to put the election “into historical perspective.”

This post first appeared on AHA Today.