Family

Public service demands resilience—not perfection.

To find a future for the institution, we need to accurately account for its wildly varying past.

Norman Rockwell's family obsession with psychoanalysis.

Many Black Americans labor under an enduring myth that the lived experiences of their ancestors are lost to the grinding void of enslavement.

The historian Ada Ferrer’s new memoir retells the story of the island through the “utterly ordinary people” who matter most to her.

History knows the First Lady as a hysterical widow and a lavish spender. A recent biographer chooses to highlight her mental fortitude and political prowess.

The political, economic, and social impact of women gaining the ability to plan when to have children.

A century ago, new technology and mobility reshaped what it meant to be young, linking rural life more closely to the city.

My parents founded the radical revolutionary group, then became fugitives. I was born in hiding, and spent my early years on the run.

In 1972, 85% of Americans had been married. Today it's 70%. Here's what's really driving the decline.

On the origins of pickiness.

A forgotten deportation, a family archive, and the cost of belonging.

Children in the 19th century happily consumed wild plants and organ meats. What happened?

Before women could hold office, she created one.

Trump's allies incite moral panic about shrinking white families, even as the state dismantles families of color— a paradox rooted in slavery and eugenics.

Most important is the path pursued by my mother. She sustained herself by engaging socially, rather than battling politically or withdrawing stoically.

My grandmother lived in Kew Gardens, Queens. It was just an average New York commute, but for me it meant stepping out of one reality and into another.

When cryptid research turns personal.

Over decades, and through harrowing experiences, my family held on to this bit of cloth as a reminder of everything they believed in—and were running toward.

The century-long debate over whether parental divorce harms or helps children.

One of the most influential and ardent Patriots couldn’t persuade his son to join the Revolution.

The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.

On Ralph Waldo Emerson, his childhood in Boston, and his thoughts on mortality.

Only one cousin is in a position of power — and his family can only watch helplessly as he destroys much that they stood for.

While the events that led to the Jonestown massacre included tragedy, the life—and death—of one of its residents offers lessons on community and resilience.

Through genetic testing, millions of Americans have discovered family secrets. The news has upended relationships and created a community looking for answers.

Early American elites were fascinated with genealogy, despite the ways it attached them to the Old World.

People living in British America and later the nascent United States recorded their family histories in needlework samplers, notebooks and newspapers.

In working through the Winter case files, I often felt pinpricks of déjà vu: an exact turn of phrase, an absurdly specific expenditure.

The past really is a foreign country, as historian Jonathan Ablard finds when piecing together the turbulent history of his ancestors in the West and Midwest.