Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
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Photo of Newt Gingrich speaking into a microphone.

To Understand the Modern GOP, Look at the Reactionary ’90s

The most vitriolic and morally panicked conservative figures of the 1990s contributed just as much to modern American conservatism as Ronald Reagan did.
A picture of the author as a teenager with his parents, in his bedroom decorated with rock music posters.

My Dad and Kurt Cobain

When my father moved to Taiwan, a fax machine and a shared love of music bridged an ocean.
Picture of a calculator and a shopping basket of fresh produce.

What Online Inflation Calculators Can—and Can't—Tell Us About the Past

Most of these tools are based on the Consumer Price Index, a measure of changing prices in the U.S. over time
Black and white photo of people taking fish out of a train car.

Remembering When Fish Rode the Rails

For decades, salmon, catfish, and trout traveled in America's fleet of "Fish Cars."
Photograph of people admiring the statue dedicated to Bett Freeman.

Statue Honors Once-Enslaved Woman Who Won Freedom in Court

Bett Freeman's story and the legal precedent her case established are now forever remembered in Sheffield, Massachusetts.
Black and white photo of a 1920s flapper girl.
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Flappers: Precursors to Modern-Day Social Media Influencers?

A 1923 article in a fashion magazine shows the connection between flappers and social media youth organizers today.
Joe Biden signing a document
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Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Exposes Our Allergy to Taxes

The rise of a new tax politics has made it harder to address our problems, and now it threatens democracy, too.
Illustration of Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders.

Sex, Scandal, and Sisterhood: Fifty Years of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

They’re global icons who have left a lasting imprint on American culture. But do recent controversies threaten the squad’s future?
Picture of a man at a bathhouse in the early 20th century.

Asking Gay Men to Be Careful Isn’t Homophobia

Public-health officials don’t need to tiptoe around how monkeypox is currently being transmitted.
Empty plastic bottles to be recycled.
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Cashing In

How big business lies behind early efforts to encourage Americans to recycle.
A pile of trash on the street in New York, 1911.
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The Pig Apple

The story of the thousands of free-range pigs who managed New York’s waste in the 1800s.
How a group of Red Power activists seized the abandoned prison island and their own destinies.

This Land is Our Land: The Native American Occupation of Alcatraz

From November 1969 to June 1971, 89 Red Power activists seized the abandoned prison island of Alcatraz, and their own destinies.
Interior of St Andrew's Catholic Church in Roanoke, Virginia

Roman Catholic Dioceses in North America

How mapping Roman Catholic dioceses illustrates key concepts of religious ecologies at a continental scale.
Armed miners at the military headquarters of the United Mine Workers, in Trinidad, Colorado, the month of the Ludlow massacre.

There Was Blood

The Ludlow massacre revisited.
Close up image of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Who Invented the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich?

The story behind America's iconic childhood meal.
Photograph of Hugh Ryan.

Liberating the Archives: Hugh Ryan’s “Women’s House of Detention”

An interview on the queer history of a forgotten prison.
Small box from the late 1800s containing small vials of homeopathic remedies.

A Short History of Homeopathy: From Hahnemann to Whole Foods

In the 19th Century, homeopathy was popular because of its use of small doses, its emphasis on the curative power of nature, and its holistic treatment of the body.
Picture of President Joe Biden, left, and President Jimmy Carter, right.

What Historians Think of Joe Biden-Jimmy Carter Comparisons

Historical experts and former Carter advisers fact-check the critics who have compared Joe Biden to Jimmy Carter.
Portrait of Edward Gibbon

Bonfire of the Humanities

Historians are losing their audience, and searching for the next trend won’t win it back.
Photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. speaking into microphones.

Let Justice Roll Down

"Those who expected a cheap victory in a climate of complacency were shocked into reality by Selma."
Lithograph titled "Kiss Me Quick" showing a man and a woman kissing. The woman has her hands on the hats of two children.

Sexual Revolution: Event or Process?

The most important dimension of the sexual revolution of the '60s and '70s was the increased freedom of sexual speech.
Lithograph of a town street with a printing press on the corner.

To Remember or to Forget

The story of philanthropists Catherine Williams Ferguson and Isabella Marshall Graham’s unlikely interracial collaboration.
Charles Joseph Bonaparte formal portrait photograph.

The Architect of the FBI Was Napoleon’s Great-Nephew, Charles Bonaparte

A history of the bureau and its place in the federal government.
“The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers,” an 1885 parody of an 1850 painting by Charles Lucy.

Thankstaking

Was the 'first Thanksgiving' merely a pretext for the bloodshed, enslavement, and displacement that would follow in later decades?
Cover of Coast Magazine titled "Gays Fight Back! San Francisco's Lavender Vigilantes," featuring a man on the floor holding the leg of another man dressed in all black holding a gun.

Queer as Cop: Gay Patrol Units and the White Fantasy of Safety

In the 1970s, gay patrol units in San Francisco and New York City rallied around their whiteness to produce a sense of safety.
Smiling porcelain salt and pepper shaker figures called "the Pilgrim Pair," and their children, "Lilgrims," atop two academic books about Puritan history entitled "The Barbarous Years" and "Seasons of Misery."

Come On, Lilgrim

The gap between academic and popular understandings of early American topics is an enduring challenge for early Americanists.
The mugshot of James Earl Ray next to a picture of Martin Luther King Jr.

Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.? His Family Believes James Earl Ray Was Framed.

Coretta Scott King described “a major, high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband.” The King children remain certain of that, too.
Migrants feet and bags after being dropped off within view of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington on Aug. 11.
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The Disturbing Precedent for Busing Migrants to Other States

In the 19th century, Americans dumped poor migrants overseas. Now some governors are shipping them off to other states.
A page of the census documenting the enslaved people of John Hopkins, 1850.

Owner? Yes. Enslaver? Certainly.

Another chance to examine the terms we use and why they matter.
Painting imagining John Brown (bearded man embracing Black child), being escorted by authorities.

Eugene Debs’s Stirring, Never-Before-Published Eulogy to John Brown at Harpers Ferry

In 1908, Eugene Debs eulogized John Brown as America's "greatest liberator," vowing the Socialist Party would continue Brown's work. We publish it here in full.
Southern Pacific Railroad engine met by a crowd of people in wagons.
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The Birth of Corporate Personhood

How a legal footnote in a Santa Clara County railroad case and the judges who built on it created modern models of corporate personhood.
Lithograph of the reservoir of the Manhattan Water Works in 1825.
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Corporations in the Early Republic

An explanation of the Manhattan Company, a bank disguised as a municipal water corporation that helped to transform Early Republican politics.
Lithograph of a sea otter on a beach, by J. Webber, as illustration for James Cook's Voyages.

Viewpoints on the China Trade

Even within itself, the China trade was a complex, multisided, many-splendored thing.
A stone marker for a post road, slightly chipped, reading "Boston 8 miles 1734 A.I."

"To Undertake a News-Paper in This Town"

How printers in the 1770s assembled the news for their papers, how they used the postal system, and how they may have approached Twitter.
Black Democrats raise their hands at the Democratic Convention.

23 Maps That Explain How Democrats Went From the Party of Racism to the Party of Obama

The longest-running party in America has seen significant shifts in its ideological and geographic makeup.
Artwork of Congress on July 4, 1776

Eighteenth Century Track Changes: Uncovering Revisions in Founding Fathers’ Documents

Let’s consider the significance and responsibility of outlining, drafting, and shaping our nation as the Founding Fathers put pen to paper.
1937 Assessment Grades from the Homeowners' Loan Corporation

Mapping the Legacy of Structural Racism in Philadelphia

An interactive data report presents the impact of structural racism on Philadelphia, mapping 2019’s homicides and present day disadvantage with 1930s redlining maps.
Dry cracked, barren land at dawn, the former bed of the Salton Sea, 2019.

The Toxic History of the Salton Sea

A new book catalogs the alarming events that created one of the West’s most polluted bodies of water.
Drawing of onomatopoetic words, exclamation points, and objects used to make noises.

The Weird, Analog Delights of Foley Sound Effects

E.T. was jello in a T-shirt. The Mummy was scratchy potpourri. For Foley artists, deception is an essential part of the enterprise.
Colorful illustration of two groups of people in pink boxes. The people on the left have brown skin, and those on the right have lighter skin.

Inventing the “Model Minority”: A Critical Timeline and Reading List

The idea of Asian Americans as a “model minority” has a long and complicated history.
Grid of black and white photos of various homes with different architectural styles.

Explore Milwaukee's History Through Its Many Home Styles

Interactive map shows Milwaukee’s housing patterns reflect not only aesthetic trends but also how historical events like immigration, war and civil rights shaped the city.
A 1948 color-coded map of Robeson County identifying racially segregated schools.

Financing Schools

On school funding and America’s kleptocratic public school divide.
Black-and-white still image from the film "Dr. Strangelove," in which a man is shouting and waving his hat in the air while riding a missile in flight.

Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was True

How Stanley Kubrick’s film “Dr. Strangelove” exposed dangers inherent in nuclear command-and-control systems.
Illustration with a 1950 Raleigh bicycle

Cycles of History: On Jody Rosen’s “Two Wheels Good”

A review of how author Jody Rosen depicts the history of the bicycle, mixing the personal with the factual.
Hooded person shining a laser pointer at an airplane in the dark

A Blinding History of the Laser Pointer

They can wreck your eyes, and they can land you 14 years in jail for shining one at a police chopper. But where did they come from?
Black and white photo of Elvis Presley in a recording studio.

Was There Anything Real About Elvis Presley?

Presley never wrote a memoir. Nor did he keep a diary. His music could have been a window into his inner life, but he didn’t even write his songs.
Photo of a memorial for the victim of the Unite the Right rally.

Archivist Report on Aug. 11 and 12, 2017

All the articles from the University of Virginia's student newspaper covering the "Unite the Right" rally, and the grief, activism, and reforms it sparked.
Black and white photo of Mavis Staples, looking upward, hands raised.

The Gospel According to Mavis Staples

A legendary singer on faith, loss, and a family legacy.
Illustration depicting a man with a sword drawn confronting a man and woman standing in a doorway in pajamas.

Family, Liberty, and Vermont: The Allegiance of Ethan Allen in the Revolutionary Era

He held multiple allegiances during the Revolution, all of which were connected or stemmed from the importance he placed on familial self-preservation.
Illustration overlaying an image of Lucille Brown and a group of women over an image of Howard University

Higher Ed and the Policing of Memory

Why universities must help lead the battle to defend and expand critical race theory.
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