Ed Ayers

Ed Ayers heads south in search of stories from two centuries ago. Traces are there, but larger meanings remain elusive.

After decades of reading, writing, and teaching about the American past, Ed Ayers sets out to see how that past is remembered in the places where it happened.

A journal of my road trip to the formative decades of American history.

But it can’t stop there.

The maps embrace everyone —free and enslaved, from the first national census of the late 18th century to the sophisticated surveys of the early 21st century.

Patriotism doesn’t require whitewashing.

Juxtaposing contemporary public health data with 1930s redlining maps reveals one of the legacies of urban racial segregation.

Bunk Executive Director Ed Ayers on the importance of teaching students to think for themselves.

In 1867, African-Americans in Virginia stood up for their new political rights in the face of threats from their white neighbors.

In history, suppressed memories, stories half-told or lied about, carry greater power for having been suppressed.

Why I decided to devote my professional life to something I wasn't very interested in.

An interactive set of maps and narratives of the forced migration of approximately 850,000 enslaved people from 1810-1860.

An interactive map of overland trails that settlers followed on their western journeys.

An interactive map of U.S. canals in the first half of the 19th century.

An interactive map of immigrant populations in the United States.