Barbara Antmann, whose sister was a Sullivanian, outside one of their buildings.

The Upper West Side Cult That Hid in Plain Sight

In the sixties and seventies, the Sullivanian Institute had a winning sales pitch for young New Yorkers: parties, sex, low rent, and affordable therapy.
Morlok quadruplets with a teacher next to a chalkboard.

Sleepwalking to Madness in Mid-Century America

On Audrey Clare Farley’s “Girls and Their Monsters.”
Tina Turner singing on stage

America Loved Tina Turner. But It Wasn’t Good To Her.

Over the course of her 83 years, the megawatt star that was Tina Turner kept telling us who she was in the hopes that we would see her — all of her.
Portrait of William Costin.

Did Martha Washington Have a Black Grandson?

Likely the child of Martha's son from her first marriage, William Costin used his position to advocate for D.C.'s free Black community.
James Dent Walker.

A Major Group of Family Genealogists Apologizes For Past Racism

The National Genealogical Society is one of the oldest, largest groups dedicated to helping families trace their ancestries.
 A precolonization map of the Northeast, showing Abenaki homeland, at the Musee des Abenakis.

Review of Records Fails to Support Local Leaders’ Claims of Abenaki Ancestry

Questions are swirling in New Hampshire around attempts by two local groups to gain tribal recognition.
Two women walking side-by-side.

Not White But Not (Entirely) Black

On the complex history of “passing” in America.
Formal portrait photograph of a young Jackie Bouvier.

The Making of Jackie Kennedy

As a student in Paris and a photographer at the Washington Times-Herald, the future First Lady worked behind the lens to bring her own ideas into focus.
Knitted baby booties.

Civil War Surprises: We Didn't Know She Was Pregnant

During the Civil War, women secretly enlisted as men in the Union Army. No one suspected a thing...until they gave birth.
The men of the Dawahares family, a Syrian immigrant family who founded a clothing business in Kentucky.

Moses of Cairo (Illinois)

The idea that non-white immigrants are, generally speaking, new to the Midwest could not be further from the truth.
Photographs of a family sitting at table, a woman in a crowd, and parents holding signs of support at a pride parade.

How One Mother’s Love for Her Gay Son Started a Revolution

In the sixties and seventies, fighting for the rights of queer people was considered radical activism. To Jeanne Manford, it was just part of being a parent.
A box of explosives removed from the murderer's home

America’s First Plane Bomber, and His Intended Victim

A mass murderer of 1955.
W.E.B. DuBois.

On W.E.B. Du Bois and the Disgraceful Treatment of Gold Star Mothers

The symbolic battles of World War I.
Detail of faces on a family tree.

The Pocahontas Exception: America’s Ancestor Obsession

The ‘methods and collections’ of genealogists are political because they have a great deal in common with genealogy as a way of doing history.
Fort William Henry, 1755.
partner

The Curious History of Ulysses Grant's Great Grandfather

The sacrifice of Captain Noah Grant, during the French and Indian War, may have influenced Ulysses S. Grant, as he decided to rejoin the U.S. Army in 1861.
Illustration of Mina Miller Edison in front of news clippings about her.

Mina Miller Edison Was Much More Than the Wife of the 'Wizard of Menlo Park'

The second wife of Thomas Edison, she viewed domestic labor as a science, calling herself a "home executive."
Bobby Seal and Huey Newton standig in front of a Black Panther Party sign

How Huey P. Newton’s Early Intellectual Life Led Him To Activism

The role of family in Huey P. Newton's educational journey.
Edgar Allan Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe Had a Promising Military Career. Then He Blew it Up.

Netflix’s “The Pale Blue Eye” portrays Edgar Allan Poe as a young West Point cadet. Here’s the true story of his brief, failed military career.
A Union soldier stands with African Americans on a plantation, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, 1862.

Military Service and Black Families During the Civil War

One war, in one city, Philadelphia, and the fate of the men, women, and children left behind as collateral damage in the wake of conflict.
Artwork of trees with multicolored roots.

Yearning for Roots

We're born with a hunger for connection with our ancestors – both biological and spiritual.
Collage of members of Coles family through history.

Their Wealth Was Built On Slavery. Now a New Fortune Lies Underground.

In Virginia, the land still owned by the Coles family could yield billions in uranium. Does any of that wealth belong to the descendants of the enslaved?
Leland and Jane Stanford

Stop All the Cocks! Who Killed Jane Stanford?

Many of the ­private colleges and universities in the US arose as much out of vanity as necessity. But for morbid narcissism, nothing comes close to Stanford.
Various members of the Grimke family.

Bleeding Hearts and Blind Spots

What the story of the Grimke family tells us about race in the United States.
Black and white photograph of William Still, sitting, pasted against a blue tinted backdrop of a U.S. state map

The Forgotten Father of the Underground Railroad

The author of a book about William Still unearths new details about the leading Black abolitionist—and reflects on his lost legacy.
Illustration of William and Florence Kelley

The Father-Daughter Team Who Reformed America

Meet the duo who helped achieve the most important labor and civil rights victories of their age.
William Barber III standing in front of Vera Brown Farm.

Rebuilding the Homestead

How Black landowners in eastern North Carolina are recovering generational wealth lost to industry encroachment.

A Brief History of One of the Most Powerful Families in New York City: The Morgenthaus

An excerpt from a new book on the so-called "Jewish Kennedys."
A toddler at a small table eat a plate of food with a large glass of milk.

Empathy in the Archive: Care and Disdain for Wet Nursing Mothers

The complex story of wet nurses and their children in the time before the advent of baby formula.
Illustration of a 1950s woman surrounded by orange flames, pink background

Reading Betty Friedan After the Fall of Roe

The problem no longer has no name, and yet we refuse to solve it.
Upside down statue spray painted "slave owner."

My Father’s Family Kept Slaves – and He Defended It. Acknowledging It Matters

Amid a rise of laws forbidding discussions of racist histories, sharing our ancestors’ shameful wrongdoings is more urgent than ever.