State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill Administration Building, with a restricted entrance sign in front of its doors.

The Porous Prison

How incarcerated people have become separated from American society.
A World History Encloypedia graphic image/illustration of The Feudal Society in Medieval Europe.

American Feudalism

A liberalism that divides humanity into a master class and a slave class deserves an asterisk as “white liberalism.”
Sakinah Ahad Shannon.

The Story of Sakinah Ahad Shannon, an Early Hero of Abortion Liberation

Sakinah discovered Chicago’s Abortion Counseling Service, better known as Jane, because she wanted to help a friend. Then she became an essential part of it.
A monkey listening to a radio with headphones.

The Scopes Trial and the Two Visions of US Democracy

A new history revisits “the Trial of the Century” and its legacy in contemporary politics.
University of California, Los Angeles students protest against Israel's war in Gaza.

Why Do Student Protest Movements Fail?

The uncompromising idealism of student protesters is rooted in social and economic isolation and detachment.
Streetlamps and red trail lights glow in a dark city street.

A Nation of Cop Cities

The push to build large police training facilities follows on a long history of armories as both symbols and manifestations of state power.
A handwritten envelope for court documents in "The United States v. Thomas Chittenden."

Guilty as Charged

Convicting Vermont’s first governor.
Kamala Harris waving at the Democratic National Convention.
partner

Kamala Harris Is Borrowing From the Feminist Playbook

Harris is taking a page from the playbook that has long helped women advance the quest for equality.
Aerial view of the suburbs.

How Racist Policies Destroyed Public Housing and Created the American Suburbs

The systematic post-war displacement of communities of color.
Political cartoon of clothed animals and Anthony Comstock bathing clothed, and cowering at underwear in a store window.

The History and Legacy of Anthony Comstock and the Comstock Laws

As the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposes to revive the Comstock Act, this seven-part forum explores the Act’s influence on American life.
The Executive Board of UCAPAWA in 1937.

Challenging the New Deal’s “Contemptible Neglect”

In the midst of the Great Depression, one CIO union used the new administrative state to influence legislation on behalf of people considered outcasts.
Alice Morgan Wright with unknown friend, sitting on a tree stump.

Reconstructing the Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement

Rouse reveals the hidden queer histories of suffragists like Alice Morgan Wright, who balanced activism with private, erased relationships.
Carver Junior High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

How to Keep a School Open

Two Carvers and the fight for fair desegregation.
A hallway inside of an old prison with wooden cell doors and brick walls.

The Supreme Court Is Using History to Disenfranchise Unhoused People

The court’s ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson involves highly selective readings of the historiography and a willful misrepresentation of history.
Electric taxis, cars driven like carriages, moving through the streets of Manhattan in 1898.

On This Day in 1899, a Car Fatally Struck a Pedestrian for the First Time in American History

Henry Hale Bliss’ death presaged the battle between the 20th-century automobile lobby and walkers in U.S. cities.
President Gerald Ford announcing his decision to grant a pardon to former President Richard Nixon on Sept. 8, 1974.

Supreme Court Ruling in Trump v. United States Would Have Given Nixon Immunity for Watergate Crimes

President Ford’s pardon of Nixon is seen as a damaging precedent establishing presidential impunity. Now, the Supreme Court has affirmed that impunity.
Left: Anthony Comstock. Right: Victoria Claflin Woodhull.
partner

The Comstock Act's Threat to Abortion Rights If Harris Loses

Anthony Comstock, Victoria Woodhull, and what a battle from the 1870s means for 2024 and reproductive rights.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio riding in the back of a convertible car painted like an American flag.

Are Sheriffs Above the Law?

Many vignettes of sheriffs in action are dramatic and alarming. But how representative are they?
Deserted turnpike on tribal land.

How a Small Town Murder in Oklahoma Sparked a Supreme Court Battle Over Tribal Sovereignty

On the independence of the Muscogee Nation.
Antonin Scalia with Ronald Reagan, William Rehnquist, and Warren Burger at a press conference announcing Scalia's nomination to the Supreme Court.

The Return of the Common Law?

The originalist revolution will never be complete until we fully appreciate the natural law roots of the common law.
Drag queen reading book to children.

Censorship Through Centuries

A new book examines battles over drag story hours and book bans through the lens of LGBTQ history.
A gay couple and their children at a rally in California in 2004.

“Protecting Kids” from Gay Marriage

Leading up to a 2004 debate about same-sex marriage, conservatives shifted their focus away from moral issues and toward arguments about children’s welfare.

Week of Wonders

Twenty-five years ago, protesters shut down the meeting of the World Trade Organization. At the time, it seemed very important. But is it now?
Illustration by Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic. Sources: Bettmann / Getty; Heritage Art / Getty; NY Daily News Archive / Getty.

What a 100-Year-Old Trial Reveals About America

A new book on the famed 1920s court case traces a long-simmering culture war—and the fear that often drives both sides.
Political cartoon showing Supreme Court Justice Sutherland handing a woman worker a decision on minimum wage.

The Most Conservative Branch

Stephen Breyer criticizes recent Supreme Court decisions and argues for a more pragmatic jurisprudence.
A crowd of Feminist protestors marching in New York.

A New Look at the Feminist Earthquake

How women's liberation transformed America and why our understanding of 1963-1973 needs to include more voices.
Photo of Supreme Court Justices posing in gowns.

The Origin of Specious

Originalism is not so much an idea as a legal-industrial complex divided into three parts—the academic, the jurisprudential, and the political.
JD Vance, along with characters from the Scorsese movie "Gangs of New York," shown over a background of a map of New York City

JD Vance is Just Another Know Nothing Nativist

MAGA has been a largely white movement of non-urban people who seem to think that people unlike them are scary and that there is only safety in homogeneity.
Two students holding peace armbands.
partner

Civics Skills: How the Supreme Court's Tinker Ruling Affects Students

An anti-Vietnam protest that resulted in the Supreme Court confirming that students are persons under the constitution.
Alain Locke.

A Century of Cultural Pluralism

How an unlikely American friendship should inspire diversity, equity, and inclusion.