Artist's rendering of the proposed Disney's America theme park in Prince William County, Virginia.

Disney and Battlefields: A Tale of Two Continents

The conflict between commercialization and historic preservation.
Patchwork collage of Joe Biden

All the President’s Historians

Joe Biden has met with scholars to discuss his presidency and likely legacy—but what are we to make of his special relationship with historian Jon Meacham?
Original bars on a window are seen in the basement of the Freedom House Museum in Alexandria, Va.
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The Deep Cruelty of U.S. Traders of Enslaved People Didn’t Bother Most Americans

Debunking the myths of the domestic slave trade.
Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia.

Why Honor Them?

In the decades after the Civil War, Black Americans warned of the dangers of Confederate monuments.
The Gun Violence Memorial

What Should a Coronavirus Memorial Look Like? This Powerful Statement on Gun Violence Offers a Model

The pandemic, like other open wounds, must be remembered with an “open” memorial.
Henry Adams and his wife, Clover Adams at Wenlock Abbey, England, 1873

A Posthumous Life

Family blessings are a curse, or they can be. The life of Henry Adams explained in his book Education.
A diverse group of school children saluting the American flag in a classroom.

Why the Asian-American Story Is Missing From U.S. Classrooms

Educators say that anti-Asian racism is directly linked to how the AAPI community is often depicted in U.S. history lessons .
2020 time capsule with a roll of toilet paper, mask, hourglass, and syringe

The Things They Buried: Masks, Vials, Social-Distancing Signage — And, of Course, Toilet Paper

Most Americans are eager to forget 2020. But some are making time capsules to make sure future generations remember it.
A Black family in Savannah, GA.

The “Families’ Cause” in the Post-Civil War Era

While focusing on refuting the Lost Cause narrative, many historians forget to memorialize Black Americans in the post Civil War period.
Artwork depicting two people with shovels and a machette, entitled “Broken Skies: Nou poko fini” (We aren't done yet), 2019, by Didier William

Tarry with Me

Reclaiming sweetness in an anti-Black world.
A boy surfs on a computer keyboard surrounded by details from earlier internet eras.

You Probably Don’t Remember the Internet

How do we memorialize life online when it’s constantly disappearing?
Illustration of Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, the likely inspiration for Molly Pitcher, stoking a cannon for the U.S. Pennsylvania artillery during the Battle of Monmouth.

Molly Pitcher, the Most Famous American Hero Who Never Existed

Americans don't need to rely on legends to tell the stories of women in the Revolution.
1886 British Empire Map

Fascism and Analogies — British and American, Past and Present

The past has habitually been repurposed in a manner inhibiting ethical accountability in the present.
Vienna’s plague column; the AIDS quilt; Mexico City’s Memorial to Victims of Violence; Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

How Will We Remember This?

A COVID memorial will have to commemorate shame and failure as well as grief and bravery.
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Mary Beard and the Beginning of Women's History

She was one half of a powerhouse academic couple and an influential historian in her own right. But she's still often overlooked.
Daryl Michael Scott.

"Bad History and Worse Social Science Have Replaced Truth"

Daryl Michael Scott on propaganda and myth from ‘The 1619 Project’ to Trumpism.
A black girl walking up to a building with a ghost-lit confederate monument in front of it.

The South’s Monuments Will Rise Again

The Confederate monuments did fall. But not permanently.
Condoleezza Rice

Why Aren’t Conservative Women Recognized During Women’s History Month?

The left regularly dismisses such women as less worthy of recognition.
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All History Is Local

But it can’t stop there.
Helen Keller, circa 1954.

Did Helen Keller Really “Do All That”?

A troubling TikTok conspiracy theory questions whether Keller was “real.”
Performers in "Black America" posing in their costumes

Black America, 1895

The bizarre and complex history of Black America, a theatrical production which revealed the conflicting possibilities of self-expression in a racist society.
Artistic rendition of a boy with an explosion.

Can Historians Be Traumatized by History?

Their secondhand experience of past horrors can debilitate them.
A negative from a photo of Abraham Lincoln

How Historians Say Abraham Lincoln Is Quoted and Misquoted

As Presidents' Day approaches, historians look back at the most notable recent uses and misuses of "the Great Emancipator's" words.
Prince Hall portrait

A Forgotten Black Founding Father

Why I’ve made it my mission to teach others about Prince Hall.
Photograph of a former slave interviewed by the Federal Writers' Projects

Stories of Slavery, From Those Who Survived It

The Federal Writers’ Project narratives provide an all-too-rare link to our past.
Colorized photograph of formerly enslaved family outside of their cabin

The Color of Freedom

This collection of colorized portraits transforms ex-slave narratives into freedom narratives in order to better remember the individuals who survived slavery.
Indian Congress installation

The Historic Indian Congress is Reunited in Omaha by Artist Wendy Red Star

The Apsáalooke artist has created a major new installation for her solo show at the Joslyn Art Museum using photographs of the 500 delegates taken in 1898.
Book cover for Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Chernow Gonna Chernow

A Pulitzer Prize winner punches down.
The Capitol building.

Preserve (Some of) the Wreckage

We must remember the very real challenges to the preservation of our democracy.
Signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Against the Consensus Approach to History

How not to learn about the American past.