Money

When it seemed that steel had lost its gleam with American consumers, the industry turned to marketing to make it shine again.

By following the money, a new history of urban inequality turns our attention away from federal malfeasance and toward capital markets and financial instruments.

Insuring against the cost of insurance itself in Revolutionary-era America.

When Thomas Jefferson’s administration was debating whether to declare war against Britain, it came up against America’s wealthy and influential marine underwriters.

In the early 20th century, labor unrest and strike breaking were done not by the government, but by private agencies and self-appointed vigilantes.

East European Jews and the lost world of immigrant banking.

The recent panic over retail theft reveals tensions at the heart of American consumerism.

A century of tax avoidance later, the dynasties created in the 1900s are going strong.

On the failed dreams and forgotten ruins of William Hope Harvey.

“What if we identified the politics of municipal debt as circumscribing political horizons and futures?”

A three-decade dream of communist markets ended in the scrapyard.

How a story told by a fugitive from slavery became a parable of American banking gone bad.

W.E.B. Du Bois defined the shift from slavery to freedom as a “general strike” — and there are parallels to today.

Until school boards and administrators listen to teachers, they’ll end up with shortages in every crisis.

Historian Richard White on the greed, ineptitude and economic cost behind the transcontinental railroads, and the implications for infrastructure policy today.

What we think we know about stifling inflation could be wrong.

The strongest resistance to taxation and redistribution came from the Northern ruling class.

History offers some pointers for government regulators.

This report clarifies five issues commonly raised in debt limit debates and explores some open questions.

From the Nye Committee to Joe Kent, the fight against war profiteering is a constant struggle.

'Isn’t this supposed to be the museum of the motion picture industry?' a historian asks. 'They forgot about the industry part.'

How a series of emergencies resulted in the school lunch programs we have today.

The connections between private industry and government were much more fluid than was previously imagined.

The history of the United States as the history of capitalism.

Black people own just 2 percent of farmland in the United States. A decades-long history of loan denials at the USDA is a major reason why.

A history of cemetery workers' strikes.

A history of the menthol cigarette and its effects on Black people.

The last from-the-top critique of American overconsumption generated a massive backlash.

Robert Nisbet predicted the managerialism that has brought universities low. But he also saw a way out.

New books investigate the brutality of the internal slave trade by focusing on businesses, and examine the role of white women in enslaving Black people.