Exhibits

Exhibit

American Corruption

The constant tug of war between those who try to bend government for their own gain and those who try to root out corruption and reform the system.

Exhibit

Federal Bureaucracy

The federal government is the nation’s biggest employer. To many, its size is a problem in itself. This exhibit asks: how big is too big, and what do we miss when we focus on size alone?

Exhibit

Social Safety Net

How Americans through the years have approached the thorny questions of identifying who the government is obliged to help and how such assistance should be funded and distributed.

Jimmy Carter speaking during his presidential campaign in 1976.
Exhibit

Legacies of Jimmy Carter

Historical reappraisals of Carter's legacies in foreign relations, the economy, the environment, and electoral politics.

Exhibit

Trumpism

A presidency often referred to as "unprecedented" has deep roots in American history.

Exhibit

Voting Rights: A Retrospective

Voting, a right not initially enshrined in the Constitution, has been secured, revoked, and contested since the nation's founding era.

Know-Nothing flag
Exhibit

The Many Faces of Nativism

As this exhibit shows, anti-immigrant sentiment has been a throughline of American history.

Exhibit

A Big Tent

Exploring the history of the Democratic Party, from its earliest days through the New Deal, the Long Sixties, and the post-Cold War era.

Declaration of Independence (1819), by John Trumbull
Exhibit

Declaring Independence

A collection of resources about the meanings of the 1776 document in its own time – and in ours.

Exhibit

President Precedents

How Americans understand the powers of the office and the legacies of past leaders.

Exhibit

“All Persons Born or Naturalized in the United States...”

A collection of resources exploring the evolving meanings of American citizenship and how they have been applied -- or denied -- to different groups of Americans.

Voter with mask
Exhibit

Election of 2020

A look back at what historians have had to say about this epic contest over the nation's future.

Karl Marx's face in the American flag

The Marxists Are Coming

Calls to defund the Marxist left and similar mobilizations against rumors of a new red dawn are nothing new.
Militarized National Guard confronts peaceful protesters in Los Angeles, 2025.

What History Tells Us to Expect From Trump’s Escalation in Los Angeles Protests

Since the 1960s, studies have shown that heavy-handed policing and militarized responses tend to make protests more volatile — not less.
Political cartoon depicts Roosevelt steering a ship out of a depression while his detractors are rained on.

Welcoming Their Hatred

As Elon Musk and Donald Trump engaged in a campaign of mutually-assured destruction, social media saw record new levels of schadenfreude.

My Freedom, My Choice

A new book illuminates how freedom became associated with choice and questions whether that has been a good thing—for women in particular.
Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.

States’ Rights to Racism

On the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, racism, and federal power.
William F. Buckley reclines behind a desk, glasses in hand, a bulletin board of National Review magazine material behind him.

The Conservative Intellectual Who Laid the Groundwork for Trump

The political vision that William F. Buckley helped forge was—and remains today—focused less on adhering to principles and more on ferreting out enemies.
Political cartoon comparing office seekers to various animals.

The Spoilsman's Progress

Ambitious office seekers during the nineteenth century experienced wild swings of fortune that depended on the public’s mood and party benevolence.
Charles Sumner

What We Can Learn From the Senator Who Nearly Died for Democracy

The brutal caning of Sen. Charles Sumner in 1856 shows the difference between courage and concession.
Michael Ledeen.

Michael Ledeen Was the Forrest Gump of American Fascism

From Iran-contra to Iraq war WMD lies to Trumpism, this right-wing pundit kept subverting democracy. 
A New Method of Macarony Making, as practised at Boston,” Carrington Bowles, London, October 12, 1774. (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)

Ruling Rebels

How the Sons of Liberty became colonial power-brokers.
Model Cities staff in front of a Baltimore field office in 1971

Could a Bold Anti-Poverty Experiment from the 1960s Inspire a New Era in Housing Justice?

The Great Society’s Model Cities Program wasn’t perfect. But it offered a vision of what democratic, community-based planning could look like.
partner

Who Controls the Purse? Presidential Power and the Fight Over Spending

Trump is reviving a controversial budget tactic, putting a Nixon-era fight over presidential power and congressional authority back in the headlines.
A protester holds a "Patriots don't tolerate tyranny" sign. Other signs advocate for the rule of law over kings and tyranny.

The Freedom-Loving Minutemen of Massachusetts Strike Again

Just down the road from Lexington and Concord, American patriots scurried to defend their immigrant neighbors.
A drawing of John Adams.

John Adams Is Bald and Toothless

A brief history of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Lincoln's Habeas Corpus Precedent

Ultimately, only a civic culture alert to and upset by abuses of power can safeguard sound republican government.
Woodrow Wilson and a panel of red stars.

Surviving Bad Presidents

What the Constitution asks of us.
A group of men in a bar watching Oliver North testify before Congress.
partner

How the Iran-Contra Scandal Impacts American Politics Today

The Iran-Contra affair exposed how government officials can ignore democratic norms and practices.
Cover of "Sedition" featuring smoke engulfing the Capitol dome.
partner

An Attempt to Defeat Constitutional Order

After the Civil War, conservatives used terrorism, cold-blooded murder, and economic coercion to fight the new state constitution in South Carolina.
Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn.

Blacklists and Civil Liberties

On the Second Red Scare and the lessons that it can provide for us today.
Elon Musk and his son board Air Force One.

How William Howard Taft’s Approach to Efficiency Differed from Elon Musk’s

This isn’t the first effort by a president’s appointee to streamline government.
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Helms, framed by a camera shutter.

Is Spying Un-American?

Espionage has always been with us, but its rapid growth over the past century may have undermined trust in government.
John C. Calhoun

The Prelude to the Civil War

“Only two states wanted a civil war—Massachusetts and South Carolina.”
A playing card King superimposed over Trump's face.

The Dangerous Legal Theory Behind Trump’s Power Grabs

There was no “unitary executive” until some dudes made the idea up to save Nixon.
Donald Trump and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

When Presidents Sought a Third (and Fourth) Term

Winning more than two elections was unthinkable. Then came FDR.
Chief Justices of the Supreme Court attend President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress at the US Capitol on March 4, 2025, in Washington, DC.

The Courts Won’t Save Us

Rather than resisting authoritarianism, the courts have enabled Trump’s rise.
Drawing of Black and white Liberian Senators sitting behind desks while one speaks and a crowd watches

Freedom and Its Limits

Edward Wilmot Blyden sorted through competing ideas about the meaning of freedom in 19th-Century Liberia.
Collage of the Battles of Lexington and Concord and patriotic imagery.

Revolution and Progress on Lexington Green

The American Revolution’s first battle is a reminder that liberty isn't the result of inevitable progress but a prize won by those willing to fight for it.
Alleged enemy aliens on way to detention camp, Gloucester, New Jersey, 1918.

The Alien Enemies Act: Annotated

Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.
The words "the world you were born in no longer exists" covering Trump's eyes.

The Present Crisis and the End of the Long '90s

On the constitutional settlement that governed America from the end of the Volcker Shock in 1982 to the re-election of Donald Trump in 2024.
Workmen clearing cobwebs from exterior of the White House, c. 1920.
partner

How to Succeed in Government Without Really Trying

The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government.