Menu

Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk
Smoke coming from Exxon Mobil plant

Inside Exxon's Strategy To Downplay Climate Change

Internal documents show what the oil giant said publicly was very different from how it approached the issue privately in the Tillerson era.
by Christopher Matthews, Collin Eaton via The Wall Street Journal on September 14, 2023
Group portrait of the first African-American legislators in Congress, 1872.

Reclaiming the American Story

To Heather Cox Richardson, the battle for our history is the battle for our democracy. And we may be nearing the endgame.
by Peniel E. Joseph via Democracy Journal on September 18, 2023
A Bank of America branch in San Francisco.

Bond Villains

Municipal governments today hold around $4 trillion in outstanding debt. The growing costs of simply servicing their debt is cannibalizing their annual budgets.
by Clark Randall via Boston Review on August 16, 2023
The Tri-City ValleyCats played in the Baseball Hall of Fame’s showcase game during induction weekend in 2004.

The Supreme Court May Overturn the Error That Made Major League Baseball Rich

A pair of minor league clubs are asking the court to reverse the league’s lucrative 101-year-old antitrust exemption.
by Matt Ford via The New Republic on September 21, 2023

‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Tell the Same Terrifying Story

The “Barbenheimer” double feature captures the dawn of our imperiled era.
by Tyler Austin Harper via Washington Post on July 19, 2023
The inaugural exhibition of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino was created in a gallery of the National Museum of American History. Called “¡Presente!,” it explores how Latinos shaped the United States.

Smithsonian’s Latino Museum Faces Political Winds Before a Brick Is Laid

Partisan battles over America’s past, and divisions among Latinos, are affecting this new institution set to be built on the National Mall.
by Jennifer Schuessler via New York Times on September 23, 2023
An American flag flying in front of a large Christian cross.

The Religious-Liberty Attack on Transgender Rights

Conservative Christians are out to restore their historical legal privileges.
by David Sehat via Boston Review on May 27, 2016
The American flag on fire.

The Fight for Our America

There have always been two Americas. One based in religious zeal, mythology, and inequality; and one grounded in rule of the people and the pursuit of equality.
by Heather Cox Richardson via The New Republic on September 26, 2023
Album cover for “Tim,” the "Let It Bleed" edition, by The Replacements.

The Replacements Are Still a Puzzle

The reissue of “Tim” shows both the prescience and the unrealized promise of the beloved band.
by Elizabeth Nelson via The New Yorker on September 21, 2023
Hand placing vinyl record into filing cabinet.

Hip-Hop Is the Music of Vinyl Librarians

Hip-hop tracks became a retelling of parents’ and grandparents’ histories; each discovery of a sample source was like finding an ancestor.
by Dan Charnas via New York Times on September 15, 2023
A walkway with walls covered in graffiti.

Graffiti Has Undergone a Massive Shift in a Few Quick Decades as Street Art Gains Social Acceptance

In the last decade, some graffiti writers have moved from outlaw taggers to sought-after artists.
by Stefano Bloch via The Conversation on June 20, 2023
Martial arts fighting scene from Warrior.

Bruce Lee’s “Warrior,” and the Politics of Kung Fu

The Max series makes a radical argument for what constitutes American history.
by Jasper Lo via The New Yorker on September 12, 2023
Crop circles in the middle of a field.
partner

Pssst, Crop Circles Were a Hoax

In the late 1970s, mysterious circular patterns started showing up in farm fields.
by Alun Anderson, Matt Ridley, James MacDonald via JSTOR Daily on August 21, 2019
A political cartoon of Franklin Delano Roosevelt with a crow on his shoulder, representing Jim Crow.

The Not-So-New Deal

The New Deal brought Black voters over to the Democratic Party, but was marred by racial inequality.
by C. Vann Woodward via New York Review of Books on December 8, 1983
Protesters outside the United States Supreme Court.

What Tocqueville Saw in the Courts

Tocqueville understood how constitutional review, without meaningful checks, could enable judicial despotism.
by Alan Kahan via Law & Liberty on September 12, 2023
The World Trade Center.

The World Trade Center: Before, During, and After

A biography of the towers that became "bane as well as boon to lower Manhattan."
by Michael Tomasky via New York Review of Books on March 28, 2002
Emily Dickinson Museum collection.

What Emily Dickinson Left Behind

The winding story of how a trove of 8,000 of the poet’s family objects were saved.
by Martha Ackmann via The Atlantic on September 20, 2023
An illustration of Lucinda Williams in a storm with debris in the air behind her.

Lucinda Williams and the Idea of Louisiana

An exploration of the family stories, Southern territory, and distortions of memory that Lucinda Williams' songwriting evokes.
by Wyatt Williams via The Bitter Southerner on September 5, 2023
Shelby Foote with a drawing of a Civil War battle superimposed over him.

The South’s Jewish Proust

Shelby Foote, failed novelist and closeted member of the Tribe, turned the Civil War into a masterpiece of American literature.
by Blake Smith via Tablet on September 6, 2023
Donald Trump giving a State of the Union address.

American Uses and Misuses of the Holocaust

Wielding Holocaust memory to make America look good is an American tradition.
by Mari Cohen via Jewish Currents on February 8, 2019

Eight and Skate

The age of optimism that lasted in the US from the 1940s to the 1970s looked, basically, like a car.
by Gabriel Winant via New York Review of Books on September 23, 2023
The Jewish Catalog

When Judaism Went à la Carte

On the 50th anniversary of "The Jewish Catalog."
by Jane Eisner via The Atlantic on July 28, 2023
Richard Nixon, 1968.

Richard Nixon’s Last Crusade

America’s 37th president tried to save America’s Russia policy in the 1990s.
by Anthony J. Constantini via The American Conservative on September 19, 2023
John Birch Society book store.

A Mid-Century Playbook for Saving Progressive American Education

Fifty years ago, parents united to get the far-right John Birch Society out of their schools.
by Matthew Dallek via Zócalo Public Square on September 19, 2023
Ripped green ScanTron sheet

The End of Scantron Tests

Machine-graded bubble sheets are the defining feature of American schools. Today’s kindergartners may never have to fill one out.
by Matteo Wong via The Atlantic on September 19, 2023
A hand holds an iPhone that has taken a photograph of a house, with the house itself blurry in the background.

A Photo Can Tell the Truth About a Lie. Or a Lie About the Truth.

A new exhibit in Atlanta shows that a perfectly captured photograph can sometimes wake America from its slumber and inspire social change.
by Margaret Renkl via New York Times on September 18, 2023
Ms. Magazine cover, 1972.

We Are Not Alone: 50 Years of Ms. Magazine

Gloria Steinem on the making of America's first feminist publication.
by Gloria Steinem via Literary Hub on September 20, 2023
Angel Blue and Eric Owens in costume for the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of “Porgy and Bess.”

The Complex History and Uneasy Present of ‘Porgy and Bess’

It has entertained, and sometimes enraged, generations of audiences. Now the Gershwin classic is opening the Metropolitan Opera’s season.
by Michael Cooper via New York Times on September 19, 2019

Dangers and Enemies Everywhere

How Cold War liberalism abandoned the vocabulary of hope—and how we still live with the consequences.
by George Scialabba via Democracy Journal on September 14, 2023

Two Cheers for the Cold War Liberals

There are certainly good grounds to criticize Cold War liberalism. But Samuel Moyn's new book, like similar critiques, has a classic baby-bathwater problem.
by Joseph Stieb via War on the Rocks on September 15, 2023
Dave Benscoter smiling in front of a one hundred year old apple tree.

On the Hunt for America’s Forgotten Apples

Apples no one has ever tasted are still out in the wild. Dave Benscoter, a retired FBI agent, has spent a decade searching for these 100-year-old heirlooms.
by Andrew Zaleski via Outside on May 18, 2023
Sly Stone performing at a concert.

The Undoing of a Great American Band

Sly and the Family Stone suggested new possibilities in music and life—until it all fell apart.
by James Parker via The Atlantic on September 16, 2023
"Spy vs. Spy" pointy-headed characters facing each other

Rethinking Spy vs. Spy: A Hand From One Page, A Bomb From Another

Like the spies themselves, the image we have of something is often what gets us in trouble.
by Gyasi Hall via Longreads on September 12, 2023
A Chicago Cubs pitcher warms up.

An "Old-Fashioned Pitchers' Duel" Didn't Always Mean What You Think

A deep dive into the historical context and changing meanings of a time-honored term.
by Lauren Theisen via Defector on September 14, 2023
Burning Benedict Arnold in effigy.

A Traitor, Burned in Effigy, Again and Again

New London, Conn., has never forgiven Benedict Arnold for his Revolutionary War treason — and for burning their city.
by Amelia Nierenberg via New York Times on September 19, 2023
Woman playing piano for African American soldiers.

Black Burials and Civil War Forgetting in Olustee, Florida

Finding the forgotten and racialized landscape of Civil War memory.
by Barbara A. Gannon via Black Perspectives on April 25, 2023
A family photograph in front of a blood quantum chart, where each person's face has been removed and replaced by the chart.

Blood-Quantum Laws Are Splintering My Tribe

The rules were supposed to preserve my community. Instead they are slowly cutting people out of it.
by Leah Myers via The Atlantic on June 21, 2023
Ruth Ehrlich and Aileen Hernandez sitting next to each other at a National Organization for Women event.

Labor Union Radicals Built the US Feminist Movement

Labor radicals played a crucial role in organizing the struggles to topple gender hierarchies, and should serve as an inspiration for labor feminists today.
by Katherine Turk via Jacobin on August 9, 2023
"Slave Market of America," a broadside published by the American Anti-Slavery Society.
partner

Deep Zoom: 1836 Broadside “Slave Market of America”

Published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, this single 77 by 55 centimeter sheet tells multiple stories in both text and illustration.
by William G. Thomas III, Teresa A. Goddu, Dorothy Berry via JSTOR Daily on April 29, 2022
The Northern Pacific Railway.

How One Robber Baron's Gamble on Railroads Brought Down His Bank

In 1873, greed, speculation and overinvestment in railroads sparked a financial crisis that sank the U.S. into more than five years of misery.
by Mickey Butts via Smithsonian on September 18, 2023
Flint, Michigan sit-down strike.

The 1936 Sit-Down Strike That Shook the Auto Industry

Over 136,000 GM workers participated in the strike in Flint, Michigan that became known as 'the strike heard round the world.'
by Erin Blakemore via HISTORY on September 17, 2019
Detail of atlas of the city of Boston, Boston Proper and Back Bay, Plate 9.

Building Blocks

An exhibition exploring the connections between the environment and social justice, using maps and visual materials.
by Laura Lee Schmidt via Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center on January 13, 2023
A collage of Jacuzzi family photographs.

The Frothy Saga of the Jacuzzi Family

An immigrant story, an American dream, a machine that defined bourgeois sensuality.
by Saskia Solomon via New York Times on August 11, 2023
Front cover of Rendered Obsolete: Energy Culture and the Afterlife of US Whaling.

Underground Whales: An Energy Archaeology

On the history of whaling and how we understand energy consumption.
by Jamie L. Jones via UNC Press Blog on September 13, 2023
Mother-daughter opera singers Givonna Joseph and Aria Mason.

The Black Composers of New Orleans Opera Are Finally Getting Their Due

And it's all thanks to this mother-daughter dream team.
by Shoshi Parks via Atlas Obscura on September 13, 2023
Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls’ cast member A.B. Johnson plays the harmonica.

A Peek at the Golden Age of Prison Radio

"Texas Jailhouse Music" explores a time when Texas prisons promoted rehabilitation through a wildly successful radio show.
by Maurice Chammah via The Marshall Project on May 16, 2016
Daisy Bates speaking at the March on Washington.

How Might the Civil Rights Movement Looked Different With Women at the Forefront?

Why women civil rights organizers marginalized at this event, and how that affects our collective memory of the struggle.
via Here & Now on August 23, 2023
United Auto Workers members at a rally.

UAW Strikes Built the American Middle Class

Today’s strikers are seeking to renew the broadly shared prosperity that earlier UAW work stoppages created.
by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on September 18, 2023
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain shaking hands with union members.

Can the UAW Transform America Again?

By thinking big, Shawn Fain is summoning memories of Walter Reuther and the autoworkers’ union’s finest hour.
by Timothy Noah via The New Republic on September 15, 2023
Woman strikers marching past vandalized factory building.

The Autoworker Strikes That Changed America

The first UAW strike was in the 1930s. Over the next century, the union amassed significant power while demanding higher wages, better benefits and protections.
by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff via Washington Post on September 16, 2023
Filter by:

Categories

Select content type

Time

brought to you by
© Bunk History