Excerpts

When Ruggles Mine went up for auction, mineral collectors feared it would never reopen to the public. After a last-minute reprieve, its future is still uncertain.

A feminist rant for the ages.

America is best understood not as the first post-colonial republic, but as an expansionist nation built on slavery and native expropriation.

On this episode of BackStory, Brian sits down with Ed to talk about a project of his that’s been twenty-five years in the making.

The centrist, compromising view of reproductive rights in Planned Parenthood v. Casey helped clear the path to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The Supreme Court has found protections for people’s privacy in several constitutional amendments – and used it as a basis for some fundamental protections.

How shall a generation know its story, if it will know no other?

After the 2020 removal of Confederate memorials, museums provide a place to confront the ugly past and find a way forward.

How businesses campaigned to win constitutional rights and expand their political reach.

A first-person account of Fidel Castro during a monumental moment in history.

It took hundreds of years of research to develop in-vitro fertilization or IVF.

In his undelivered final speech, Kennedy warned the world against ‘voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality.’

Clashes between sovereignty rights and civil rights reveal an uncomfortable and complicated story about race and belonging in America.

Representative Mo Udall's ambitious strategy to wean the United States off fossil fuels by the year 2000.

Rural Americans once led the fight to link extreme weather like Hurricane Harvey and human activity. What changed?

Was his disdain for his vice president greater than his desire for Democrats to win?

The Alaska earthquake that put Washington in charge of natural disasters.

World War I exposed the world to the horror of gas attacks. But why do we draw the line there when other methods of killing prove so much more effective?

"I touched the bell and this talk ensued."

July 4th celebrates the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but we don’t even have the original!

Queerness has always existed — even on the Civil War battlefield.

The beauty of the atomic scientists' calculations hid from them the truly Faustian contract they scratched their names to.

Presidents of both parties stock their Cabinets with corporate leaders.

Organized movements to bring racial equality to the golf course have been part of the sport since the early 1900s.

Robert Engler's award-winning 1955 investigation into the oil industry.

Why the Green New Deal fits right in with America’s energy economy.

PBS NewsHour coverage of the hot wars of the Cold War.

The outrage and press coverage was nothing compared with that surrounding Hillary Clinton's emails.

How progressives came to think that any recognition of Christianity by a public institution violates others’ rights.

Under the influence of Muscular Christianity, Jesus transformed into a muscle-bound Aryan, saving souls through strength and masculinity.

How the movement to end legal abortion became intertwined with a different conservative pet project.

By targeting sex workers, she enacted policies that harmed the most vulnerable women.

How the ’60s counterculture gave birth to personal computers and the vast tech industry that builds and sells them.

And what Congress can learn from his efforts.

Cooper’s hijacking-as-extortion plot captured the public’s imagination – and inspired a copycat crime wave.

A traveling exhibition traces how the animation studio mobilized to support the Allied war effort.

Fights over fugitive slave laws pitted states against each other and showcased the risks of the federal government not supporting liberty.

It isn’t just about Supreme Court picks. The group’s impact on the law goes much deeper.

The historical insights of one era have been lost to the journalistic instincts of another.

Creating the myth of the gold rush with the help of daguerreotypists.

The story of President Andrew Jackson and Worcester v. Georgia, decided in 1832.

How Mickey Leland and the Congressional Black Caucus paved the way for today's progressive politics.

“Together with other ‘know nothing’ organizations scattered through the country, it represents a basic, continuing phenomenon in American society.”

The Gilded Age roots of Trump's trade philosophy.

What is revisionist history--and is it dangerous?

What honor required of men.

The writings of the Scottish-born American naturalist John Muir are known for their scientific acumen as well as for their rhapsodic flights.

The long and brutal journey of the yam.

What new possibilities might arise if we were to consider history as ongoing memory work, rather than a set narrative of progress or as singular “truth”?

For a burgeoning consumer society, store-bought flags and bonnets offered proof that commercialism could go hand in hand with heartfelt emotion.