Excerpts

For centuries, stories of Black communities have been limited by racism in the historical record. Now we can finally follow the trails they left behind.

Innocent, passive, apolitical: after the Holocaust, the standard for ‘true’ victimhood has worked to justify total war.

The Jewish Tin Pan Alley composer who wrote ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ had never been to a ballgame.

Could the separation of the Revolutionary War have been patched in the late 19th century? Some powerful men tried...

An ongoing trial is bringing atrocities to light.

An infamous Republican political operative’s unpublished memoir shows how the Party came to embrace lies, racial fearmongering, and winning at any cost.

Support for and opposition to the ERA are not positions that are fundamentally tied to either conservatism or liberalism.

The Lincolns had four sons. Mary buried three of them. A new exhibit at President Lincoln's Cottage sheds light on bereaved parents, then and now.

The history of Atlanta's first Civil War monument may reveal how to deal with them in the present.

Colescott satirizes an iconic painting of George Washington, and in doing so, challenges the viewer to reconsider their beliefs about American history.

In 1898, the US emerged with a profitable jewel in its colonial crown.

A brave band of scholars set out to save us from racism and sexism. What happened?

In modern democracies, who gets to determine what counts as truth—an elite of experts or the people as a whole?

Overshadowed by more famous contemporaries, the visionary behind “The Wonder Show of the Universe” left a far-reaching legacy.

During the Cold War, nuclear weapons were a frequent plot point on television shows. Fearful depictions in the 1950's became more darkly comedic in the 1960s.

A bizarre episode in circus history became an unlikely forum for discussing 19th-century theories of race.

American fiction of the 19th century often featured a cruel doctor, whose unfeeling fascination with bodily suffering readers found unnerving.

Jeanna Kadlec considers Anne Lister, the center figure of HBO’s Gentleman Jack, and the influence of other preceding queer women.

The Doomsday Clock is set to two minutes to midnight. So why don't we make movies about nuclear war anymore?

A Lippincott Library collection shows how, during World War II, companies highlighted their war contributions via annual reports.

Submarines played a major role in WW I. But the first submersible was actually used, unsuccessfully, in the Revolutionary War.

Rikers Island jails were supposed to be the more humane model when they were built. New York City has the same lofty goals as it plans Rikers’ replacements.

American System-Built Homes in Chicago (and elsewhere).

As the 2020 presidential election nears, internationalists are plotting their return. But they still haven’t learned from the failure of liberal universalism.

Atlantic writer William Phillips conducted three interviews with Brown before Brown's fateful raid on Harper's Ferry.

Everything you knew about mass incarceration is wrong.

In the period immediately following World War II, the femme fatale embodied a host of male anxieties about gender roles.

In segregated units set up under the Federal Theatre Project, African American artists took on work usually reserved for whites and wrote radical dramas.

Schools closed, handshaking ceased and people wore handkerchiefs over their faces as the virus ravaged what was then the nation’s capital.

What is the role of artists in a crisis?

During the Great Depression, the daughter of the first Jewish Supreme Court justice and the son of a prominent Christian theologian changed America.

How a friendship between a straight psychology professor and her gay student busted the myth of homosexuality as an illness.

An insightful exploration of the ways America has read ‘the Great American Novel.’

The United Stated Emigrant Escort Service and settler colonialism during the Civil War.

How the American Anti-Slavery Almanac became an influential best seller.

Native communities in North America have been particularly hard-hit by COVID-19. This isn't the first time.

Having a species named after you is an honor. Not everyone deserves it.

In the 1780s, medical schools used cadavers stolen from the cemeteries of slaves.

Photographer Peter Campbell captured many scenes from the 1939 New York World's Fair in full color, both during the day and at night.

For decades, flying saucers were a punch line. Then the U.S. government got over the taboo.

In a book and documentary series, Henry Louis Gates Jr. offers a wide-ranging tour of Black religion in America.

There are whole hidden worlds pressing into this one.

As the U.S. anticipates a vaccinated summer, historians say measuring the impact of the 1918 influenza on the uproarious decade that followed is tricky.

Mieke Kierkels and Chris Dickon have been collaborating on several projects to remember the sacrifices of African American soldiers during World War II.

Each generation revises his myth. Here’s the true story.

The recent passing of Pal Benko and Shelby Lyman draws the curtain on an American period that produced some of the game’s most sparkling play.

Let's talk about the period when Roosevelt actually created the modern welfare state.

When an event promises you will "hear the body broadcast its sounds," "see without light," and "see dancers float on air,” there’s bound to be disappointment.

Activists on the campaign were dedicated, but the city of Chicago and the FBI had conspired to murder the city’s best organizer that night in December 1969.

This 20th century ornithologist earned the respect of her contemporaries for her animal behavior research that went against the grain of traditional science.