Excerpts

Racism documented in files from the “Central Lunatic Asylum for the Colored Insane.”

Former followers of an evangelical “purity” movement that promoted a strict view of abstinence are grappling with aftershocks.

The discovery may explain the escape of Captain Henry Every after his murderous raid on an Indian emperor’s ship.

Most Americans are eager to forget 2020. But some are making time capsules to make sure future generations remember it.

Scapegoating immigrant groups in times of disease outbreak has a long history.

A Soviet blockade around Berlin cut the city off from the West. But in 1948 U.S. and British pilots began to fly food, fuel and medicine to the Allied sectors.

The 1800 election shows there is nothing new about conspiracy theories, and that they really take hold when we don’t trust each other.

A brief history of the Twenty-sixth Amendment.

The history of resistance to racial oppression includes armed, violent resistance.

Why unionism is so integral to achieving equality.

This plight dates back to the era of slavery.

Universities helped buttress a racist caste system well into the 20th century.

Despite the Interior Department’s name, the agency has played a key role in the construction of American foreign policy and territorial expansion.

Nearly two centuries later, many tribes remain suspicious of the drive to get them vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Whereas southern Klansmen assaulted Black Americans and their white allies, western vigilantes targeted those they deemed a greater threat: Chinese immigrants.

History shows that the benefits of such a system can extend far beyond the venues into which such a passport would grant admission .

The U.S. is a diverse nation of immigrants—but it was not intended to be, and its historical biases continue to haunt the present.

Imported from Europe, the custom of leaving gratuities began spreading in the U.S. post-Civil War. It was loathed as a master-serf custom.

An interactive digital history project chronicling how the U.S. Post was the underlying circuitry of western expansion.

Digital messaging was supposed to make our work lives easier and more efficient, but the math suggests that meetings might be better.

Educators say that anti-Asian racism is directly linked to how the AAPI community is often depicted in U.S. history lessons .

A new book by Ruth Ben-Ghiat discusses the past and present challenges posed by authoritarianism, but misses the conditions in which it arises.

Cash transfers are an efficient response to the Covid-19 crisis, but UBI is a radical transformation of how states conceptualise and provide for people’s needs.

A review of "To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America."

The history of the Crazy Woman Driver trope.

The history of the Atlantic slave trade after the American Revolution is a story of sustained efforts to suppress it even as demand for slaves increased.

Ross Bullen explores the curious case of Prince George Washington, a 19th-century Siamese prince.

In its original concept, the Appalachian Trail was a wildly ambitious plan to reorganize the economic geography of the eastern United States.

Stories of the places, the people, and the organizations that battled the American influenza epidemic of 1918-1919.

A huge expansion of the population of New Orleans created the perfect environment for the spread of yellow fever, and recent immigrants suffered most.

To inform its readers of a cholera epidemic, The New York Tribune published an ancestor to our current infographics.

Oy Bay! Become seasoned on the history of America's beloved spice blend.

How John and Jessie Frémont explored the frontiers of legend-making.

A look into Basque tree carvings in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Acclimatization societies believed that animals could fill the gaps of a deficient environment.

The predigital dream of the audiobook.

Disease reshapes our lives in surprising ways.

Group biographies and the female friendship vogue.

Recent works inspired by his fiction struggle to reckon with his racist fantasies.

The famous activist reflects on what radicals like him got right and got wrong, and what today’s socialists should learn from his experiences.

Comedian Richard Pryor's performance of Blackness throughout his career.

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.

The bowl-shaped seat's conflicted heritage incorporates the Vietnam War.

Privately published memoir of an American portraitist who grew up in a log cabin and went on to paint presidents and Daniel Boone.

How city leaders and real estate barons used sunshine and oranges to market Los Angeles.

Who was behind the "Trumpist manifesto" released twenty years before Trump became president?

A curiously inflexible brand of race-first neoliberalism has taken root in American political discourse.

The KKK was clearly present at Harvard. But the university rarely mentions the 20th century in its attempts to reckon with its past.

A welfare state doesn't distort the market; it just makes government aid fairer.

Dark was the night, cold was the ground, and brilliant is that song drifting through space.