Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk
New Yorker magazine from November 17, 1962, open to Baldwin's essay.

On James Baldwin’s “Letter from a Region in My Mind”

The essay served as a definitive diagnosis of American race relations. Events soon gave it the force of prophecy.
Book Cover of "An Ordinary White."

Basic Stuff About Reality

On David Roediger’s “An Ordinary White: My Antiracist Education.”
Henry Fonda in The Best Man (1984).

President of the Nameless: Alexander Horwath on Henry Fonda for President

A documentary dissects Henry Fonda's character and his role in American cinema.
A woman at a toy counter.
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“The End Is Coming! The End Is Coming!”

In the 1990s, an entire industry was born of trying to convince Americans that Beanie Babies were a great investment opportunity.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Free Trader

A little understood part of the New Deal.
A caricature of Murray Kempton.

The Rebellions of Murray Kempton

One of his generation’s most prolific journalists, Kempton never turned a blind eye to the inequalities all around him.
Senator Joseph McCarthy speaking into microphones.

Newly Declassified Documents Reveal the Untold Stories of the Red Scare

In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation.
Several women on bicycles.

The Surprising History of Women and Bicycling

It's not about the bike or the bloomers.
City College of New York in a still from Joseph Dorman’s Arguing the World, 1997.

The 176-Year Argument

How the City College of New York went from an experiment in public education to an intellectual hot spot for working class and immigrant students.
Donald Trump and Roy Cohn at a press conference.

Donald Trump’s Long Con

Trump’s “Art of” trilogy may be full of willful exaggeration, but the books also reveal how the 1980s and 90s formed his dog-eat-dog worldview.
Boston’s Faneuil Hall at night.

When Is History Advocacy?

Advocacy should not be a dirty word.
Japanese American National Museum Volunteer Barbara Keimi stamps the Ireichō

The Japanese American National Museum Is a Site of Remembrance and Belonging

The Japanese American National Museum embraces the Japanese-American experience in all its permutations.
The Gadsden Flag

The Shifting Symbolism of the Gadsden Flag

How do we decide what the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, or indeed any symbol, really means?
The Inspection Room at Ellis Island in New York circa 1910.
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The History of Categorizing Immigrants as Either Good or Bad

In the 19th century, debates about contract workers sorted immigrants into "natural" and "unnatural" categories.
A bulldozer juxtapositioned with destroyed buildings and barren land.

The Shrouded, Sinister History Of The Bulldozer

From India to the Amazon to Israel, bulldozers have left a path of destruction that offers a cautionary tale for how technology can be misused.
Photograph of firefighters raising an American flag in the rubble of 9/11.

The Real Story Behind This Iconic 9/11 Photo

How does an image become “iconic?” And when it does, will its meaning change?
Alfred Stieglitz's photograph "The Steerage."

This Photo of U.S. Immigration Isn’t What You Think

There is more to Alfred Stieglitz’s iconic photograph “The Steerage” than meets the eye.
An illustration of a government building holding up an American home with a stylized hand.

The Good Society Department

Once upon a time, there was a federal government department that helped design and distribute tools for living the good life. What happened to that vision?
A group of people riding horses on a dude ranch.

The Rise and Resilience of Dude Ranches

Dude ranches have been a popular American vacation spot for more than one hundred years.
Benjamin Franklin on the 100 dollar bill with a crash test helmet edited onto his head.

The Crash Next Time

Can histories of economic crisis provide us with useful lessons?
Patrick Henry giving a speech to a crowd of Virginians.

What Spurred the South to Join the American Revolution?

How a dispute with a Scottish lord over westward expansion, gunpowder, and the future of enslaved labor made the southern colonies’ embrace the radical cause.
Silhouettes of John Tyler and John Quincy Adams
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The Constitution Does Not Speak for Itself

In 1841, John Tyler said he was the president. The Constitution said he wasn’t. What happened next?
A Ford truck is loaded with ivory tusks in Essex, Connecticut.
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The Blood on the Keyboard

The history of ivory-topped piano keys and the invisible human suffering caused by our cultural commodities.
Civil rights lawyers including Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley.

Trump's Attack on Lawyers and Law Firms Takes a Page Out of the Southern 1950s Playbook

American authoritarians fear the uniquely American power of litigation.
Actress moves away from a microphone held a red hand.

How the Red Scare Shaped American Television

The fear of communism silenced actors, writers and producers, altering the entertainment industry for decades.
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his aide Roy Cohn.

Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump

The target then was the nonexistent threat of Communist teachers; today, it’s the supposed radicalism of the academy.
Richard Nixon scowling.
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The Alarming Effort To Rewrite the History of Watergate

For decades, politicians distanced themselves from Nixon's Watergate legacy. Now, some are advancing a new history.
Children at the Oakland Community School, 1973.

What Happens When the U.S. Declares War on Your Parents?

The Black Panthers shook America before the party was gutted by the government. Their children paid a steep price, but also emerged with unassailable pride.
A photograph of Frederick Douglass imposed on the cover of The Columbian Orator by Caleb Bingham.

The Columbian Orator Taught Nineteenth-Century Americans How to Speak

For strivers like Lincoln, guides to rhetoric had a special currency in the nineteenth century.
O-o-be' grins at the camera dressed in traditional clothing.

A Rare Smile Captured in a 19th Century Photograph

O-o-be' stood out in an era when smiles on camera weren't common.
Donald Trump and the presidential seal in an empty theater.

The Hoax that Spawned an Age of American Conspiracism

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are just the latest populists to weaponise fears of a sinister “deep state”.
Shots from various conspiracy films of the 20th century.

The Life and Death of Conspiracy Cinema

Why did Hollywood lose interest in making paranoid thrillers? Was it a change in the culture? Or a change in the marketplace?
Eliot Noyes standing outside of an IBM building.

The Complicated Legacy of Eliot Noyes

Noyes is not a household name, but his evangelism for the notion of design as a holistic strategy is so pervasive that many now take it for granted.
Open books.

InterLibrary Loan Will Change Your Life

A brief history (and celebration) of the apex of human civilization.
Exhibitions at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.

A Truly Patriotic Education Tells Many Stories

Trump’s executive orders can’t define diversity out of history.
Collage of shattered photos of Bear Stearns, George W. Bush, and law enforcement officers.

The Weekend That Shook the World

Lessons from Bear Stearns's collapse 17 years ago.
US Senator Cory Booker giving a speech.

US Senator Cory Booker Just Spoke for 25 Hours in Congress. What Was He Trying to Achieve?

He set a new record for the longest continuous speech in the Senate, surpassing Strom Thurmond’s 1957 attempt to prevent the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
Trash filling the Skagit River in Washington State, 1971.

The Necessity of History for the EPA

Using evidence to remind us.
Two people wrestling. One wearing blue and the other wearing red.

Understanding the Evolving Culture-War Vernacular

The Right is exploiting a manufactured moral panic.
A painting of a Staten Island harbor filled with boats, captioned "View of the Marine Hospital and Quarantine Grounds, Staten Island, New York."

Quarantine Scenes in Staten Island History

Staten Island's long battle against quarantine restrictions, from yellow fever to COVID-19.
Front entrance of the abandoned Florida Solite plant.

The Machine in the Garden

After decades of unchecked hazardous waste pollution, a Florida hamlet fights the developers eager to build homes there anyway.
Anwan “Big G” Glover, musical director of the Go-Go Museum and Cafe, performs at The Kennedy Center on Feb. 14.

Saving the Signature Sound of Washington, DC

A new museum dedicated to Go-Go music comes with a message for both gentrifiers and lawmakers: #Don’tMuteDC.

Queer Activists and the Struggle for AIDS Education

Queer resistance to state-sponsored oppression campaigns, from Reagan to Trump.
Elaine May and Walter Matthau sitting on a bench in May’s film A New Leaf.

May Days

A new biography of an elusive comic talent.
A woman with a rifle, superimposed on an American flag.

From Philly to Derry: On the Americans Who Armed the IRA During The Troubles

Vincent Conlon’s secret life in the United States as an operative and gun-running Irish rebel.
Military patients in an emergency hospital at Camp Funston, Kansas, 1918.

How the Industrialization and Militarism of the Early 1900s Helped Spread the Spanish Influenza

The public and private battles waged across Europe and the United States during the 1918 flu pandemic.
Stack of Newspapers.

A Brief History of America’s Campaign Against Dissident Newsmaking

On underground presses and state violence.
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

‘It Reminds You of a Fascist State’: Smithsonian Institution Braces for Trump Rewrite of US History

Normally staid historians sound alarm at authoritarian grasping for control of the premier US museum complex.
A drawing of a variety of social movements protesting.

Peaceable Revolutions

Linda Gordon argues that social movements are vital partnerships that, by challenging the status quo, are indispensable to the health of the nation.
Women working at the Social Security Administration in Baltimore, Maryland, 1937.

Women’s Work: Section 213 and the Women Fired from the Federal Government

In 1932, married women were among the first targets in a campaign to reduce federal spending and balance the budget.
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