Excerpts

Activists around the country are debating the best ways to acknowledge lynchings. But they often meet resistance from local residents — both Black and White.

On Cormac McCarthy.

Minstrel shows were an American invention, but they also found success in the United Kingdom, where audiences were negotiating their relationships with empire.

For more than 50 years, we've been worrying about "grade inflation" at elite American universities. It's time to move on.

The prominence of politicos-turned-pundits is a product of cable news' turn to opinion commentary as a cheap and easy way to meet the needs of 24/7 coverage.

Syncopation and swing reigned supreme at the annual Lorton Reformatory Jazz Festival in the 1960s.

The people of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, helped keep the Greenbrier resort's bunker—designed to hold the entirety of Congress—hidden for 30 years.

A brief history of the license plate.

How preparation for a big purchase turned into an adventure through history.

What happened when glacier-goggled American ski troops and samba-loving Brazilian soldiers fought side-by-side halfway across the world?

An argument for returning the recent past, and the history of modern conservatism, to classrooms.

The history of the battle to keep Title IX out of college sports.

This nineteenth-century industrial product became a military staple and a critical part of local food culture around the world.

In 1968 Gaye shifted his musical vision to give voice to impoverished Black urban communities and the rising dissent against involvement in the Vietnam War.

Silence and volume in collections and institutions.

As the fear of communist subversion spread throughout America, McCarthy launched hearings that were based on scant evidence and overblown charges.

Valentine devoted his time to writing the Manual of the Corporation of the City of New York. These were annual compendiums of data about the city.

Three US presidents from the South’s borders—Truman, Eisenhower, and Johnson—worked against Southern politicians to support civil and voting rights.

Allison Rudnick on the rise and fall of the 19th century "Literary Poster."

In Lincoln’s view the West represented a space for opportunity, especially for the citizen-soldiers returning to their prewar pursuits.

The US today has extraordinary levels of gun ownership. But to see this as a venerable tradition is to misread history.

A classic New Yorker account of the Henry Ward Beecher adultery trial recalls a time in America that seems both incomprehensible and familiar.

Luis Valdez on his friendship with Cesar Chavez, his works in the National Film Registry, and a lifetime of activism.

The U.S. purposefully infected thousands of Guatemalans with sexually-transmitted diseases in the 40s and 50s. Their grandchildren still carry the trauma.

It’s time to start learning about Native history from museums and cultural centers that are run by Native nations.

Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World.

Retracing the steps of a Texan lynched in 1921 requires a trip through dark days in state history.

The anti-obscenity law is unenforceable and probably unconstitutional. Conservatives still want to use it to ban medication abortions.

The 2024 OAH Conference on American History falls almost fifteen years after the renowned historian, teacher, and activist's death.

The power of daytime talk shows — especially “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Top Chef contestant Nini Nguyen shares the history of the Viet diaspora and how two cultures combined to create a whole new delicious Southern flavor.

Tracing the histories and legacies of technology and empire through a wooden bicycle at Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum.

The celebrations created space for people to subvert gender norms, as New Orleans' LGBTQ communities built new traditions of their own.

“It was an affirmation of our city,” says New Orleanian food historian Lolis Eric Elie.

Even if today's anti-war protestors couldn’t tell you who the Berrigan brothers were, the Catholic Left’s shadow looms large.

George Balanchine and Martha Graham trade places.

Caricatures of Irish immigrants—especially Irish women—have softened, but persist in characters whose Irishness is expressed in subtle cues.

We don’t need to imagine a world ravaged by nuclear war – we’re already living in it.

One of the country’s greatest rhetorical traditions still has the power to remind us of our founding principles.

Clare Beams on the dark legacy of a purported pregnancy miracle drug.

The world-spanning art of the Harlem Renaissance.

From the 1880s to the 1940s, New York City was transformed—and so too was the New York City Police Department.

From the beginning of the recording industry, many voices have been suppressed and significant cultural history has been lost to prudery and censorship.

It’s important to remember why analogies to Jesus should stay out of the political realm. The results are always ugly.

How "liberal democracy" emerged from the wreckage of World War II and became the dominant ideology of our times.

What accounts for white tribalism?

Even knowing every awful thing Richard Nixon would go on to do, you had to respect, as the phrase goes, his hustle.

For Faulkner, all of time existed as a moment, during which all could be changed: past, present, and future.

Frederick Law Olmsted’s landscape creations, especially his urban parks, remain a vital part of our present.

Taking seriously the midlife crisis.