Excerpts

Smith collected rare books, paper airplanes, Pennsylvania Dutch tools—and harvested the folk music recordings that changed a generation.

A new book argues that American politics are defined by unfulfilled desire.

The Truman administration launched a PR campaign to inflate casualty numbers to justify the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Florida’s new standards for teaching social studies include throwbacks to an interpretation of slavery as benign or inconsequential.

In Hip hop’s “golden era,” the period from 1987 to 1994, rappers used their platforms to bring attention to issues plaguing poor and working-class Black communities.

The Smithsonian’s human brains collection was led by Ales Hrdlicka, a museum curator in the 1900s who believed that White people were superior.

“The Lost Colony” had dramatized American mythology in the Outer Banks since 1937 with White actors as Indians. Now, Native performers are rewriting the story.

A new chronicle of redwood logging exposes how a cadre of wealthy industrialists reaped a fortune in the name of environmentalism.

A journalist seeks to capture the "spirit" of Oak Ridge.

Historians owe a debt of gratitude to these furry pilferers.

The story of how The Band, in Robbie Robertson's words, "acted out an ideal of democracy and equality."

The Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa—with a little help from the mob—built Las Vegas as we know it today.

The Universal Hip Hop Museum is poised to bring an economic and cultural infusion to the borough where the genre was born and bred.

Early in our history, firearms laws were everywhere.

A new book works to counteract the “symphony of erasure” that has obscured and denied Africa’s contributions to the contemporary world.

How a style steeped in American elitism took over the world.

The 19th century singer forced critics and audiences to reconcile their ears with their racism.

The history of camping in the U.S. starts in the Adirondacks, with a guidebook that became an instant bestseller.

In a white supremacist society, where Black people are still fighting for freedom, the Black family offers protection and, at times, a space for resistance.

The Sugarhill Gang song remains one of rap's most beloved. But it took serendipity, a book of rhymes, and an agreement to settle a lawsuit for it to survive.

We should find inspiration in their goals today.

The making of “Blonde on Blonde” in Nashville, Tennessee.

After a year of controversy, the city has narrowed down five options for a monument to the activist and abolitionist.

The right denounced it as “reverse racism,” while the liberal center hailed it as the endpoint of egalitarianism. But it has never been either.

Supporters of the “independent state legislature theory” are quoting fake history.

The Index of Deep Disadvantage reflects a more holistic view of how we can define "poverty."

Veterans of the 1848 German revolution immigrated to America with three passions burning in their hearts: barbells, beer, and socialism.

We're talking about the Battle of Little Bighorn all wrong.

The tiny downtown passage, where artists burned pallets for warmth, was home to Ellsworth Kelly and Agnes Martin.

The answer may lie in the ear of the beholder.

Tourist interest is contributing to a more honest telling of the city’s role in the US slave trade. But tensions are flaring as South Carolina lawmakers restrict race-based teachings.

What the history of the 1918 Flu Pandemic can help us understand about today's public health measures.

What it means to be a Black worker in the time since slavery.

On the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan, we should remember that deploying the bomb wasn’t necessary to win the war.

Stories from the early days of air-conditioning in New York City movie theaters, and reflections on the technology's impacts in across the American South.

Unlike the Southern whites who moved en masse during the 20th century, these early migrants often had direct, personal ties to the institution of slavery.

Why we need to be critical of medical museums as spaces for disability histories.

Turns out Oppenheimer’s boss lied, repeatedly, about radiation poisoning.

Our ideas about sexuality and gender have changed before, and now they’re changing again.

A history as intertwined with race as with partisanship.

These 1870s laws to protect Black voters, ignored for decades, now being used against Trump.

Sara Marcus’s recent book argues that from the Reconstruction to the AIDS era, a distinct aesthetic formed around defeat in the realm of politics.

The laundry: a place to play, grow up, and live out memories both bitter and sweet.

Trump champions “law and order” while calling for the Constitution’s suspension. But there’s no tension between the two.

On this date 78 years ago, the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. Survivors involuntarily provided key medical data for years, without receiving any help.

Stars of the movie about an iconic Mattel toy are on strike. Both the company’s history and Barbie’s plot illuminate how powerful corporations really are.

Forced by the federal government to attend the schools, generations of Native American children were sexually assaulted, beaten and emotionally abused.

Meet the feuding twin sisters who popularized the American advice column.

At 12 years old, Martha Hodes was on board a hijacked plane and was taken hostage for a week. How did she forget much of the experience?

The commander in chief's unexpected death in office 100 years ago fueled decades of conspiracy theories but was most likely the result of a heart attack.