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A monument of the Minutemen line in Concord, Massachusetts.
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The Dangerous Afterlives of Lexington and Concord

How a myth about farmers taking on the British has fueled more than two centuries of exclusionary nationalism.
A drawing of cannons being fired at Fort Sumter.

What Can We Learn From the Jewish Debate Over Slavery?

This Passover, American Jews should embrace the fight for “emancipation of all kinds.”
General Ulysses S. Grant receiving Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
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Appomattox Exposes the Dangers of Myths Replacing History

Historians have revealed that the story Americans long learned about the end of the Civil War was a myth.
A collage of pages from the National Park service website, including one about Appomattox Court House and one about the Underground Railroad, showing language stricken out since Donald Trump's innauguration in 2025.

Amid Anti-DEI Push, National Park Service Rewrites History of Underground Railroad

Since Trump took office, the park service — charged with preserving American history — has changed how it describes key moments from slavery to Jim Crow.
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Civil War Memory

Historical understandings and myths about the Civil War's causes, meanings, and legacies still shape American culture and national discourse about the country's future.

Slave auction in the United States.

How a Group of 19th-Century Historians Helped Relativize the Violent Legacy of Slavery

On the scholarship and intellectual legacies of Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, William Dunning and other academics.
Historian Martha S. Jones and photos of her relatives.

How a Leading Black Historian Uncovered Her Own Family’s Painful Past

Martha S. Jones’ new memoir draws on genealogical research and memories shared by relatives.
A family of formerly enslaved people outside their house in Fredericksburg, Virginia, circa 1862–1865.

The Missing Persons of Reconstruction

Enslaved families were regularly separated​. A new history chronicles the tenacious efforts of the emancipated to be reunited​ with their loved ones.
A drawing of a scuba diver holding a flare, exploring the wreck of a slave ship underwater.

Dredging Up the Ghostly Secrets of Slave Ships

A global network of maritime archeologists is excavating slave shipwrecks—and reconnecting Black communities to the deep.
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, 1858.

A Constitutionalist or a Revolutionist?

Which one was Abraham Lincoln?
Frances Thompson holding an umbrella.

Frances Thompson Survived a Race Massacre and Bravely Testified to Congress. Then She Was Slandered.

A Black transgender woman’s testimony helped ratify the 14th Amendment. Then conservatives began attacking her identity.
Soldiers walking past a sign that says Fort Liberty.

Pete Hegseth Just Did the Funniest Thing Imaginable

It’s Fort Bragg again. So why are Confederate heritage groups so mad?
Members of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Daughters of Union Veterans gather in Colorado in the 1930s.

Veterans Visit an Idealized West

A gathering of Union veterans in 1883 sheds light on the country's vision of the American West—as a space for reconciliation and a prize won by the war.
Painting of horsemen in the Caucus mountains.

The Reckless Creation of Whiteness

How an erroneous 18th-century story about the “Caucasian race” led to a centuries of prejudice and misapprehension.
A crib drawn with Stars and Stripes symbolism.

Birthright Citizenship Is a Sacred Guarantee

The attack on it is a violation of the nation’s post–Civil War rebirth.
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Knight Club

Were the Knights of the Golden Circle responsible for Lincoln’s assassination? No one knows, but far-right secret societies always draw power from speculation.
A Black man in a Santa costume high-fiving a child.

A Fight for Holiday Equality: How Black Santas Shaped US Civil Rights

In 1969, Otis Moss Jr led a push to ensure diversity among Santa Clauses. But the fight, he says, continues to this day.
The former Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, a 5-story stone building looms above the street.

Phantoms of the Kirkbride Hospitals

The psychiatric hospitals promoted by Thomas Story Kirkbride and Dorothea Dix were quickly overcrowded and underfunded — a failure that haunts us today.
Gaineswood Plantation mansion.

Plantation Tourism Continues to Raise Questions

One plantation tourist manager said covering slavery would be like “trying to tell the story at Disneyland of how poorly the employees at Disney are treated.”
William Faulkner and Ralph Ellison.

What the Novels of William Faulkner and Ralph Ellison Reveal About the Soul of America

The postwar moment of a distinctive new American novel—Nabokov’s "Lolita"— is also the moment in which William Faulkner finally gained recognition.
A drawing of protestors wrestling a tax collector to the ground.

A Prudent First Amendment

Often, the proper scope of the First Amendment can be determined only by considering both text and context.
Portrait of Martin Van Buren.

The Father of the Party System

Because Martin Van Buren was an unsuccessful president, his more significant contributions to the nation’s political life have also been obscured.
Crowded and brightly-lit Beale Street in Memphis.
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Memphis: The Roots of Rock in the Land of the Mississippians

Rising on the lands of an ancient agricultural system, Memphis has a long history of negotiating social conflict and change while singing the blues.
Cover of "A Great Disorder" by Richard Slotkin, depicting the outline of the United States made out of cracked stone, overlaid with the American flag.

American Mythology

Is the United States a prisoner of its own mythology?
Map of Cherokee Allotment from the Dawes Commission.

Coercion

“Allotment”—and its repercussions.
Photo of United States bill, saying "In God We Trust."

The Deep Religious Roots of American Economics

Any attempt to understand the complexities of American economic thought without considering the significant role of religious beliefs is incomplete.
Three workers taking a break inside a salt mine in the 1940s.

Salt of the Earth

In Winn Parish, an ancient salt dome has sustained life for centuries.
A political cartoon depicting Brighma Young walking in front of a group of his wives, the majority of whom are depicted as non-white.
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The Sovereignty of the Latter-day Saints

Less about morality than about rights, the Mormon War of 1858 hinged on the issue of polygamy, pitting a Utah community against federal authorities.
White settlers traveling west in Conestoga wagons.

America as Filibuster Society

American expansionism goes beyond territory.
Protestors and counter-protestors face off holding flags and posters.

Two Americas?

Heather Cox Richardson argues that there are two Americas: one interested in equality, the other in hierarchy. But it's not that simple.
The Hall of the House of Representatives.

Are We Living Through Another 1850s?

It’s difficult to see how these profound antipathies and fears will dissipate soon through any normal political processes.

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