Americanization movement — Bunk History

Farm for sale in Kansas, 1938.

The Early History of “Selling America to Americans”

Using film and advertising to sell capitalism and nationalism to immigrants in the early 20th century.

by Caroline Jack via HNN on November 26, 2024

Damaged glass negative showing children looking at the U.S. Constitution, 1920.

A Nation Is a Living Thing

In the 1920s, many in the U.S. fought for a living Constitution. Plenty of others wanted it dead.

by Michael D. Hattem via HNN on August 6, 2024

Children in a kindergarten classroom at the Horace Mann School, Tulsa, Okla., 1917.

Yes, Schools Should Teach Morality. But Whose Morals?

Belief that schools must teach moral values is older than public schools themselves. But whose morals?

by Mallory Hutchings-Tryon via Made By History on January 9, 2024

Birds-eye view map of Johnstown, New York.

The Stories We Give Ourselves

I wish I’d asked my grandfather more questions.

by Brittany Thomas via Contingent on August 26, 2022

Spanish Has Never Been a Foreign Language in the United States

The call to “speak English” in America has a long history that often drowns out our even longer history of diverse language use.

by Rosina Lozano via Los Angeles Times on May 29, 2018

World War I: Immigrants Make a Difference on the Front Lines and at Home

Immigrants eagerly joined the war cause both by joining the military and working in important industry at home.

by Ryan Reft via Library of Congress on September 26, 2017

American Nazis in the 1930s—The German American Bund

A collection of photos of American Nazis – and the Americans who took a stand against them.

by Alan Taylor via The Atlantic on June 5, 2017

Cha Cha Jiménez with his arms crossed and a cigarette in his mouth, crossing his arms and looking at the camera.

From Street Gang to Revolutionaries

José ‘Cha Cha’ Jiménez and the Young Lords laid the groundwork for radical racial justice movements.

by Felipe Hinojosa via Religion Dispatches on February 4, 2025

A car in a dark night on an empty road with a ghostly apparition.

The Vanishing Hitchhiker Legend Is an Ancient Tale That Keeps Evolving

The classic creepy story—a driver offers a lift to a stranger who is not of this world—has deep roots and a long reach.

by Mark Hay via Atlas Obscura on October 10, 2024

Deb Haaland.

Deb Haaland Confronts the History of the Federal Agency She Leads

As the first Native American Cabinet member, the Secretary of the Interior has made it part of her job to address the travesties of the past.

by Casey N. Cep via The New Yorker on April 29, 2024

The Sanitizing of Conservative Judaism

Conservative Judaism’s origins lie in a donor plan to neutralize and refine the radical Jewish immigrant masses.

by Allen Lipson via Jewish Currents on October 19, 2022

A woman walking toward an isolated house on the Navajo reservation.

The Native American Women Who Fought Mass Sterilization

Over a six-year period in the 1970s, physicians sterilized perhaps 25% of Native American women of childbearing age.

by Brianna Theobald via TIME on November 27, 2019

Thanksgiving Has Been Reinvented Many Times

From colonial times to the nineteenth century, Thanksgiving was very different from the holiday we know now.

by Elizabeth Pleck, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on November 1, 2019

Students and teacher talking about homework at Islamic School in Seattle.

Islam and the U.S.

What does it mean to be Muslim in America? And how has the practice of Islam in the U.S. changed over time?

via BackStory on December 18, 2015

37 Maps That Explain How America Is a Nation of Immigrants

It's impossible to understand the country without knowing who's been kept out, who's been let in, and how they've been treated once they arrive.

by Dara Lind via Vox on January 12, 2015

Trans-National America

In 1916, Randolph Bourne challenged widespread nativism by calling for a reconsideration of the “melting-pot” theory.

by Randolph S. Bourne via The Atlantic on July 5, 1916

brought to you by

© Bunk History