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Man burning a picture of Abraham Lincoln.

City on Fire

The night violent anti-government conspirators sowed chaos in the heart of Manhattan.
by Betsy Golden Kellem via The Atavist on September 24, 2024
Illustration of flag against burning city backdrop

Did George Washington Burn New York?

Americans disparaged the British as arsonists. But the rebels fought with fire too.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The Atlantic on January 31, 2023
Washington entering New York.

Mythmaking In Manhattan

Stories of 1776 and Santa Claus.
by Benjamin L. Carp via Age of Revolutions on December 5, 2022
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How Gentrification Caused America’s Cities to Burn

Yuppies attract cafes and amenities to gentrifying neighborhoods. They also spark rising rents — and even violence.
by Dylan Gottlieb via Made By History on September 13, 2019

During the 1973 UpStairs Lounge Arson, Gays Had to Take Rescue Efforts Into Their Own Hands

The New Orleans Fire Department was accused of not responding immediately and refusing to touch the bodies of victims.
by Jim Downs via Slate on June 22, 2018
Engraving of the burning of Portland, Maine, in 1776

The Biggest Coverup of the American Revolution

The Declaration of Independence condemns King George III. But the British were not to blame for one of the war’s most infamous conflagrations.
by Andrew Lawler via The Bulwark on July 4, 2025
New York City draft riots.

The 1863 Draft Riots and the Birth of the New York City Police

With low police morale, limited peacekeeping ability and agitated immigrants, the city only needed a match to set it ablaze.
by Timothy Brown via The Mob Museum on February 12, 2024
The aftermath of the UpStairs Lounge fire on June 25, 1973.

50 Years Later, the UpStairs Lounge Fire Is More Important to Remember Than Ever

The arson attack on a New Orleans nightclub was the largest massacre of queer people in 20th-century America—and it remains relevant to our present moment.
by Andrew Sciallo via The Nation on June 22, 2023
Drawing of a Black man in court pleading with a judge in 1741.
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Was the Conspiracy That Gripped New York in 1741 Real?

Rumors that enslaved Black New Yorkers were planning a revolt spread across Manhattan even more quickly than the fires for which they were being blamed.
by Ashawnta Jackson, Andy Doolen, Richard E. Bond, Thomas J. Davis via JSTOR Daily on April 30, 2023
David Grim's map showing the damage that New York City suffered from two large fires.

David Grim’s Fairy Tale: The New York City Fire In Myth

We may never know with absolute certainty that the Great Fire was an accident, but Grim certainly made it harder for anyone to argue otherwise.
by Benjamin L. Carp via The Gotham Center on February 15, 2023
Abandoned and burned-out buildings in the East Village in 1986.

Edifice Complex

Restoring the term “burnout” to its roots in landlord arson puts the dispossession of poor city dwellers at its center.
by Bench Ansfield via Jewish Currents on January 3, 2023
Stewart Butler at his desk, speaking and gesturing.

The Fiery Life of Stewart Butler, New Orleans’ Great Gay “Political Animal”

How the city’s pioneering, pot-smoking queer activist rose from the ashes of anti-gay violence.
by Robert W. Fieseler via Slate on June 25, 2022
Drawing of the hanging of a woman accused of witchcraft.

The Historical Truth About Women Burned at the Stake in America? Most Were Black.

Most Americans probably don’t know this piece of Black history. But they should.
by Kali Nicole Gross via Washington Post on February 25, 2022
Survivors of the massacre looking through ruble

Photographing the Tulsa Massacre of 1921

Karlos K. Hill investigates the disturbing photographic legacy of the Tulsa massacre and the resilience of Black Wall Street’s residents.
by Karlos K. Hill via The Public Domain Review on May 21, 2021
A black and white photo of an African American man.

A White Mob Unleashed the Worst Election Day Violence in U.S. History in Florida a Century Ago

In the small town of Ocoee, Fla., a racist mob went on a rampage after a Black man tried to cast his ballot on Nov. 2, 1920.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on November 2, 2020
People crossing the street under in front of a discount store and under the elevated subway in the Bronx, New York

Boroughed Time

Confronting a long tradition of projecting fantasies onto the South Bronx.
by Sasha Frere-Jones via Bookforum on September 3, 2020

A Meditation on Natural Light and the Use of Fire in United States Slavery

Responding to “Race and the Paradoxes of the Night,” by Celeste Henery.
by Tyler D. Parry via Black Perspectives on January 13, 2020
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When New Yorkers Burned Down a Quarantine Hospital

On September 1st, 1858, a mob stormed the New York Marine Hospital in Staten Island, and set fire to the building.
by Matthew Wills, Kathryn Stephenson via JSTOR Daily on September 19, 2019

No Twang of Conscience Whatever

Patsy Sims reflects on her interview with the man who was instrumental in the death of three black men in Mississippi.
by Patsy Simms via Oxford American on November 6, 2014
Black Legion members in wearing capes and hoods.

You Know About the KKK, but What About the Black Legion?

The Black Legion was a white supremacist fascist group headquartered in Lima, Ohio. Its worst deeds are lost to memory, but they shouldn’t be.
by Dana Frank via Jacobin on October 18, 2024
Pennsylvania Hall in flames.
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Sordid Mercantile Souls

When labor found a common cause — and enemy — with the abolition movement.
by Sean Griffin via HNN on May 21, 2024
A white mob poses for a photograph in front of the charred remains of the Daily Record building they burned.

Majority-Black Wilmington, N.C., Fell to White Mob’s Coup 125 Years Ago

The 1898 Wilmington massacre overthrew the elected government in the majority-Black city, killed many Black residents and torched a Black-run newspaper.
by DeNeen L. Brown via Retropolis on November 10, 2023
Illustration, The Burning of the Convent in 1834.

The Banality of Conspiracy Theories

Moral panics repeat, again and again.
by Colin Dickey via The Atlantic on July 1, 2023
Illustration of a soldier in a tank battering through a fiery wooden structure.

A Fire Started in Waco. Thirty Years Later, It’s Still Burning.

Behind the Oklahoma City bombing and even the January 6th attack was a military-style assault in Texas that galvanized the far right.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on May 1, 2023
Firefighters looking at the wreckage of a burned Black church.
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Extremism in America: Missed Warnings

In the years before Barack Obama was elected, many groups on the extreme right kept a relatively low profile. With the election of a Black president, that changed.
via Retro Report on May 3, 2022
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers celebrates after an NFL game.
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Aaron Rodgers Isn’t the First Big-Name Wisconsin Anti-Vaccine Voice

But the media is treating him differently than it treated Matthew Joseph Rodermund more than a century ago.
by Janet Golden via Made By History on November 12, 2021
Two artifacts: a firefighting badge from 1861, and a silver speaking trumpet.

Two Objects Bring the History of African American Firefighting to Light

The story played out very differently in Philadelphia and Charleston, and not in the way you might expect.
by Timothy Winkle via National Museum of American History on October 4, 2021
C-123 “Provider” aircraft spray Agent Orange over Vietnam during Operation Ranch Hand, which took place between 1962 and 1971.

The People vs. Agent Orange Exposes a Mass Poisoning in Plain Sight

A new PBS documentary investigates the legacy of one of the most dangerous pollutants on the planet, an unsettling cover-up, and the fight for accountability.
by Jasper Craven via The New Republic on June 28, 2021

The Bloody History of Anti-Asian Violence in the West

One of the largest mass lynchings in the United States targeted Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles.
by Kevin Waite via National Geographic on May 10, 2021
Dominique Walker, a member of Moms 4 Housing and group spokeswoman, speaking in front of City Hall

Redlining, Predatory Inclusion, and Housing Segregation

Redlining itself cannot explain this persistence of inequality in America's cities.
by Paige Glotzer via Black Perspectives on March 10, 2021
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