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How "This Land Is Your Land" Went From Protest Song to Singalong

Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” has lost a bit of its protest oomph—in part because of a decades-long denial of its later verses.
by Mark Allan Jackson, Erin Blakemore via JSTOR Daily on June 15, 2017

The Confederate Flag Largely Disappeared after the Civil War

The fight against civil rights brought it back.
by Logan Strother, Thomas Ogorzalek, Spencer Piston via Washington Post on June 12, 2017
Robert E. Lee monument.

Confederate History is American History

New Orleans shouldn't have removed its Robert E. Lee statue.
by Quentin B. Fairchild via The American Conservative on June 11, 2017

Race to the Bottom

How the post-racial revolution became a whitewash.
by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw via The Baffler on June 1, 2017

The Racial Segregation of American Cities Was Anything But Accidental

A housing policy expert explains how federal government policies created the suburbs and the inner city.
by Richard Rothstein, Katie Nodjimbadem via Smithsonian on May 30, 2017

Oscar Dunn And The New Orleans Monument That Never Happened

New Orleans at 300 returns with a story about a monument that was supposed to be erected in the late 1800s, but never happened.
by Laine Kaplan-Levenson via New Orleans Public Radio on May 25, 2017
A Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War holding a tattered American flag and standing on chains.

We Could Have Been Canada

Was the American Revolution such a good idea?
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on May 8, 2017

America’s Dangerously Shallow Understanding of the Holocaust

It’s treated as an all-purpose symbol of evil, not a series of historical events to be reckoned with.
by Andrea Pitzer via Vox on May 4, 2017

The Anti-Capitalist Woman Who Created Monopoly—Before Others Cashed In

The beloved board game's long-hidden origin story debunks the myth of a male lone genius.
by Mary Pilon via What It Means to Be American on March 27, 2017

Let’s Not Pretend That ‘Hamilton’ Is History

America's founders have never enjoyed more sex appeal, but the hit Musical cheats audiences by making democracy look easy
by Nancy Isenberg via Zócalo Public Square on March 17, 2017

Ben Carson, Donald Trump, and the Misuse of American History

The eliding of the ugliness of America's racial history is neither novel nor particularly surprising.
by Jelani Cobb via The New Yorker on March 8, 2017

American History: Fake News That Never Goes Away — and Empowered the Trumpian Insurrection

Only if we face the painful lies we tell ourselves about the past can we hope to overcome what's happening now.
by Nancy Isenberg, Andrew Burstein via Salon on February 25, 2017

Self-Righteous Devils: What Ozark Vigilantes of the 1880s Reveal About Modern America

The story of the Bald Knobbers is a terrifying parable about what happens when government fails and violence reigns.
by Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly on February 24, 2017
Dam from a distance

The Book of the Dead

In Fayette County, West Virginia, expanding the document of disaster.
by Catherine Venable Moore via Oxford American on December 6, 2016

Central Park Was Once Seneca Village, Home to a Thriving Free Black Community

A graphic history of the community displaced for the vast public park in 1857.
by Lucas Adams via Atlas Obscura on December 5, 2016

Trump Syllabus 2.0

An introduction to the currents of American culture that led to "Trumpism.'
by Keisha N. Blain, N. D. B. Connolly via Public Books on June 28, 2016
Cover of "Why Busing Failed," depicting anti-busing protestors surrounding a school bus.

Why Busing Failed

Getting the history of “busing” right enables us to see more clearly how school segregation and educational inequality continued in the decades after Brown.
by Matt Delmont via Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation on March 6, 2016
Protestors walking with pro-integration posters

"Jim Crow Must Go"

Thousands of New York City students staged a one-day boycott to protest segregation – and it barely made the history books.
by Matt Delmont via Salon on February 3, 2016

Ellis Island's Forgotten Final Act as a Cold War Detention Center

The idealistic interpretation of Ellis Island should be revisited.
by Brianna Nofil via Atlas Obscura on February 2, 2016

Columbus Day Is the Most Important Day of Every Year

Acknowledging the truth about colonialism is crucial if we want to comprehend the world around us today.
by Jon Schwarz via The Intercept on October 12, 2015
The ill-fated Sultana in Helena, Ark., just before it exploded on April 27, 1865, with about 2,500 people aboard. Most were Union soldiers, newly released from Confederate prison camps.

The Shipwreck That Led Confederate Veterans To Risk All For Union Lives

On April 27, 1865, a steamboat named the Sultana exploded and an estimated 1,800 people died, but few today have heard of this disaster.
by Jon Hamilton via NPR on April 27, 2015

An Enemy Until You Need a Friend

The role of "big government" in American history.
by Steven Conn via Origins on November 1, 2014

The Case for Reparations

Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
by Ta-Nehisi Coates via The Atlantic on June 23, 2014
Names in Ellis Island log of immigrants.

Why Your Family Name Was Not Changed at Ellis Island (and One That Was)

It is more likely that immigrants were their own agents of change.
by Philip Sutton via The New York Public Library on July 2, 2013
Pilgrim Thanksgiving

Which Thanksgiving?

The forgotten history of Thanksgiving.
by Karl Jacoby via Los Angeles Times on November 26, 2008
Pete Seeger.

American Dreamers

Pete Seeger, William F. Buckley, Jr., and public history.
by William Hogeland via Boston Review on May 1, 2008

The Colfax Riot

Stumbling on a forgotten Reconstruction tragedy, in a forgotten corner of Louisiana.
by Richard Rubin via The Atlantic on August 22, 2003
A picture of a woman at a protest against Islamophobia.

The Most Patriotic Act

A warning from September 2001 about government overreach in the name of national security.
by Eric Foner via The Nation on September 20, 2001
Abstract painting depicts faces staring at each other from either end of the canvas.

Bridging the Gap

A new book portrays five American historians who published popular books that sacrificed neither intellectual depth nor political bite.
by Michael Kazin via New York Review of Books on June 5, 2025
Scene of prehistoric game hunters.

Prehistory’s Original Sin

We need more than genealogies to know who we are, and who we ought to become.
by Connor Grubaugh via The Hedgehog Review on May 6, 2025
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