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John Dudley Sargent standing next to Edith Sargent.
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Something We Were Never Meant to See

Finding a story in the ways Robert Ray Hamilton, John Dudley Sargent, and Edith Sargent weren’t quite forgotten. 
by Maura Jane Farrelly via HNN on July 9, 2024
Jewish civilians who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are marched out of the city by Nazi troops

What Holocaust Remembrance Forgets

Popular accounts of the Holocaust overlook its irrationality and often disordered violence.
by Samuel Clowes Huneke via The New Republic on January 18, 2024
A collage in which a photograph of Blanche Ames Ames is superimposed on a photograph of John F. Kennedy.

How John F. Kennedy Fell for the Lost Cause

And the grandmother who wouldn’t let him get away with it.
by Jordan Virtue via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
Compilation of historical markers from different states.

Why Historical Markers Matter

Few realize that the approval process for these outdoor signs varies widely by state and organization, enabling unsanctioned displays to slip through.
by John Garrison Marks via Smithsonian on September 7, 2023
Portraits of Isabella Graham and Catherine Ferguson

Where Are the Women? Past Choices That Shaped the Historical Record

When women are missing from the history we tell, sometimes it’s because of how their stories were preserved and told in the past.
by Amanda Bowie Moniz via Perspectives on History on September 1, 2023
Yellow house where George Washington stayed while in Barbados.

George Washington in Barbados?

How the Caribbean colony contributed to America's fight for independence.
by Erica Johnson Edwards via Age of Revolutions on January 30, 2023
The statue of Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill was taken down Dec. 12. Hill’s remains beneath it are set to be relocated.

Richmond Takes Down Its Last Major City-Owned Confederate Memorial

Richmond's last major Confederate memorial on city property, a statue of Gen. A.P. Hill, was taken down Monday morning.
by Gregory S. Schneider via Washington Post on December 12, 2022
An Equestrian Statue of King George III, Bowling Green, New York City prior to the Revolution.

Interpretations of the Past

How the study of historical memory created a new reckoning with the creation of “American history."
by Michael D. Hattem, Max Pierce via Public Seminar on July 25, 2022
Mount Rushmore with painted crowd behind it

A Usable Past for a Post-American Nation

We are living through a time when we cannot take our shared identity—and therefore our shared stories—for granted.
by Johann N. Neem via The Hedgehog Review on July 8, 2022
U.S. Supreme Court building, Washington, D.C.

"A Man of His Time": From Patrick Henry to Samuel Alito in U.S. History

The struggle for progress is always two steps forward and at least one step back.
by Thomas Lecaque via Age of Revolutions on May 5, 2022
Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, and Harry Belafonte near the podium at Montgomery March in 1965.

The “Radical” King and a Usable Past

On Martin Luther King's use of radical ideas to create an understanding of the history of America.
by Robert Greene II via Black Perspectives on April 4, 2022
Illustration of bishops titled "The Mitred Minuet"

No Bishops, No Kings: Religious Iconography and Popular Memory of the American Revolution

Popular religious iconography and art in the decades preceding the Revolution offer a fuller narrative arc of the development of revolutionary ideas within American society.
by J. L. Tomlin via Age of Revolutions on December 6, 2021
Miniature portrait of Benjamin Tallmadge.

George Washington's Culper Spy Ring: Separating Fact from Fiction

Bill Bleyer dives into the secret Culper Spy Ring during the American Revolution while disproving many of the urban myths surrounding the characters involved.
by Bill Bleyer via Journal of the American Revolution on June 3, 2021
The front page of the Chicago Defender on August 2, 1919.

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project

Why are Chicago’s race riots of 1919 overlooked in the city’s collective memory? A new project tells the stories of the 38 killed, and the legacy of racism in the U.S.
by Peter Cole, Franklin N. Cosey-Gay, Myles X Francis on April 29, 2021
Cast of the musical Hamilton, on the stage for curtain call
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Hamilton and the Unsung Labors of Wives

Who tells our stories has always mattered.
by Jennifer Forestal, Menaka Philips via Made By History on August 6, 2020

The Remembered Past

On the beginnings of our stories—and the history of who owns them.
by Lewis H. Lapham via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 14, 2019
Political cartoon of Theodore Roosevelt holding his Big Stick and pulling a naval fleet in the Caribbean (1904).

Why Both Liberals and Conservatives Claim Theodore Roosevelt as Their Own

Our 26th President is lauded as an environmentalist, as well as an empire builder.
by Michael Patrick Cullinane via Zócalo Public Square on April 20, 2018
Reagan signing the bill establishing Martin Luther King Day.

The Sanitizing of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks

On the uses and abuses of civil rights heroes.
by Jeanne Theoharis, Jeremy Scahill via The Intercept on October 8, 2017

Empty Pedestals

What should be done with civic monuments to the Confederacy and its leaders?
by James J. Broomall, Megan Kate Nelson, Dana B. Shoaf, William C. Davis, Lesley J. Gordon, Harold Holzer, Michael J. McAfee, Thomas V. Strain Jr., Catherine Clinton, Christy S. Coleman, D. Scott Hartwig, Robert K. Krick, Joseph McGill, Ethan Sepp Rafuse, Susannah J. Ural via Civil War Times Magazine on October 1, 2017

History is Not There to be Liked: On Historical Memory, Real and Fake

Historians have the uncomfortable role of shattering people’s memories.
by Jason Steinhauer via Foreign Policy Research Institute on September 15, 2017
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We Need a New Museum that Tells Us How We Came to Believe What We Believe

The answers are just as important as the stories that our history books tell.
by T. J. Stiles via HNN on August 27, 2017

Where Donald Trump Learned His Tough Love for History

He professes admiration for "statues and monuments" but his family has a record of tearing down rather than preserving.
by Michael Kruse via Politico Magazine on August 24, 2017

The Confederate General Who Was Erased

There's a reason you won't find many monuments in the South to one of Robert E. Lee's most able deputies.
by Jane Dailey via HuffPost on August 21, 2017

Is it Still Okay to Venerate George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?

The president's stand on the Confederate hero represents the kind of moral relativism that conservatives usually decry.
by David A. Bell via Washington Post on August 17, 2017

The Ideological Slipperiness of the Kennedy Legacy

Politicians from both sides of the aisle have tried to stake a claim to the power of the Kennedy legend. What is it about Camelot?
by Aida Amoako via JSTOR Daily on August 9, 2017
Nixon taking the oath of office.

Americans Aren't Just Divided Politically, They're Divided Over History Too

Underlying current debates, says Jill Lepore, are fundamental conflicts over the meanings of the past.
by Jill Lepore, Rachel Martin via NPR on May 23, 2017

Jefferson: Hero or Villain? It’s Complicated.

An interview with Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf.
by Annette Gordon-Reed, Richard Kreitner, Peter S. Onuf via Boston Review on May 19, 2016
A painting of Boston harbor, where women in dresses stand on a hill, watching ships
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Invisible Cities, Continued

The 19th century recovery of John Winthrop's sermon, "A City on a Hill."
via BackStory on January 22, 2016
Lewis and Clark expedition, with Sacagawea whitened out in the center.

How The West Was Wrong: The Mystery Of Sacagawea

Sacagawea is a symbol for everything from Manifest Destiny to women’s rights to American diversity. Except we don't know much about her.
by Natalie Shure via BuzzFeed News on October 11, 2015
Library card catalog card reading "Forgetfulness: see memory."

Historical Amnesias: An Interview with Paul Connerton

“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
by Paul Connerton, Sina Najafi, Jeffery Kastner via Cabinet on June 30, 2011
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