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Making the Memorial

Maya Lin recounts the experience of creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Portraits of Henry James and John Singer Sargent.

What Is an American Hero, Anyway?

Lists of great artists say more about the list-maker than the artist.
Christopher Columbus

On the Mysteries, Real and Imagined, Surrounding Christopher Columbus

Columbus lives on as a political and cultural symbol—hero, villain, myth—revealing how belief, not fact, shapes history.
Students use the Clio history app at Marshall University to learn about a public art piece.
partner

Starting with a Question

Meet Clio, a pedagogical tool that doubles as a travel app to get people hooked on learning history.
Exhibit

Monument Wars

This exhibit explores discussions about what we choose to memorialize – and why.

James M. Hinds portraits shown blurry as if ink colors were misaligned during printing.

The Eloquent Vindicator in the Electric Room

No one remembers the assassination of Congressman James M. Hinds. What do we risk by making it just another part of American history?
A portrait of Davy Crockett in formal attire is imposed next to an actor in a Davy Crockett costume surrounded by raccoons.

How Davy Crockett, the Rugged Frontiersman Killed at the Alamo, Became an Unlikely American Hero

During his lifetime, Crockett—who went by David, not Davy—shaped his own myth. In the 20th century, his legacy got a boost from none other than Walt Disney.
An illustration of blurry Korean people in the ruins of a city after a nuclear bombing.

The Atomic Bombs’ Forgotten Korean Victims

Survivors of the nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still fighting for recognition.
A group of demonstrators at the Stonewall National Monument carrying transgender flags and signs.

No History Without the T

When the National Park Service removed trans people from the webpages of the Stonewall National Monument, it echoed one of the darkest chapters of the queer past.
Map of Central Park.

How Central Park Holds the Answers to Big NYC Secrets

From ancient Native American trails to billion-year-old rocks, take an in-depth look at the thousands of years of history housed inside this iconic park.
Two men carrying a weakened hunger striker.

Remembering the 1932 Ford Hunger March: Detroit Park Honors Labor and Environmental History

On March 7, workers at the Ford Rouge River plant marched for better working conditions. Almost a century later, a quiet park honors their memory.
A protest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray.

The Problem with Baltimore

The impact of the city's history with slavery.
Costumed re-enactors at the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum in Boston.

The Boston Tea Party Turns 250

How does the most famous act of politically motivated property destruction in American history speak to our own polarized moment?
original

Where Kansas Bled

How can one place represent the complexity of the Civil War’s beginnings?
Gen. James Longstreet.

The Conquered General

The back-and-forth life of Confederate James Longstreet.
Two American soldiers and farmer Olof Öhman posing with a supposed Viking runestone.

Why Americans Simply Love to Forge Viking Artifacts

No, roving bands of medieval Scandinavians did not visit West Virginia. (So far as we know.)
A photograph of Patrice Lamumba, superimposed on an outline of Africa and the CIA's seal.

When America Helped Assassinate an African Leader

The murder of independent Congo’s first prime minister, the subject of a new book, had lasting psychological effects on the whole continent.
View of Brooklyn from Trinity Church, 1853.
original

Mettlesome, Mad, Extravagant City

In the streets of New York, we try to imagine the city as Walt Whitman, and other artists of his time, experienced it.
At the microphone: Louis Armstrong, surrounded by his orchestra, 1931

De-Satch-uration

Louis Armstrong’s complicated relationship with New Orleans.
Artist Vinnie Bagwell's proposal for a Harriet Tubman statue.

Philadelphia Unveils Proposals for New Harriet Tubman Statue

After a year of controversy, the city has narrowed down five options for a monument to the activist and abolitionist.
The iconic white lettered Hollywood sign

The Hidden History of the Hollywood Sign

“The sign has become a worldwide symbol of the Hollywood of the imagination, and it allows anyone who sees it to fill it with whatever meaning they want.”
Illustration of the Battle of Little Big Horn.

The True History of 'Custer's Last Stand'

We're talking about the Battle of Little Bighorn all wrong.
Woman playing piano for African American soldiers.

Black Burials and Civil War Forgetting in Olustee, Florida

Finding the forgotten and racialized landscape of Civil War memory.
Donellia Chives, a trustee of Penn Center.

White Gold from Black Hands: The Gullah Geechee Fight for a Legacy after Slavery

Descendants of the west Africans who picked the cotton that made Manchester rich are struggling to keep their distinct culture alive.
Collage of famous historical sites around the world.

The Future of Historic Preservation: History Matters … But Which History?

The complicated and visceral issue of how we preserve our history offers an opportunity for meaningful discourse.
The statue Sons of St. Augustine depicting Alexander Darnes and Edmund Kirby Smith.

The Doctor and the Confederate

A historian’s journey into the relationship between Alexander Darnes and Edmund Kirby Smith starts with a surprising eulogy.
Forest Lawn Memorial Park, showing a castle sculpture and reading "Lullaby land"

Inside the Disneyland of Graveyards

How Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, a star-studded cemetery in Los Angeles, corporatized mourning in America.
Headstones in Mount Auburn cemetery. Photograph by Daderot at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18003519.
original

A Tour of Mount Auburn Cemetery

Two centuries of New England intellectual history through the lives and ideas of people who are memorialized there.
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.
original

High Domes and Bottomless Pits

Exploring the homes of two presidents, the birthplace of another, and a natural wonder that once drew visitors from far and wide.
Arlen Parsa's Painting, Declaration of Independence Revisited (2019), the famous painting of the signing but with red dots over the faces of slaveholders.

How to Decolonize the Capitol

Art historians, legislators, and activists have long decried themes of white supremacy in the art collection of the U.S. Capitol. Can this place be decolonized?

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