Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 151–180 of 436 results. Go to first page
Girls in Appalachia in 1935.

The Invention of the 'White Working Class'

A spate of new books explores the composition and motivations of the demographic that has been credited with electing Trump.
LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

What Everyone Gets Wrong About LBJ’s Great Society

It wasn't some radical left-wing pipedream. It was moderate; and it worked.
partner

Fans of Trump’s Immigration Views Should Remember How Figures Like Him Targeted Their Ancestors

Keeping the Irish poor out of America helped shape our restrictive immigration policies.
Martin Luther King Jr. speaking into news microphones.

Martin Luther King Jr. Spent the Last Year of His Life Detested by the Liberal Establishment

King was roundly denounced for his stances against the Vietnam War and injustices north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Without Haiti, the United States Would, in Fact, Be a Shithole

And some other things about the country that Donald Trump doesn’t know and doesn’t care to know.
A row of wood frame houses in an African American neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. (Credit: Marion S. Trikosko, Library of Congress)

Discourse on Race and Inequality in the United States

We must understand America's history of inequality to confront the racial wealth gap.
Sketch of a mother carrying a large platter while children around her run and cheer.

A Backlash Against 'Mixed' Foods Led to the Demise of a Classic American Dish

In the 19th century, puddings were as popular and widespread as pasta dishes are today.

The Mythical Whiteness of Trump Country

"Hillbilly Elegy" has been used to explain the 2016 election, but its logic is rooted in a dangerous myth about race in Appalachia.

Old New York, Seen Through a Cab Driver’s Windshield

The people Joseph Rodriguez saw through the windshield in the 1970s and 80s.

Theodore Dreiser’s New York

Teddy Dreiser tries to make it.
Roy Moore with a cowboy hat, gun, and microphone, in front of an American flag.
partner

The Reason Roy Moore Won in Alabama That No One is Talking About

Centuries of economic inequality have left Southern politics ripe for insurgent outsiders.

Why Would Anyone In Puerto Rico Want A Hurricane? Because Someone Will Get Rich.

How tax breaks and a quasi-colonial status make the island vulnerable to disasters.

How Fast Food Chains Supersized Inequality

Fast food did not just find its way to low-income neighborhoods. It was brought there by the federal government.
The Henry Rutgers Houses, a public housing development built and maintained by the New York City Housing Authority.
partner

The False Promise of Homeownership

Instead of boosting the American Dream, policies encouraging homeownership exacerbate inequality.

Coal No Longer Fuels America. But the Legacy — and the Myth — Remain.

Coal country still clings to the industry that was long its chief source of revenue and a way of life.
Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act.

This Amazing Woman is the Forgotten Architect of the American Social Security System

You can thank her for your retirement benefits.

The Two-tiered Justice System: Money Bail in Historical Perspective

Decades of tough-on-crime policies that criminalized the poor and people of color are yet to be undone, but the pendulum is beginning to swing.
The Black Panthers and Young Patriots at a press conference.

The Panthers and the Patriots

The story of how a group of poor whites in Chicago united with the Black Panthers to fight racism and capitalism.
Coretta Scott King.

Why Coretta Scott King Fought for a Job Guarantee

She saw economic precarity as not just a side effect of racial subjugation, but as central to its functioning.

Why Poverty Is Like a Disease

Emerging science is putting the lie to American meritocracy.

It’s Time for Historians of Slavery to Listen to Economists

Economic analyses of the antebellum era upend the notion that Southern whites were united in their support of slavery.
Painting of "Big Mama Thornton" wearing a suit and cowboy hat, singing on stage.

The Thinning of Big Mama

"Big Mama" does what all blues greats do: she telegraphs endurance and force to whomever out there in TV land might need it. This is blues perfection.

The Problem With Philanthropy

A new book asks: Can the surplus of capitalist exploitation be used to aid those on whose backs this surplus is generated?
Immigrants from Europe pose for a photograph upon their arrival at Ellis Island (1913).

First, They Excluded the Irish

Trump may block entry to foreigners who need public benefits—a proposal rooted in 19th-century laws targeting poor immigrants.
A New Orleans parade, with confetti falling on the heads of men dancing in suits.

Sundays in the Streets

The long history of benevolence, self-help, and parades in New Orleans.
Rocket launch

Is a Mission to Mars Morally Defensible Given Today’s Real Needs?

Elon Musk and the rise of Silicon Valley’s strange trickle-down science.
Redlining map for Decatur, Illinois
partner

Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America

In the 1930s, the federal government created redlining maps for almost every major U.S. city. Explore those maps and their contexts in a brand new version of this project.

Booked: The Origins of the Carceral State

Elizabeth Hinton discusses how twentieth-century policymakers anticipated the explosion of the prison population.
Children reading a storybook with a teacher.

What We've Learned In the 50 Years Since One Report Introduced the Black-White Achievement Gap

A Harvard education professor explains how far we've come in answering some of the most important questions in education since the famous Coleman report.
A line of prison laborers by a railroad.

“One Continuous Graveyard”: Emancipation and the Birth of the Professional Police Force

After emancipation, prison labor replaced slavery as a way for white Southerners to enforce a racial hierarchy.

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person