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A man and a dog walk among blighted buildings in the Bronx.

The Persistence of American Poverty

“We could afford to end poverty,” Matthew Desmond tells us. That we don’t is a choice.
by Marcia Chatelain via The Nation on August 21, 2023
Hip hop nightclub.

Golden-Era Rap Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition

In Hip hop’s “golden era,” the period from 1987 to 1994, rappers used their platforms to bring attention to issues plaguing poor and working-class Black communities.
by Antoine S. Johnson via Black Perspectives on August 15, 2023

The Disciplining Power of Disappointment

A new book argues that American politics are defined by unfulfilled desire.
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via The New Yorker on August 11, 2023
Child laborers cleaning fruit.

The Child Labor of Early Capitalism Is Making a Big Comeback in the US

Child labor was common in urban, industrial America for most of the country’s history. Now lawmakers are making concerted efforts to repeal statutes that prohibit it.
by Steve Fraser via Jacobin on July 7, 2023
Illustration of a man with a shovel working a farm; the background shows scenes of family and communal life

Deep States

The old Midwest was a place animated by the belief that a self-governing republic is the best regime for man.
by Wilfred M. McClay via Claremont Review of Books on May 31, 2023
Senators Cory Booker and Chuck Grassley conversing.

How Washington Bargained Away Rural America

Every five years, the farm bill brings together Democrats and Republicans. The result is the continued corporatization of agriculture.
by Luke Goldstein via The American Prospect on May 24, 2023
Dilapidated traffic sign reading "School Bus Stop Ahead."
partner

Child Labor In America Is Back In A Big Way

The historical record says we shouldn’t be surprised.
by Beth English via Made By History on April 18, 2023
Nineteenth century nuclear family.

How Government Helped Create the “Traditional” Family

Since the mid-nineteenth century, many labor regulations in the US have been crafted with the express purpose of strengthening the male-breadwinner family.
by Livia Gershon, Arianne Renan Barzilay via JSTOR Daily on April 12, 2023
Painting of Milwaukee

Milwaukee Socialists' Triumph & Global Impact

On April 5, 1910, the world was stunned by socialists’ victory at the ballot box in Milwaukee.
by Shelton Stromquist via Public Books on April 5, 2023
Demonstrators with signs supporting the legalization of abortion.

What Are the Lessons of “Roe”?

A new book chronicles the decades-long fight to legalize abortion in the United States.
by Moira Donegan via The Nation on April 4, 2023
Panting of a woman lounging with a book, titled “Dolce far niente” (The Sweetness of Doing Nothing), by Auguste Toulmouche, 1877.

We’re Distracted. That’s Nothing New.

Ever since Thoreau headed to Walden, our attention has been wandering.
by Caleb Smith via The Chronicle of Higher Education on March 10, 2023
A sex worker on Cass Avenue, Detroit, 1965.

Red Lights, Blue Lines

Three recent books examine the discrimination and hypocrisy at the heart of policing “vice.”
by Sarah Schulman via New York Review of Books on March 3, 2023
Women's rights activists Lucy Stone, Sojourner Truth, Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis, Lucretia Mott, Harriot Kezia Hunt, and Harriet Martineau.

Why the 1850 Worcester Women's Rights Convention Is a Vital Part of History

Women’s rights activism has shaped America for the better throughout our history, so why should colleges be banned from teaching it?
by Ben Railton via The Saturday Evening Post on March 1, 2023
Painting of "The County Election" by George Caleb Bingham.

The Myth of American Individualism

How the utopian notion of the U.S. as a meritocracy became so ingrained in the American psyche.
by Eric C. Miller, Alex Zakaras via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on February 21, 2023

The Fight for the Sabbath

The partnership between rabbis and labor that delivered the two-day weekend.
by Avi Garelick via Jewish Currents on February 21, 2023
Helen Hall (R, front), chair of the Consumers’ National Federation, with a committee at the White House making demands for a "new deal" for consumers, 1938.

“Ethical Consumption” Used to Mean Something More Than Feeling Smug About Your Purchases

A century ago, it was once motivated by the goal of economic reorganization.
by Nick French via Jacobin on January 31, 2023
original

No Better Soil

In the first half of the 19th century, upstate New York was a hotbed of movements for reform. How visible is that history today?
by Ed Ayers on January 23, 2023
DDT being sprayed at Jones Beach in New York in 1945.

The Problem With Silent Spring Environmentalism

A new history of the environmental movement places too much emphasis on famous figures like Rachel Carson and shies away from confronting failures.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on January 10, 2023
Painting of 19th century British schoolgirls walking in a group

Hearts and Minds

What we fight about when we fight about schools.
by Paul Tough via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 31, 2022
Black and white photo of the young Mary Ellen next to an empty chair

Origins of Child Protection

Legend says that the campaign to save abused children in New York was driven by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The truth is more complicated.
by Matthew Wills, Lela B. Costin via JSTOR Daily on November 26, 2022
Black and white photograph of suffragists standing in front of a car with a banner reading: we demand an amendment to the United States constitution enfranchising women.

The Jewel City: Suffrage at the 1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition

Suffragists coalesced in San Francisco to push for nationwide women' suffrage and send a petition to Congress for the vote.
by Tiffany Wayne via AmericanStudies Blog on October 29, 2022
Black and white photo of Eugene Debs being released from an Atlanta federal prison on Christmas Day, 1921.

The American Socialism That Might Have Been

Despite their minority status, the Socialists had been a significant force in American politics before patriotic war hysteria brought on an era of repression.
by Adam Hochschild via The Nation on October 12, 2022
Starbucks Workers United partners celebrate after a store in Mesa, Arizona, became the third Starbucks location in the country to unionize in February 2022.

Labor Rising

Is the working class experiencing a new CIO moment?
by Sarah Jaffe via The Progressive on October 10, 2022
"Thinking like an Economist" light blue book cover

The ‘Economic Style’ as Red Scare Legacy

The rise of the “economic style of reasoning” in the 1960s cannot be properly understood without attending to the political fallout of earlier decades.
by Landon Storrs via LPE Project on September 13, 2022
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.
by Kathryn Ostrofsky on September 7, 2022
New York, 1929, men pointing to a sign reading "No Booze Sold Here"

Freedom From Liquor

Ken Burns’ account of prohibition tells a popular story of booze in America. The historical record is far more sobering.
by Mark Lawrence Schrad via Aeon on September 6, 2022
Black and white photo of a 1920s flapper girl.
partner

Flappers: Precursors to Modern-Day Social Media Influencers?

A 1923 article in a fashion magazine shows the connection between flappers and social media youth organizers today.
by Jason Ulysses Rose via HNN on August 7, 2022
President Bill Clinton laughs after delivering remarks on welfare reform.

How the Democrats Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Free Market

In the 1990s, the New Democrats trusted corporations to do the right thing. The results were disastrous.
by Maia Silber via Jacobin on July 18, 2022
Booker T. Washington addressing a laughing crowd of African American men in Lakeland, Tennessee, during his campaign promoting African American education. Ca. 1900.

Market Solutions to Ancient Sins

Freedom and prosperity are the most effective cure for the scars of slavery and racism.
by Jason Jewell via Law & Liberty on June 28, 2022
Members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union break open barrels of liquor seized during Prohibition, 1929.

Roe Is the New Prohibition

The pro-life movement needs to know that such culture wars result not in outright victory for one side but in reaction and compromise.
by David Frum via The Atlantic on June 27, 2022
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