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The Long History of the 'October Surprise'

Last minute disclosures or revelations can play an outsized role in the last weeks before an election.
by Robert B. Mitchell via Made By History on October 24, 2024
Woodrow Wilson working at his desk on May 1, 1917.

Don’t Be So Quick to Laud Woodrow Wilson

An effort is underway to restore President Wilson’s reputation as a great reformer. His best reforms were won by a mass movement, often pushing against Wilson.
by Henry Snow via Jacobin on March 14, 2024
Oscar Wilde

“A Nation of Lunatics.” What Oscar Wilde Thought About America

On the Irish writer’s grand tour of the Gilded Age United States.
by Rob Marland via Literary Hub on March 11, 2024
Martin Luther King Jr. giving a speech.
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The Problem With Comparing Today's Activists to MLK

Media coverage of the civil rights movement is a reminder that the deification of King has skewed public memory.
by Hajar Yazdiha via Made By History on January 15, 2024
John Marshall Harlan

We Shouldn’t Stop Talking About Justice John Marshall Harlan

Today, historical figures are held in deep suspicion, but refusing to acknowledge the heroes of the past diminishes our own sense of what is possible.
by Peter S. Canellos via Politico Magazine on July 11, 2023
George Gordon Meade

After Winning the Battle of Gettysburg, George Meade Fought With—and Lost to—the Press

The Civil War general's reputation was shaped by partisan politics, editorial whims and his own personal failings.
by Nicholas Liu via Smithsonian on July 3, 2023
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg leaving the courthouse in a prison van, 1951.

Not How He Wanted to Be Remembered

Two decades passed before the ghosts of the Rosenbergs came back to haunt Irving Kaufman, the judge who sentenced them to death.
by Linda Greenhouse via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2023
Car interior with Chuck Berry reflected in side view mirror.

An Anthropologist of Filth

On Chuck Berry.
by Ian Penman via Harper’s on May 4, 2023
A Metropolitan Museum official hands over a 13th-century wooden strut to Nepal’s archaeology department last year. Photograph: Aryan Dhimal/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock.

New York’s Met Museum Sees Reputation Erode Over Collection Practices

An investigation identified hundreds of artifacts linked to indicted or convicted traffickers. What does this mean for the future of museums?
by Spencer Woodman, Maria Politzer, Delphine Reuter, Namrata Sharma via The Guardian on March 20, 2023
Portrait of Ulysses S. Grant

Democratic Spirit: Ulysses S. Grant at 200

The foremost challenge of Grant’s day has not gone away. His response to it merits our attention.
by Andrew F. Lang via Current (religion and democracy) on July 19, 2022
Illustration of Abraham Lincoln getting ready to give a speech.

Re-imagining the Great Emancipator

How shall a generation know its story, if it will know no other?
by Ralph Lerner via National Affairs on March 21, 2022
A drawing of President Abraham Lincoln with African Americans outside of the White House.

Guests of the Great Emancipator

Lin­coln’s interactions with black Americans provides a valuable resource for understanding a more farseeing Lincoln than the voices of despair have described.
by Allen C. Guelzo via National Review on March 17, 2022
Nixon in front of presidential photographs.

Daniel Schorr and Nixon’s Tricky Road to Redemption

Nixon portrayed himself as a victim of the press. But from the 1952 Checkers speech through his post-presidency, he proved to be an able manipulator of the media.
by Ryan Reft via Tropics of Meta on February 25, 2022
William Faulkner in front of bookshelf

William Faulkner’s Tragic Vision

In Yoknapatawpha County, the past never speaks with a single voice.
by Jonathan Clarke via City Journal on January 4, 2022
Picture of Claudette Colvin

Before Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin Refused to Give Up Her Seat on a Bus. She’s Still on Probation.

Colvin, 82, is headed to court in Montgomery, Ala., to petition for her record to be cleared.
by Michele Norris via Washington Post on October 26, 2021

The Real Calamity Jane Was Distressingly Unlike Her Legend

A frontier character's life was crafted to be legendary, but was the real person as incredible?
by Sam Leith via The American Spectator on February 6, 2020
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Rethinking the Construction of Ronald Reagan's Legacy

Conservatives created a rosy image of Reagan to further their political project.
by Sarah Thomson via Made By History on August 12, 2019
Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.

Information the FBI Once Hoped Could Destroy Martin Luther King Jr. Has Been Declassified

Revealing these materials could be considered “Hoover’s revenge.”
by Trevor Griffey via The Conversation on May 30, 2019

Martin Luther King: How a Rebel Leader Was Lost to History

Fifty years after his death, King is a national treasure in the US. But what happened to his revolutionary legacy?
by Gary Younge via The Guardian on April 4, 2018
Thomas Hamblin

Reflections on 1830s Theater Manager Thomas Hamblin in the #MeToo Era

Over the 1830s, Hamblin transformed the fortunes of the Bowery by featuring melodramas starring young women, but this wasn't without issues.
by Sara Lampert via Nursing Clio on February 8, 2018
Bob Dylan.

Legacy of a Lonesome Death

Had Bob Dylan not written a song about it, the 1963 killing of a black servant by a white socialite’s cane might have been long forgotten.
by Ian Frazier via Mother Jones on May 8, 2010
Clint Eastwood.

The Enigma of Clint Eastwood

Is he merely a reactionary, or do his films paint a more complicated picture?
by Adam Nayman via The Nation on September 4, 2025
Children in the Kennedy family labeled with their named.

Hijacking the Kennedys

Only one cousin is in a position of power — and his family can only watch helplessly as he destroys much that they stood for.
by Reeves Wiedeman via Intelligencer on August 25, 2025
Image of Oswald Spengler.

The Strange Fate of Oswald Spengler

Spengler shared the anti-American prejudice of many of his German contemporaries, and it is safe to assume that he would have disparaged us as rootless.
by Kyle Baasch via Compact on August 22, 2025
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.
by Greg Daugherty via Smithsonian Magazine on August 18, 2025
A policeman stoops down next to a roulette wheel and writes on a clipboard.

The Engines and Empires of New York City Gambling

As plans are laid for a new casino, one can trace, through four figures, a history of rivalry and excess, rife with collisions of character and crime.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on August 4, 2025
Microphone tangled in barbed wire.

The Case That Saved the Press – And Why Trump Wants It Gone

A landmark 1964 Supreme Court ruling protects the press from angry public officials filing lawsuits. It’s being targeted by President Donald Trump.
by Stephanie A. Martin via The Conversation on August 4, 2025
Paper in a typewriter, with the words "the end" just typed.

Words Left Behind: The Quandary of Posthumous Publishing

Joan Didion’s journal entries posthumously has sparked a wider ethical debate: Is it acceptable to publish a writer’s unfinished work after their death?
by Selina Alipour Tabrizi via The Saturday Evening Post on August 4, 2025
A newspaper article about Warren G. Harding's death.

Commanders-in-Heat VII: Flatline & Spin

The first modern presidential death was also the first medical mystery America refused to let go.
by Alexis Coe via Study Marry Kill on August 2, 2025
Mel Bradford on the cover of Southern Partisan magazine in 1992.

A Paleoconservative War Story

The conservative movement "assumed it had intellectual ownership over the presidency," but an NEH appointment fight reveals the Reagan administration disagreed.
by Joshua Tait via To Live Is To Maneuver on July 29, 2025
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