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Photo of Framer James A. Bayard then a modern day photo of Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

How Past and Present Catch Up With Each Other

The election of 1801 offers a first-hand example of how current events can offer historians new perspectives on the past.
by James M. Banner Jr. via The Panorama on October 23, 2024
The Hall of the House of Representatives.

Are We Living Through Another 1850s?

It’s difficult to see how these profound antipathies and fears will dissipate soon through any normal political processes.
by Robert W. Merry via The American Conservative on July 22, 2024
Robert Smalls.

What a Teacher's Letters Reveal About Robert Smalls, Who Stole a Confederate Ship to Secure Freedom

Harriet M. Buss' missives home detail the future congressman's candid views on race and the complicity of Confederate women.
by Jonathan W. White via Smithsonian on February 13, 2024
Gen. Robt. E. Lee, 1886.

After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee Couldn't Run for President, but Trump Can?

Despite Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, a Colorado state judge stretches the word “officer,” permitting him to remain on the state’s ballot.
by Garrett Epps via Washington Monthly on November 20, 2023
Representative Mike Johnson speaking about his faith on Fox News

Of Little Faith

The relatively unknown Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana has been elevated to the powerful position of Speaker of the House.
by Kevin M. Kruse via Campaign Trails on November 1, 2023
Samuel Chase.

An Intemperate Man: The Impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase

The presence of Federalist judges frustrated Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party, bring justice Samuel Chase under fire.
by Michael Liss via 3 Quarks Daily on June 19, 2023
Hippo in a cowboy hat grazing on a newspaper article about hippo ranching.

How the U.S. Almost Became a Nation of Hippo Ranchers

In 1910, a failed House bill sought to increase the availability of low-cost meat by importing hippopotamuses that would be killed to make "lake cow bacon."
by Shoshi Parks via Smithsonian on May 30, 2023
D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, left, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) greet the audience at a town hall meeting at Eastern High School in D.C. in 1995.

House GOP and D.C.: A Historically Strained Marriage Grows More Tenuous

Republicans have long made a sport of deriding Washington, portraying it as a dysfunctional, crime-infested “swamp."
by Paul Schwartzman via Retropolis on May 13, 2023

Republicans Have Won the Senate Half the Time Since 2000 Despite Winning Fewer Votes than Democrats

How the Senate has become a bastion of Republican minority rule.
by Stephen Wolf via Daily Kos on February 15, 2023
Kevin McCarthy, left, Ilhan Omar, center, and Adam B. Schiff, right.
partner

History Exposes Another Motive for Kicking Key Democrats Off Committees

By removing Reps. Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would remove obstacles to his agenda.
by Josh Kluever via Made By History on January 24, 2023
Neon cowboy on I-80 at Nevada’s border with Utah.

The Senate's Anti-Democratic Nature Is Even More Toxic Than I’d Realized

Whole states of the Union owe their very existence to nothing more nation-building than 19th-Century pols’ wanting to add new senators to one side of the aisle.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on January 19, 2023
Rep. Bennie Thompson speaking at the Jan. 6 committee hearings.

January 6 Committee Final Public Meeting

Video testimony and evidence presented by the House Select Committee to recommend criminal prosecution of Donald Trump.
by U.S. House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Attack via PBS NewsHour on December 19, 2022
Henry Holt, a farmer near Black River Falls, Wisconsin, in 1937, who was moved off land by the Resettlement Administration.

How the Government Helped White Americans Steal Black Farmland

There was once a thriving Black middle class based on farm ownership. But during the twentieth century, the USDA helped erase that source of wealth.
by Darrick Hamilton, Thomas W. Mitchell, Nathan Rosenberg, Dania Francis, Bryce Wilson Stucki via The New Republic on May 5, 2022
Excerpt from 1950 Census form
partner

The 1950 Census, a Treasure Trove of Data, Was the Last of its Kind

Unveiling the 1950 Census reveals the value of these types of records.
by Dan Bouk via Made By History on April 1, 2022
Hands holding a sign in that reads "DC statehood is racial justice."
partner

Republicans’ Anti-Democratic, Anti-Black Plans for D.C. Are a 19th-Century Throwback

The same ideas that have harmed D.C. for more than a century are again rearing their ugly head.
by Vincent L. Femia via Made By History on March 2, 2022
Machine in a wooden box with 40 dials: an electromechanical machine used in the 1890 U.S. census.

How the US Census Kick-Started America’s Computing Industry

As the country grew, each census required greater effort than the last. That problem led to the invention of the punched card – and the birth of an industry.
by David Lindsay Roberts via The Conversation on December 1, 2021
Mitch McConnell

How Did the Senate End Up With Supermajority Gridlock?

The Constitution meant for Congress to pass bills by a simple majority. But the process has changed over the decades.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via Governing on October 13, 2021
Demonstrators holding signs and Palestinian flag

‘We Know Occupation’: The Long History of Black Americans’ Solidarity with Palestinians

Why the Black Lives Matter movement might help shift the conversation about a conflict thousands of miles away.
by Sam Klug via Politico Magazine on May 30, 2021
Joe Biden.
partner

The History of Using Computers to Distribute Benefits Like Biden’s Relief Checks

Technology can break down, but just as often with government tech, glitches are rooted in policy failures.
by Marc Aidinoff via Made By History on March 10, 2021
Rev. Timothy McDonald III in First Iconium Baptist Church
partner

Attacking Sunday Voting is Part of a Long Tradition of Controlling Black Americans

The centuries-long battle over Sunday activities is really about African Americans' freedom and agency.
by Rebecca Brenner Graham via Made By History on March 4, 2021
This 1856 political cartoon depicts the responses of the three candidates to the results of the election. Winning Democrat James Buchanan sits reading the returns of the election while newspaper editors approach from the left. Behind them the defeated Republican candidate John C. Fremont rides off into the West. To the right the second defeated candidate, Millard Fillmore, laments his fall into the “caverns of Know-Nothingism.”

Here’s What Happens to a Conspiracy-Driven Party

The modern GOP isn't the first party to embrace huge conspiracies. But the lessons should be sobering.
by Zachary Karabell via Politico Magazine on January 30, 2021
An illustration of Black men pulling a platform covered in trash and American symbols.

What Price Wholeness?

A new proposal for reparations for slavery raises three critical questions: How much does America owe? Where will the money come from? And who gets paid?
by Shennette Garrett-Scott via New York Review of Books on January 18, 2021
Members of the National Guard stand behind a fence outside of the U.S. Capitol building.

Impeachment May Not Work. Here’s the Next Best Way to Dump Trump

The 14th Amendment offers a remedy that is both simpler and likelier to work.
by Eric Foner via Washington Post on January 12, 2021
A close up of an electoral map from Scribner’s Statistical Atlas of the United States

The Electoral Punt

It can be hard to know what the Founders intended when they didn't know, either.
by Jonathan W. Wilson via Contingent on September 30, 2020
Legislators at the podium during a joint session of congress to tally presidential electoral votes in 1969.

How the Electoral College Was Nearly Abolished in 1970

The House approved a constitutional amendment to dismantle the indirect voting system, but it was killed in the Senate by a filibuster.
by Dave Roos via HISTORY on August 3, 2020

History Won’t Save Us

Why the battle for history must be won in the here and now.
by William Hogeland via The New Republic on March 25, 2020
partner

The Black Woman Who Launched The Modern Fight For Reparations

Her grass-roots efforts shaped the conversation and presented a path forward.
by Ashley D. Farmer via Made By History on June 24, 2019

A National Debate Over Politics, Principles and Impeachment — in 1868

Was the impeachment of Andrew Johnson a matter of national principles? Or an affair of pragmatic politics?
by John Fabian Witt via Washington Post on May 24, 2019

The Secrets of Lyndon Johnson's Archives

On a presidential paper trail.
by Robert A. Caro via The New Yorker on January 22, 2019

The Electoral College Conundrum

There’s no consensus on abolishing the Electoral College, which has countered the popular vote in two of the past five presidential elections.
by Parker Richards via The Atlantic on November 23, 2018
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