westward expansion — Bunk History

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What This Cruel War Was Over

The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it.

by Ta-Nehisi Coates via The Atlantic on June 22, 2015

Black-and-white illustration of conquistadores with a Native American kneeling before them.

Making a Myth

A time before “everyone” knew the story of Christopher Columbus, and the role of Washington Irving’s massive biography in creating the heroic Columbus myth.

via BackStory on October 10, 2014

Jerri Cobb with a space capsule.

The Case for Female Astronauts: Reproducing Americans in the Final Frontier

Imagining a future that separates women from their biological identity seems so “drastic” as to be unimaginable—in 1962 and today.

by Lisa Ruth Rand via The Appendix on July 15, 2014

Political cartoon of U.S. President Martin Van Buren sitting on a fence as men on each side try to pull him toward them.

The Spirit of Party and Faction

On factional strife in the Early Republic, and why parties themselves were universally despised.

via BackStory on June 13, 2014

These Maps Reveal How Slavery Expanded Across the United States

As the hunger for more farmland stretched west, so too did the demand for enslaved labor.

by Lincoln Mullen via Smithsonian on May 15, 2014

Marine hospital

Sailors’ Health and National Wealth

That the federal government created this health care system for merchant mariners in the early American republic will surprise many.

by Gautham Rao via Commonplace on October 1, 2008

Alexander Hamilton.

Inventing Alexander Hamilton

The troubling embrace of the founder of American finance.

by William Hogeland via Boston Review on November 1, 2007

American Green

How did the plain green lawn become the central landscaping feature in America, and what is the ecological cost?

by Ted Steinberg via Longreads on March 15, 2006

John Muir

John Muir's 1897 Case for Saving America's Forests

"God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, and avalanches; but he cannot save them from fools—only Uncle Sam can do that."

by John Muir via The Atlantic on August 1, 1897

A map of the United States divided into regions.

A Balkanized Federation

Without a shared civic narrative – the pursuit of liberal democratic self-government – the rival regional cultures of the United States agree on very little.

via Nationhood Lab

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