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Landscape shot of Los Angeles, with Hollywoodland sign in the background.

True West: Searching for the Familiar in Early Photos of L.A. and San Francisco

A look at early photography reveals the nuances of California's early development.
Pinkerton detectives.

Who Were the Pinkertons?

A video game portrays the Wild West’s famous detective agency as violent enforcers of order. But the modern-day company disagrees.
Aerial view of a fortress in Puerto Rico.

Telling the History of the U.S. Through Its Territories

“How to Hide an Empire,” explores America far beyond the borders of the Lower 48.

U.S. Population Growth by State (1900-2017)

The population of every state, visualized like a horse race.

The Surprising History (and Future) of Dinosaurs

For well over a hundred years, paleontology has done double duty as mass entertainment.

The City Born in a Day

The bizarre origin story of the surprisingly exceptional Oklahoma City, in a government-sanctioned raid called the Land Run.

How the Log Cabin Became an American Symbol

We have the Swedes and William Henry Harrison to thank for the popularization of the log cabin.

A History of the Jerks: Bodily Exercises and the Great Revival

A digital archive of first-person accounts from the turn of the 19th century chronicling an unusual display of religious ecstasy.
Willa Cather

Willa Cather, Pioneer

Willa Cather's life and work broke with the standards of her time.
A Japanese woodblock illustration of America, with a group of Americans observing hot air balloons in flight.

Commodore Perry's Expedition to Japan

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.
Harper's Weekly illustration titled "The Negro Exodus -- the Old Style and the New," depicting a fugitive slave and exodusters traveling west.

Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.
Poster for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show reenactment of Custer's last stand.

The Indians Win

Why have Americans been obsessed with this one loss rather than dozens of victories?

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.

On Monuments and Public Lands

Any critical take on public monuments today must confront the reality that public lands are themselves colonized lands.
Independence Day Celebration in Centre Square by John Lewis Krimmel (1787–1821).

The Brief Period, 200 Years Ago, When American Politics Was Full of “Good Feelings”

James Monroe’s 1817 goodwill tour kicked off a decade of party-less government – but he couldn’t stop the nation from dividing again.

Thank the Erie Canal for Spreading People, Ideas and Germs Across America

For the waterway's 200th anniversary, learn about its creation and impact.
Soldiers pose with a human skull.

The Violence Is the Victory

The history of American expansion can be traced through the severed body parts left in its wake.
U.S. soldiers in the Civil War.

Expanding the Slaveocracy

The international ambitions of the US slaveholding class and the abolitionist movement that brought them down.
Screenshot from "The Oregon Trail" computer game

The Forgotten History of 'The Oregon Trail,' As Told By Its Creators

You must always caulk the wagon. Never ford the river.

Land and The Roots of African-American Poverty

Land redistribution could have served as the primary means of reparations for former slaves. Instead, it did exactly the opposite.
Red Horse's drawing of American soldiers on horseback

A Lakota Sioux Warrior's Eyewitness Drawings of Little Bighorn

The role of Red Horse's drawings in the historical narrative of the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Crowds of people surrounding the General Land Office and accompanying tents

Hail to the Pencil Pusher

American bureaucracy's long and useful history.

What Was the Confederate Flag Doing in Cuba, Vietnam, and Iraq?

The Confederate flag’s military tenure continued long after the Civil War ended.

3 Reasons the American Revolution Was a Mistake

Washington changed the world forever when he crossed the Delaware—for the worse.

What This Cruel War Was Over

The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it.
Black-and-white illustration of conquistadores with a Native American kneeling before them.
partner

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

The Spirit of Party and Faction

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

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.
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.

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