Henry Ward Beecher

A classic New Yorker account of the Henry Ward Beecher adultery trial recalls a time in America that seems both incomprehensible and familiar.

The most influential preacher in the country, Beecher aggressively agitated for the Union to extend complete forgiveness to Confederates.

A century and a half after the Civil War, Mayor Mitch Landrieu asked his city to reexamine its past — and to wrestle with hard truths.

Patrick Blanchfield tracks the long-standing entanglement of guns and religion in the United States. Part 1 of 2.

Two new books explore the messy complexities of immigration—from the era of Lincoln to Irish New York.

In 1871, the Fisk University singers embarked on a tour that introduced white Americans to a Black sound that would reshape the nation.

And justified the most extreme responses.

An 1859 painting by Eastman Johnson depicted enslaved people in a D.C. courtyard. Intended to humanize them, it was coopted by slavery defenders.

John Brown and the historical novel.

Why have historians overlooked the connections between abolitionism and the famous New England cultural movement?

While he opposed slavery and southern secession early in his career, as president Andrew Johnson turned out to be an unsightly bigot.

Ever look at the tome on a coffee table and wonder why coffee table books are a thing? Consider this brief history of coffee table books.

We often think of the temperance movement as driven by white evangelicals set out to discipline Black Americans and immigrants. That history is wrong.

Absent social media, the artists of the past shaped public knowledge of historical events through illustrations.

The disease afflicted the author as he was writing what would become "The Innocents Abroad."

The first woman to run for president was infamous in her day.

To alleviate voters' fears during the Civil War, Northern governors refused to open their states to formerly enslaved refugees.

In the midst of the secession crisis, Unionists accused slave traders of waging an assault on democracy.

The beginnings of the end of private life in the late nineteenth century.

American niceness is the absolute worst thing to ever happen in human history.