Excerpts

The Bicentennial Made American History Look Ridiculous

by Marc Stein

Many Americans felt the U.S. had failed to live up to its ideals on its 200th anniversary. They hoped it might improve by the Declaration’s next big celebration.

The Bentham Brothers Build a Panopticon

by Henry Snow

Attracted by autocracy, two 18th-century Englishmen went to Russia and invented a method to consolidate control over workers.

The Prehistory of the Slave Patrol

by Gautham Rao

As slave rebellions roiled the minds of 18th century Americans, enslavers looked to the state to enact a new type of policing.

The Ballot Box Was the Way to Change Things

by Paul C. Rosier

Native Americans in the 1940s struggled simultaneously to secure their voting rights and protect the reservations that formed the basis for their disenfranchisement.

An Exculpatory Industry

by David Mayers

After World War II ended, the fascist propagandist and poet Ezra Pound returned to the U.S., where he was met with accusations of treason — and literary prizes.

The Press Is Like the Safety Valve of a Boiler

by Kelley Kreitz

A trove of letters-to-the-editor from the early 1900s show how Arturo Schomburg viewed newspapers as a bulwark against white supremacy throughout the Americas.

To Tell the Whole Story

by Jennifer Banning Tomás

The high-stakes struggle to make women’s history visible to all Americans.

Disruptive to Society

by Michael E. Jirik

In the 1830s, college students protested slavery. Many colleges and elites wanted them to stop. 

The Men Who Made America’s Self-Made Man

by Pamela Walker Laird

A new myth appeared during the presidential campaign of Andrew Jackson.

Complicit in the Business of Indoctrination and Incarceration

by Amy Erdman Farrell

By 1943, the Girl Scouts had a presence in every Japanese American internment camp.

Slamming America’s Door Behind Him

by Scott Miller

How a son of European immigrants fought to keep Indian immigrants out of America.

Sanitizing the Civil Rights Movement

by Joshua Clark Davis

Contrary to the story being told in textbooks, media, and museums, the police were not neutral bystanders.

The Most Integrated Institution in West Texas

by Jeff Roche

What happened after West Texas State College desegregated its football team in the 1960s.

The Women Who Ran Senegambia

by Toby Green

How trade shaped the lives of the people who lived in a 17th century West African port town.

Reactionary Revolutionaries

by Erika Pani

In the mid-19th century, governments on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border set out to recast North America’s political landscape.

Freedoms Lost in Translation

by Casey Schmitt

In the 17th-century Caribbean, a person’s legal status depended on who controlled the land where they labored.

A. Philip Randolph Lambasts the Old Crowd

by Martha H. Patterson and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

A Black socialist magazine urges solidarity and action in 1919.

A Powerful Influence on American Democracy

by Howard W. French

An HBCU president looks to Kwame Nkrumah’s leadership in Ghana for inspiration.

Life in the Firestorm

by Bench Ansfield

The 21st century American city was forged in the embers of the 1970s arson wave.

Textiles as Historical Texts

by Nicole Nehrig

On the women who helped make — and keep making — the Bayeux Tapestry.