Historians/History

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• Amateurism, Sneaker Money, and the Forgotten Protest of the 1968 Games

  by Harry Blutstein

  Tommie Smith and John Carlos are remembered for their gloved-fist protest of American racism at the 1968 Mexico City Games. But they also demonstrated against the hypocritical and exploitative rules of amateurism and opened the door to endorsement payments for Olympians.

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• 7/25/2021
  

  The Difference a Day Makes: Robespierre's 9 Thermidor

  by Colin Jones

  The eventful 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) is seen as a pivotal day for French Revolution. Colin Jones digs deep into the archival documentation of the day and argues that the day's significance is real but misunderstood. 

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• 7/11/2021
  

  Reflecting on the 80th Anniversary of the Nazi Invasion of Russia

  by Rick Halperin

  The Nazi invasion of Russia unleashed unprecedented brutality against civilians along the eastern front; those horrors should reinforce a commitment to human rights.

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• 7/11/2021
  

  Why Does Speculation Persist in the Age of Predictive Data?

  by Gayle Rogers

  "During this pandemic, all of us have studied many data points to assess our risks and predict how safe our futures will be under X or Y scenarios. Even when there has been no shortage of data, even when the data have overwhelmed us, the future has never been made certain and clear for us by them. Instead, we have had to become speculators to some degree."

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• 7/11/2021
  

  Cocktail of the Week: The Versatile Mule

  by Kathryn Smith

  Enjoy a variation of the Moscow Mule as a summer cocktail (alcohol optional) with a history lesson on the cocktail's creation. 

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• 7/4/2021
  

  Let's Think about "Thinking" Before We Teach "Critical Thinking"

  by Elizabeth Stice

  The liberal arts have long claimed their value lies in teaching the skill of critical thinking. History teachers can be more effective if they give some thought to thinking, with insights from cognitive theory and behavioral psychology. 

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• 7/4/2021
  

  Thich Quang Duc and the Power of Political Self-Sacrifice

  by David Richards

  Thich Quang Duc's decision to self-immolate in protest of the repressive government of Ngo Dinh Diem accelerated the fateful fall of that regime and offers an example of the power of self-sacrifice in protest.

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• 6/27/2021
  

  The Inferiority Complex That Put Silent Letters in English Spelling

  by Arika Okrent

  "We did get a lot of words from Latin, but sometimes we forged the receipts."

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• 6/27/2021
  

  Escape as Resistance for Enslaved Women during the American Revolution

  by Karen Cook Bell

  Historians have, for too long, failed to recognize how Black women imagined and pursued freedom by escape from slavery during the American Revolution. 

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• 6/13/2021
  

  Valor Roll: American Newsies in the Great War and the Flu Pandemic

  by Vincent DiGirolamo

  Newsies were a critical labor force in the early 20th century, connecting Americans to information. The author of a history of Newsies shows that their service drew praise in the First World War but suspicion in the ensuing influenza pandemic.

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• 6/6/2021
  

  Why a Culture War Over Critical Race Theory? Consider the Pro-Slavery Congressional "Gag Rule"

  by Frank Palmeri and Ted Wendelin

  Like the Southern delegations who opposed discussion of slavery, opponents of Critical Race Theory believe that any discussion of persistent racial inequities in legal and other institutions is unacceptable because it is “divisive.”

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• 6/6/2021
  

  Paying People to Get Vaccines is an Old Idea Whose Time has Come Again

  by Margaret DeLacy

  John Haygarth devised a system for rewarding working-class residents of Chester for receiving the risky smallpox inoculation and maintaining social distance afterward. The effort was largely superseded by the more effective and safer Jenner vaccination, but was a foundational public health experiment that pays dividends today.

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• 6/6/2021
  

  America's First Peaceful (Just Barely!) Transfer of Power

  by Akhil Reed Amar

  While the selection of Thomas Jefferson as the third president in 1801 (after an electoral college deadlock) is touted as a crucial peaceful transfer of presidential power from one party to another, the transition was far more fraught with peril than most realize. 

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• 5/30/2021
  

  The War Beat, Pacific: How the American News Media Went to War Against Japan

  by Steven Casey

  Censorship, technological limitations, and competition with news from Europe in World War II made the early part of the Pacific theater a "shrouded war," but not for lack of effort by war journalists. 

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• 5/30/2021
  

  The Enduring Fascination – And Challenge – Of World War II

  by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

  This Memorial Day offers the chance to read about and reflect on World War II, particularly the stories of ordinary people trying to understand world-changing events, and consider our time's connections to past and future. 

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• 5/30/2021
  

  Preserving the Stories of the Second World War

  by Colin Heaton

  Colin Heaton's latest book of oral history (with Anne-Marie Lewis) is based on oral histories he conducted with five significant Allied Airmen from World War II. Here, he discusses his work collecting veterans' stories from all sides of the airborne war and why those stories matter. 

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• 5/23/2021
  

  The Age of Reason and the Restless Masses: Censoring Class Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century

  by Eric Berkowitz

  The ruling classes of nineteenth century Europe were gravely concerned about the potential of mass media to help upend the class structure or incite workers to revolution. Their actions didn't seek to expunge taboo ideas, but to restrict their circulation to the elites. 

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• 5/26/2021
  

  75 Years of CARE Demonstrate Americans' Potential for Compassion

  by William Lambers

  CARE, along with a group of charities, calls for world leaders to dedicate at least one day’s worth of military spending toward food aid.  There should be less resources for heavy armaments and more for programs like infant feeding. 

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• 5/16/2021
  

  FDR's Indispensable Right-Hand Woman Portrayed Unfairly – Again

  by Kathryn Smith

  A new PBS series on the Norwegian Royal Family's contact with FDR at the outset of World War II takes some liberties with the facts, but is particularly unfair to Marguerite LeHand, who was Roosevelt's de facto chief of staff for years. 

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• 5/16/2021
  

  Reverberations of the Photography of Jazz

  by Jeffrey Mifflin

  The photographs of William Gottlieb and other observers of jazz's golden age deserve more attention for capturing and creating the aesthetics of the music.