With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Spiritualism

5/22/2022

Jane Stanford's Murder Shows the Moral Vacuum of Gilded Age Fortune and Philanthropy

by Richard White

Jane Stanford's murder by poisoning in 1905 was part of a long chain of inequities and moral abdications that attended the great Gilded Age fortunes at every step, from their accumulation to their dispersal as philanthropy.

5/10/2020

Spiritualism and Suspension Bridges: John Roebling and a Biographer's Sympathy for the Weird 19th Century

by Richard Haw

A biographer of Brooklyn Bridge designer John Roebling expected to write about a genius. He also ended up writing about a complete weirdo, and how one man could be both.