William H. Taft with his extended family in 1918.

Review: ‘The Tafts’ by George W. Liebmann

A new book celebrates an American political dynasty dedicated to public service. Why have they been forgotten?
Black farmer harvesting kale.

Black Earth

In North Carolina, a Black farmer purchased the plantation where his ancestors were enslaved—and is reclaiming his family’s story and the soil beneath his feet.
Grover Cleveland.

How Grover Cleveland’s Grandson Feels About Donald Trump

Trump is often described as unprecedented, but in winning a non-consecutive second term, he has a significant antecedent: Grover Cleveland.
Collage of Matilda Gage and good and bad witches from "The Wizard of Oz" and "Wicked."

The Feminist Who Inspired the Witches of Oz

The story of suffragist Matilda Gage, the woman behind the curtain whose life story captivated her son-in-law L. Frank Baum as he wrote his classic novel.

How Woodrow Wilson’s Privileged Southern Upbringing Influenced His Love Life

In Wilson’s chivalric framework, women were required to be submissive precisely so that men could protect the weaker sex.
A group of children spinning on a merry-go-round.

The Parenting Panic

Contrary to both far right and mainstream center-left, there’s no epidemic of chosen childlessness.
Jane Addams.

‘Childless Cat Ladies’ Have Long Contributed to the Welfare of American Children − and the Nation

Criticisms of women without biological children define motherhood too narrowly, as history reveals the many forms of motherhood.
Photographs of historian Zachary Schrag and his father Philip Schrag in front of a Nuclear War plan background

Two Generations of Nuclear Hopes and Nuclear Fears

A conversation with historian Zachary Schrag and his father Philip Schrag about their multi-generational encounters with nuclear threats.
Kamala Harris waving to the audience in front of American flags.

What Does Caste Have to Do With Kamala Harris?

This election year, two women of South Asian descent—Kamala Harris and Usha Vance—take center stage. What can their identities tell us about their approach?
Small headstones for pets in Hyde Park, London, dating back to the 1880s.

Why the World’s First Pet Cemetery Was Revolutionary

A new book charts the history of pet cemeteries and honors the universal experience of grieving an animal companion.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaking at a podium in front of the Irish and American flags.

Kamala Harris’ Purported Irish Ancestry

The candidate's potential ties to an Irish slave owner invite us to reexamine Ireland’s multilayered historical identity.
C. G. Garrett photographed with five Black contemporaries outside of a building in Columbia, South Carolina.

Riding With Mr. Washington

How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction.
A man lifts a woman out of a boat and onto the pier. Photo from London, 1925.

The Complex History of American Dating

While going out on a date may seem like a natural thing to do these days, it wasn't always the case.
Collage of Barack Obama and Kamala Harris.

What Trump’s Kamala Harris Smear Reveals

The former president is suggesting that Harris became Black only when it was obvious that being Black conferred social advantage.
Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. in a flight suit with an airplane.

Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Was a Family Star Until Tragedy Struck in 1944

Eighty years ago this month, the Kennedy who might have been president was killed on a secret mission over England.
George Washington portrait with the outline of a father and child cut out.

Being a ‘Childless’ President Was Once Seen as a Virtue

Ask George Washington.
A drawing of a playground slide painted like a road.

What Adults Lost When Kids Stopped Playing in the Street

In many ways, a world built for cars has made life so much harder for grown-ups.
Joseph Berkowitz and Rae Kushner, Jared Kushner's grandparents, in Budapest in 1945.

Jared Kushner’s Grandparents Relied on Aid and Shelter as Refugees, Documents Show

Kushner was a top official in a Trump administration that sharply restricted immigration and refugee admissions. His grandparents were Holocaust refugees.
Mexican-American wife standing with her hand on the shoulder of her seated Punjabi husband.

The “Mexican-Hindus” of Rural California

Anti-Asian immigration restrictions led male Punjabi farm workers in California to marry Mexican and Mexican American women, creating new cultural bonds.
The American summer camp tradition arguably began in 1861 with Connecticut educator Frederick Gunn's "Gunnery Camp," where children fished, foraged, and practiced military drills.

The Anxious History of the American Summer Camp

The annual rite of passage has always been more about the ambivalence of adults than the amusement of children.
Japanese American community leaders Tom Yamaski, Ted Okahashi, and Karl Yoneda, who holds his son, Tommy, at a meeting at the Manzanar War Relocation Center in Owens Valley, Calif. on May 5, 1942. Yoneda's wife, the activist Elaine Black Yoneda, who was not Japanese, also spent time in the camp.
partner

On Loving Day, Remember the Families Separated by the U.S.

During Japanese-American incarceration, what happened to mixed-race families and individuals?
A drawing of a tent underneath stylized constellations depicting a growth chart, a graduation cap, and a dollar sign.

Summer Camp and Parenting Panics

Camps once sold a story about social improvement. Now we just can’t conceive of an unscheduled moment.
First Lady Betty Ford poses atop of the cabinet's conference table.

First Lady In Motion

Betty Ford and the public eye.
AI-generated image of the “shiny object ancestor” experience.

Shiny Object Ancestors: The Ones We Can’t Resist

Tracing the family history of some of today's most popular celebrities.
Portrait of a Sailor (possibly Paul Cuffe), circa 1800.

Paul Cuffe’s Revolutionary American Life and Legacy

Paul Cuffe was the first Black American to formally meet with a sitting president at the White House.
A Black person points to Neshoba county on a map of Mississippi.

The Lynching That Sent My Family North

How we rediscovered the tragedy in Mississippi that ushered us into the Great Migration.
A house and people from the American frontier.

The Wild Blood Dynasty

What a little-known family reveals about the nation’s untamed spirit.
A black and white drawing of Julia Ann Chinn.

Tenuous Privileges, Tenuous Power

Amrita Myers paints freedom as a process in which Black women used the tools available to them to secure rights and privileges within a slave society.
Frank Oppenheimer holding prism up to face

The Atomic Bomb, Exile and a Test of Brotherly Bonds: Robert & Frank Oppenheimer

A rift in thinking about who should control powerful new technologies sent the brothers on diverging paths.
Spielberg and Henry Thomas in a scene on the set of E.T.

The Auteur of Fatherhood: How Steven Spielberg Recast American Masculinity

Steven Spielberg’s early films conjure all of his moviemaking magic to repair a world of lost dads.