Pro-choice protest outside Supreme Court
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The Reconstruction Amendments Matter When Considering Abortion Rights

The cruelty of enslavers when it came to reproduction and families shaped the 13th and 14th Amendments.
Drawing of a man looking up at a DNA strand spiraling upwards from him

Our Obsession with Ancestry Has Some Twisted Roots

From origin stories to blood-purity statutes, we have long enlisted genealogy to serve our own purposes.
Illustration depicting a man with a sword drawn confronting a man and woman standing in a doorway in pajamas.

Family, Liberty, and Vermont: The Allegiance of Ethan Allen in the Revolutionary Era

He held multiple allegiances during the Revolution, all of which were connected or stemmed from the importance he placed on familial self-preservation.
Photograph of a desk constructed in Poland in the mid 1920s. The desk is an ornate wooden desk; at left, there are three photographs, at right, a lamp and some miscellaneous items.

An Ornate Desk, Family History and the Jewish Past

My mother’s desk connected me with our shared heritage.
Sonora Smart Dodd; her father, William Jackson Smart.

The Forgotten History of Father's Day

Find out how one woman asked to recognize the fathers in her town and inspired others.
Photos of children from the cover of "The Crisis," 1916

‘Anxious for a Mayflower’

In "A Nation of Descendants," Francesca Morgan traces the American use and abuse of genealogy from the Daughters of the American Revolution to Roots.
A 1907 photograph of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island.

What I Don’t Know

At the heart of my family tree are only questions and mysteries.
Two women stand in front of the Supreme Court building holding a sign that reads, "Keep Abortion Legal."

"The Family Roe" and the Messy Reality of the Abortion “Jane Roe” Didn’t Get

A new book juxtaposes dominant narratives about motherhood, women’s autonomy, and abortion with the weirdness of ordinary lives.
Vintage stereogram of Chinatown, San Francisco, ca. 1920s-30s.

How a California Archive Reconnected a New Mexico Family with its Chinese Roots

Aimee Towi Mae Tang’s Chinese American family never talked about the past. She decided to change that.
Portrait of Anne Louise Brillon de Jouy painted by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
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The Women in Ben Franklin's Life Tell a Fuller Story of the Founder

Uncovering the fallacy of his iconic image as a man ruled by solely by reason and logic.
DNA strand.

Finding Our Roots? History and DNA

DNA tests have become popular tools to rediscover lost ties to the past, but the links they forge do not always stand up to historical scrutiny.
"We are the Spirit Rappers," 2016, By Amy Friend.

The Weight of Family History

It’s never been easier to piece together a family tree. But what if it brings uncomfortable facts to light?
Photograph of John Gunther, an American journalist.

The Book That Unleashed American Grief

John Gunther’s “Death Be Not Proud” defied a nation’s reluctance to describe personal loss.
Illustration of West Ford with laborers working fields in the background, by John P. Dessereau

Did George Washington Have an Enslaved Son?

West Ford’s descendants want to prove his parentage—and save the freedmen’s village he founded.
A cemetery with a dusting of snow.

Safer Than Childbirth

Abortion in the 19th century was widely accepted as a means of avoiding the risks of pregnancy.
Photograph of horse and buggy carrying Black family migrating North

A Brief History of the Great Migration, when 6 Million Black People Left the South

The Great Migration in the 20th century changed the face of America. For the past few decades, it's been reversing.
Liquor shop operated by Patrick J. Kennedy, storefront reading "Cotter and Kennedy"
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Bridget the Grocer and the First American Kennedys

History has paid little attention to Bridget Kennedy, JFK’s widowed great-grandmother, who managed both her family and business in Boston's anti-Irish climate.
Collage of photos: author's grandfather, Shigeki, in his army uniform; his house; an internment camp.

My Family Lost Our Farm During Japanese Incarceration. I Went Searching for What Remains.

When Executive Order 9066 forcibly removed my family from their community 80 years ago, we lost more than I realized.
“Our first camp.” Vado de Piedra, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 26, 1921.

The Photo Album That Succeeded Where Pancho Villa Failed

The revolutionary may have tried to find my grandfather by raiding a New Mexico village—but a friend’s camera truly captured our family patriarch.
A large federal style brick house, the William Paca House in Annapolis, Md.

I Searched for Answers About My Enslaved Ancestor. I Found Questions About America

'Did slavery make home always somewhere else?'
Black and white photograph of Lucille Clifton.

Lucille Clifton and the Task of Remembering

The poet’s memoir Generations is both a chronicle of her ancestral lineage and lesson in the centrality of Black women to the story of American history.
Drawing of Asian Americans on an urban river boardwalk.

Return Flights

The memoirs of Korean adoptees, once full of confession and confusion, are now marked by confidence and rage.
Pen sketch of Robert Frost.

Frost at Midnight

A new volume of Robert Frost’s letters finds him at the height of his artistic powers while suffering an almost unimaginable series of losses.
Painting of 18th century hunting party of men in long, tri-cornered hats, and curly wigs, riding horses.

The Comforts of a Single State

Thomas Jefferson imagines an unequal gender utopia.
Dual circular images of fire, representing seeing fire through the eye holes of a klan hood

Sins of the Fathers

In Life of a Klansman, Edward Ball’s white supremacist great-great-grandfather becomes a case study in the enduring legacy of slavery.
Image of an Asian American face obscured by visual effect that it has been sliced and distorted

Searching for Coherence in Asian America

In “The Loneliest Americans,” Jay Caspian Kang asks whether Asian American identity can be rescued from people like him.
Young and old hands.
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The Pandemic has Exacerbated the Transformation of Grandparenthood

While our perceptions of grandparents have remained static, we've asked them to do a lot more.
A former slave cabin, surrounded by tourists.

‘These Are Our Ancestors’: Descendants of Enslaved People Are Shifting Plantation Tourism

At three plantations in Charleston, S.C., Black descendants are connecting with their family’s history and helping reshape the narrative.
A wedding cake depicting a same-sex lesbian couple.
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The Golden Era of ‘Traditional Marriage’ Was Never What Conservatives Thought

Law and culture forced LGBTQ people into marriages, but that didn't prevent them from exploring their sexuality.
Collage of a man's photograph within a cutout of another man

Searching for Mr. X

For eight years, a man without a memory lived among strangers at a hospital in Mississippi. But was recovering his identity the happy ending he was looking for?