Treasure Fever

The discovery of a lost shipwreck has pitted treasure hunters and archaeologists against each other, raising questions about who should control sunken riches.

How Educators Are Rethinking The Way They Teach Immigration History

At Boston Latin School teachers are changing the way they prepare their students to think critically about immigration policy.

Why Historical Analogy Matters

If the idea of historical incommensurability is right, then analogical reasoning in history becomes an impossibility.

It's 2020 and You're in the Future

Some people are young, just not you.

How America Became “A City Upon a Hill”

The rise and fall of Perry Miller.
Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson and the Declaration

Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence announced a new epoch in world history, transforming a provincial tax revolt into a great struggle to liberate humanity.

Higher Education's Reckoning with Slavery

Two decades of activism and scholarship have led to critical self-examination.

A New Database Will Connect Billions of Historic Records to Tell the Full Story of American Slavery

The online resource will offer vital details about the toll wrought on the enslaved.

The Fight Over the 1619 Project Is Not About the Facts

A dispute between some scholars and the authors of NYT Magazine’s issue on slavery represents a fundamental disagreement over the trajectory of U.S. society.

The Remembered Past

On the beginnings of our stories—and the history of who owns them.

Memo From a Historian: White Ladies Cooking in Plantation Museums are a Denial of History

At museums across the South, you'll often find a white woman cooking in a big house kitchen. That's a role that was usually done by enslaved Africans.
Advertisement commemorating 25 years of video games since the release of Oregon Trail.

Playing in the Past

Gameplay can be useful in history classrooms – but manufacturers have to think about how children will be affected by the competition.

The University of North Carolina's Payout to the Confederate Lost Cause

The University of North Carolina agreed to pay the Sons of Confederate Veterans $2.5 million—a sum that rivals the endowment of its history department.

All Good Things Must Begin

On the self-preservation, testimonies, and solace found in the diaries of black women writers.

Preaching a Conspiracy Theory

The 1619 Project offers bitterness, fragility, and intellectual corruption—not history.

White Supremacy in the Academy: The 1913 Meeting of the American Historical Association

The historical interpretations crafted by the men of the Dunning School might now be largely discredited and discarded. But their legacies remain.

Eric Foner’s Story of American Freedom

Eric Foner has helped us better understand the ambiguous consequences of what were almost always only partial victories.

The Life and Times of Franz Boas

The founder of cultural anthropology, Franz Boas challenged the reigning notions of race and culture.

This Day in Labor History: December 1, 1868

On folk hero John Henry.

Historians Write About a Different Jefferson Now: Four Books Show How Different

Four new books show how different, and maybe also why.

The Original Southerners

American Indians, the Civil War, and Confederate memory.

The Way American Kids Are Learning About the 'First Thanksgiving' Is Changing

"I look back now and realize I was teaching a lot of misconceptions."

American Slavery and ‘the Relentless Unforeseen’

What 1619 has become to the history of American slavery, 1688 is to the history of American antislavery.

The Invention of Thanksgiving

Massacres, myths, and the making of the great November holiday.
Drawing of Puritans.

How Should We Remember the Puritans?

In his new book, Daniel Rodgers not only offers a close reading of Puritan history but also seeks to rescue their early critique of market economy.

Colonial Williamsburg Begins Researching LGBTQ History

Colonial Williamsburg has acknowledged to the LGBTQ community that people like them “have always existed.”
Black girls exiting a school building accompanied by U.S. Marshalls.

First Day of School—1960, New Orleans

Leona Tate thought it must be Mardi Gras. Gail thought they were going to kill her.

Whiteout

In favor of wrestling with the most difficult aspects of our history.
Nancy Pelosi
partner

What We Get Wrong About Ben Franklin’s ‘A Republic, If You Can Keep It’

Erasing the women of the founding era makes it harder to see women as leaders today.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Narratives of Freedom

In Coates's debut novel, he sets out to recover the struggles for emancipation that have been lost to the past.