Memory

The American Historical Association's executive director reflects on the purpose of history education.

The National Parks Service, which preserves many Civil War sites, is finally looking for a way to mark the struggles that defined its legacy.

On April 27, 1865, a steamboat named the Sultana exploded and an estimated 1,800 people died, but few today have heard of this disaster.

On the war's 50th anniversary, peace activists will be challenging the Pentagon's whitewashed history.

The emancipation of black Americans has been written out of our celebration of the Civil War's end.

The two men met at Appomattox. The loser would become a role model, the victor an embarrassment.

More than 150 years after Appomattox, Americans are still fighting over the great issues at the heart of the conflict.

You are not Gen X. You are not a Millennial. Unless you are a Baby Boomer, you are nothing.

“There has never been an honest movie about the civil rights movement,” says civil rights leader Julian Bond.

240 years after the American Revolution, debates over how to interpret the conflict and its leaders continue.

How the mythologizing of the Union Army’s Irish Brigade helped dispel anti-Irish sentiment.

Historians are losing their audience, and searching for the next trend won’t win it back.

A collection of more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 photos of former slaves.

One hundred years ago, a crisis in urban masculinity created the lumberjack aesthetic. Now it's making a comeback.

Columbus Day is here again -- along with the controversy over its namesake. How have earlier generations understood him?

A time before “everyone” knew the story of Christopher Columbus, and the role of Washington Irving’s massive biography in creating the heroic Columbus myth.

The challenges involved in constructing the 9-11 Museum in New York City within the context of other man-made disasters.

David Brion Davis’s philosophical history.

A forgotten history of the largest slave auction ever on American soil.

The early controversy over whether or not to build the Washington Monument on the National Mall.

She was Helen Keller before Helen Keller. Then her mentor abandoned their studies.

A southerner discovers the inaccuracy of the the myths he grew up with, and slowly comes to terms with his connection to the Civil War.

A favorite of Old Hickory, she made him seem kinder than he was. Why?

Considering six books on the outbreak of World War I and its place in history.

Wildly popular accounts like @HistoryInPics are bad for history, bad for Twitter, and bad for you.

The story of one veteran who could never find peace—until he made Vietnam his home.

How the attempt to claim Beethoven as Black actually recycles racist tropes.

They have shaped America, but how old were they on Independence Day?

As the 150th of the Battle of Gettysburg approaches, it's time to question the popular account of a war that tore apart the nation.

In 1923, the U.S. Senate approved a new monument in D.C. "in memory of the faithful slave mammies of the South."