A series of headshots of the members of R.E.M..

Was It Cooler Back Then?

A search for the memory of R.E.M. in Athens, Georgia.
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Where Kansas Bled

How can one place represent the complexity of the Civil War’s beginnings?
Residents of the United States' first government-built planned "utopian" community in Greenbelt.

Greenbelt, Future Home of the FBI, was Planned as a New Deal ‘Utopia’

Greenbelt was designed in 1935 as a community created, built, populated and even furnished entirely by the federal government. Now the FBI is set to move in.
Residents seek higher ground on the roof of a home as floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina cover the streets on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 in New Orleans

How Hurricane Katrina Changed Disaster Preparedness

Hurricane Katrina exposed deep inequities in federal disaster response. "We never felt so cut off in all our lives."
Old stone walls and trees in a New England meadow

How Stone Walls Became a Signature Landform of New England

Originally built as barriers between fields and farms, the region’s abandoned farmstead walls have since become the binding threads of its cultural fabric.
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Borderland Stories

What we remember when we remember the Alamo.
People scavenging through garbage on a barge in New York City

A History of Garbage

The history of garbage dumps is the history of America.
The Cross-Bronx Expressway, April 1971. Photo by Dan McCoy/Environmental Protection Agency/National Archives

How the New York of Robert Moses Shaped my Father’s Health

My dad grew up in Robert Moses’s New York City. His story is a testament to how urban planning shapes countless lives.
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The Richest Square Mile on Earth

Almost by accident, we find ourselves at the epicenter of the Colorado Gold Rush, which attracted prospectors to the Rockies a decade after the famous bonanza of ‘49.
A woman standing with arms outstretched

The Last Lighthouse Keeper in America

In a technological age, impassioned devotees renew an ancient maritime tradition.
A crowd of tourist superimposed over images of Salem attractions and a cemetery.

Salem’s Unholy Bargain: How Tragedy Became an Attraction

Is the cost worth the payoff?
Thomkins H. Matteson's painting of George Jacobs' witchcraft trial in 1855

The Salem Witch Trials Actually Happened in Danvers, Massachusetts

Tensions between Salem and Danvers were there from the start—contributing to the ensuing witch hysteria.
Sparkles in light coming through windows of an empty room.

Signs of Ghosts

What do we do when there are whole cities full of ghosts, each one with their own unique story to tell, each one with something left undone?
A modern paper map of Boston, marked with Sharpie lines.

Boston's Map, Explained

Boston has more "made" land than any other American city.
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Oregon Trails

After navigating a minor hiccup in our own provisioning process, we set out for the West on what would be our longest trip yet.
A drawing of Corcoran State Prison with water approaching. The top of the image reads "In Harm's Way".

In California, Climate Chaos Looms Over Prisons — and Thousands of Prisoners

How decades-old decisions to build two California prisons in a dry lakebed and a chaotic climate left 8,000 incarcerated people at risk.
African American man looking at a dilapidated house

A New Doc, "Silver Dollar Road," Chronicles the Dispossession of Black Americans

"It's the story of a family who had been denied justice about a piece of land they owned for at least 160 years."
Bison drinking from a pond.

How the Iron Horse Spelled Doom for the American Buffalo

From homesteaders to tourists to the U.S. Army, railroads flooded the Great Plains with people who saw bison as pests, amusements, or opportunities for profit.
Grant Wood’s sister, Nan Wood Graham, and his dentist, Byron McKeeby, stand by the painting for which they had posed, “American Gothic.”

Beyond the Myth of Rural America

Its inhabitants are as much creatures of state power and industrial capitalism as their city-dwelling counterparts.
Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen .
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How the American Suburbs Created Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel

The musical culture of the New York metropolitan area, combined with themes of suburban life, suffuse the legends' music.
QR code on a historical monument.

In San Antonio, Remembering More Than the Alamo

Innovators are using digital tools to tell stories of the city’s Black and Latinx history.
Post card depicting coal miners in PA

When Did Americans Start Using Fossil Fuel?

The nineteenth-century establishment of mid-Atlantic coal mines and canals gave America its first taste of abundant fossil fuel energy.
Civilian gravestone in Arlington National Cemetery

From ‘Contraband’ to ‘Citizen’: Visiting Arlington’s Section 27

More than 3,800 formerly enslaved people are buried in the military cemetery.
Cover of the book "American Purgatory"

American Purgatory: Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration

A new book links the rise of American prisons to the expansion of American power around the globe.
Modoc leader Captain Jack.

150 Years Ago, the US Military Executed Modoc War Leaders in Fort Klamath, Oregon

A small band of Modoc warriors held off hundreds of U.S. soldiers in California. Ultimately, the conflict left the Modoc leaders dead and the tribe divided.
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Edgar Allan Poe’s America

Tracing the life of the author who seemed to be from both everywhere and nowhere.
The Serpent Mound in Ohio

The Story of Ohio's Ancient Native Complex and its Journey for Recognition as a World Heritage Site

An Indigenous sacred site, Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks has served as a military barracks, a fairground and, more recently, a golf course.
Photo of the Hermann the German Monument in New Ulm, Minnesota

Hermann the German: Settler Colonial Inscription in Minnesota

What does Hermann’s watchful position over New Ulm—stolen Dakota homelands— reveal about settler colonialism and the geography of memory?
A photograph of a young Black boy riding a bicycle.

Re-thinking Black (Im)mobility

The bicycle is a symbol of youth, but in the mid-twentieth century it also symbolized Black joy and mobility.
1906 plan of proposed street widening in San Francisco.

Putting Chinatown on the Map: Resisting Displacement through Infrastructural Advocacy

How San Francisco's Chinatown community used infrastructure as a conduit for identity, empowerment, and resilience.