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On language and modes of communication.

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Covers of paperbacks by white journalists who tried living as African Americans.

The Strange History of White Journalists Trying to “Become” Black

"To believe that the richness of Black identity can be understood through a temporary costume trivializes the lifelong trauma of racism. It turns the complexity of Black life into a stunt."
by Alisha Gaines via Nieman Lab on June 17, 2024
Victorian telegraph operator.

What Mark Zuckerberg Should Learn From 19th-Century Telegraph Operators

No, really.
by Megan Ward via Slate on May 27, 2024
Syntactic trees filled with words and numbers.

American Grammar: Diagraming Sentences in the 19th Century

A pre-history of the sentence diagrams that were once commonplace in the American classroom.
by Hunter Dukes via The Public Domain Review on June 19, 2024
Illustration of man throwing football to sports broadcaster.

Before and After the Contest: Wraparound Sportscasting Through the Ages

National Football League pre- and postgame shows have become a testing ground for novel technology in the waning days of linear television.
by Chloe Lizotte via Mubi on August 1, 2024

Exhibits

Mary Cassatt painting of a nurse reading to a little girl.
Exhibit

Reading About Reading

Read up on the history of books.

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Truth and Truthiness

Americans have been arguing over the role and rules of journalism since the very beginning.

You Had to Be There

Whose side is the war correspondent on?
by Zoë Hu via The Baffler on November 5, 2024
Man reading a newspaper

A Brief Literary History of the Newspaper Endorsement

When did endorsements become pro forma, anyway? And what do they even do?
by Brittany Allen via Literary Hub on October 30, 2024
Three men using the large UNIVAC computer to predict the 1952 election, with two reading a printed readout and one using a phone.

The Year Election Night First Became a TV Event

In 1952, news stations combined two new technologies—the TV and the computer—to forever transform how voters experience election night.
by Jordan Friedman via HISTORY on October 28, 2024
A Gallup poll.

Lessons From the Birth of Modern Opinion Polling

As George Gallup pioneered new methods of surveying the public, The Nation opined on their dangers—and democratic possibilities.
by Richard Kreitner via The Nation on October 24, 2024
Taylor Swift's Instagram post endorsing Kamala Harris. Swift is holding a cat and facing the camera, dressed in black.

Taylor Swift and the History of the Celebrity Endorsement

Do pop culture interventions in presidential elections make a difference?
by Addie Mahmassani via New Lines Magazine on October 23, 2024
A photograph of the massive AIDS memorial quilt with the Washington Monument in the background.

“I Am the Face of AIDS”

Ryan White helped challenge existing understandings of the AIDS epidemic. But his story also reinforced arbitrary divisions between the guilty and the innocent.
by Paul M. Renfro via Public Books on October 22, 2024
George Floyd protest

Reflections of the 60th Anniversary of Urban Uprisings in America

The media narrative used to discredit urban rebellions as violent betrayals of the civil rights movement has been attached to protests ever since.
by Heather Ann Thompson via Black Perspectives on October 17, 2024
George Gallup reenacting his polling methods on a talk show.

The Problems with Polls

Political polling’s greatest achievement is its complete co-opting of our understanding of public opinion, which we can no longer imagine without it.
by Samuel Earle via New York Review of Books on September 26, 2024
Phil Donahue.

Phil Donahue’s Cold War Legacy

The late telejournalist was a pioneer of informal diplomacy between American and Soviet citizens.
by Adriel Kasonta via The American Conservative on September 25, 2024
The silhouette of a colonial American man overlayed on the front page of Publick Occurrences.

Why the Debut Issue of America’s First Newspaper Was Also the Publication’s Last

The paper angered colonial officials by repeating a scandalous rumor and condemning a British alliance with the Mohawk.
by Meilan Solly via Smithsonian on September 25, 2024
Kamala Harris on stage at a campaign rally

The Polling Imperilment

Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago. So why do they consume our political lives?
by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on September 25, 2024
Homepage of Freedom Seekers website.

Freedom Seekers: Stories of Black Liberation in the American Revolutionary Era and Beyond

A new digital project shows how those who escaped slavery were important actors in the challenge not just to their own enslavement but to slavery more broadly.
by Billy G. Smith, Simon Newman, Antonio T. Bly, Gloria McCahon Whiting via Commonplace on September 24, 2024
A newspaper headline that reads "Ask Congress' Ban on Fake Pictures: White Slaver's Photograph Taken Apparently with President Taft Arouses Senator.""

The 1912 War on Fake Photos

Fake photographs of the US president sparked calls for regulation of analog photo editing.
by Louis Anslow via Pessimists Archive on September 24, 2024
Political cartoon of a politician with his clothes removed, revealing tattoos showing corruption.
partner

Campaign Missteps: Gaffes on the Trail

How a single phrase or blunder can end up dominating our political discourse.
via Retro Report on September 20, 2024
Police officer in front of a playground and school.

The Historical Precedents to Trump’s Attacks on Haitian Immigrants

An expert on white nationalism explains how such demonizing rhetoric incubates and spreads—and what sets this particular episode apart.
by Kathleen Belew, Isaac Chotiner via The New Yorker on September 18, 2024
Trump at the debate in Philadelphia.

Why Republican Politicians Keep Claiming Immigrants Eat Cats and Dogs

"They’re eating the pets of the people that live there," former President Trump claimed — with no basis — at the first presidential debate.
by Bettina Makalintal via Eater on September 11, 2024
Abstract painting of Black people.

The Messiness of Black Identity

Can language unify the people?
by Doreen St. Félix via The New Yorker on September 7, 2024
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How 'The Campus' Captured Our Imaginations—And Our Politics

At least since the 1960s, a warped vision of college life has shaped U.S. culture and politics.
by Adrian Daub via Made By History on September 3, 2024
Emmett Till's photo is seen on his grave marker in 2002.

Journalist Withheld Information About Emmett Till’s Murder, Documents Show

William Bradford Huie’s newly released research notes show he suspected more than two men tortured and killed Emmett Till, but suggest that he left it out.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on August 29, 2024
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An Early Case of Impostor Syndrome

Why were so many early European books laden with self-deprecation? Blame genre conventions.
by Katherine Churchill via HNN on August 27, 2024
Kamala Harris stands in front of a crowd of voters holidng "Freedom" signs.

Kamala Harris’s “Freedom” Campaign

Democrats’ years-long efforts to reclaim the word are cresting in this year’s Presidential race.
by Peter Slevin via The New Yorker on August 23, 2024
Harris on a tv screen.

TV Still Runs Politics

Just about every major development in the current presidential campaign started as a television event.
by Paul Farhi via The Atlantic on August 22, 2024
"American Progress" painting by John Gast, 1872.

Reconsidering Expansion

Historians question "expansion" as the defining process of U.S. growth, proposing alternative terms like "empire" and "settler colonialism."
by Rachel St. John via Teaching American History on August 20, 2024
Joe Biden waving.

Joe Biden and the Art of the Presidential Farewell

Plus: How George Washington almost ruined his own exit from the national stage.
by Lindsay M. Chervinsky via The Bulwark on August 19, 2024
Reddy Kilowatt mascott emerging from an outlet.

The Energy Mascot that Electrified America

An animation historian on Reddy Kilowatt, the cartoon charged with electrifying everything in the early 20th century.
by Mike Munsell, Kirsten Moana Thompson via Heatmap on August 5, 2024
Lieutenant William Calley leaving court with his attorney George Latimer.

Tracking Down Lieutenant Calley

How I learned the story of the My Lai Massacre.
by Seymour M. Hersh via seymourhersh.substack on August 1, 2024
Illustration of man throwing football to sports broadcaster.

Before and After the Contest: Wraparound Sportscasting Through the Ages

National Football League pre- and postgame shows have become a testing ground for novel technology in the waning days of linear television.
by Chloe Lizotte via Mubi on August 1, 2024

What It Means to ‘Willie Horton’ a Political Candidate

Donald Trump supporters run their version of the original dog-whistle attack ad against Kamala Harris. Here’s the history.
by Beth Schwartzapfel via The Marshall Project on July 31, 2024
Charles Lindbergh addressing a rally of the America First Committee in 1941.

Stop Saying "Isolationist"

It's misleading, invidious, and it obscures what's actually bad and scary about right-wing nationalist foreign policy.
by Tim Barker via Origins of Our Time on July 19, 2024
Doodles, flourishes and scribbles drawn by George Washington.

Doodle Nation: Notes on Distracted Drawing

Humans have doodled for as long as they have written and drawn, but psychoanalysis began to imagine the doodle as a key to understanding the unconscious mind.
by Polly Dickson via The Paris Review on July 17, 2024
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