Excerpts

When the U.S. first encountered the “Aesthetic Apostle."

An excerpt from the most recent book, "Not 'A Nation of Immigrants': Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion."

On race, borders and belonging.

A brief history of trying to save city streets from pet waste.

On early American attempts to kick out foreigners.

After decades of keeping her identity a secret, Jane Roe’s child has chosen to talk about her life.

"My job as your mother is to tell you these stories differently, and to tell you other stories that don’t get told at school.”

Celebrations of multiculturalism obscure the country’s settler colonial history—and the role that immigrants play in perpetuating it.

On the roads and seas miners traveled to reach gold in the United States and Australia.

And the lone forecaster who predicted its deadly path.

The daring women whose transatlantic journeys challenged gender roles.

During the 1860 presidential election, political parties dueled over the intent of the framers.

Whether economic times are good or bad, the lament for the old days of factories and mills never changes.

The ghosts of the uranium boom continue to haunt the land, water and people.

Hell hath no fury like a man with a vaginal douche named after him.

Early Americans conscripted the universe into their nation-building project.

On the rise and fall of radium in the beauty industry.

In the decades after the Civil War, Black Americans warned of the dangers of Confederate monuments.

Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford on the making of a misrepresented narrative.

Hyphenation became a complex issue of identity, assimilation, and xenophobia amid anti-immigration movements at the turn of the twentieth century.

How African Americans came to Indian Territory after the Civil War.

Upon discovering that her mother had been a member of the group Women Strike For Peace (WSP), Heidi Hutner becomes obsessed with feminist nuclear history.

On the Shakers and Catholics who found love and friendship in early America.

The rise of liberal religion in the United States.

Karlos K. Hill investigates the disturbing photographic legacy of the Tulsa massacre and the resilience of Black Wall Street’s residents.

An 80-by-10 grid punched into a paper card helped drive us out of the Industrial Age and into the Data Age.

Kevin Cook on the warnings NASA ignored, with tragic results.

Mark Edmundson on the great American poet as a defender of democracy.

How African American women represented Black motherhood in the early nineteenth century.

One grieving widower turned his trauma into inspiration for one of the country’s greatest outdoor ideas.

Amid all the imperial aspiration, wooly-minded New Age mythologizing, and pure unadulterated commerce, the obelisk stands tall.

Our foremothers wove spiritual beliefs, cultural values, and historical knowledge into their flax, wool, silk, and cotton webs.

Although he did not openly endorse every one of the many precepts of the antislavery Constitution, Lincoln framed his positions entirely within its parameters.

The vagrancy law regime regulated so much more than what is generally considered “vagrancy.”

Is Phil Collins's legendary collection everything it's cracked up to be?

Ken Ellingwood on the social and political function of political media.

The Museum of Modern Art was among several institutions that aided the CIA in its propaganda efforts, according to the new book ArtCurious.

Cate Doty on the evolution of a society mainstay.

When factories created a population of tired workers, a new frontier in fatigue studies was born.

Audrey Clare Farley on the scientists who weaponized biology.

For some Americans, history isn’t the story of what actually happened; it’s the story they want to believe.

Reflections on "A Love Supreme," artistic transformation, and the Black Arts Movement.

How the American Anti-Slavery Almanac became an influential best seller.

A photo archive shows college coeds vacuuming, preparing baby bottles, diapering babies, and generally practicing at motherhood.

How midlife crises—and menopause—came to be defined by the experience of men.

Thomas Paine, the most radical of American revolutionaries, perhaps most fully understood the millennial potential of the new Republic.

Kevin Dann on the spiritualists of New York City and beyond.

The former first lady fought the conservative Reagan administration in an attempt to get her husband to pay more attention to the deadly pandemic.

For centuries, settlers pushed Natives off the land. But they continued to use indigenous language to name, describe, and anoint the world around them.

On the legal foundations that spurred centuries of civil rights movements.