Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
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Museum diorama replica of miners eating.

How to Eat Like a 19th Century Colorado Gold-Miner

A confluence of cross-cultural foodways fed a series of Colorado’s mining booms, and can still be tasted across the state today.
Participants celebrate during the L.A. Pride Parade in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles on June 12, 2022.
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The History Missing From the LGBTQ Story Told During Pride Month

Why reinserting race and class into our understanding of Pride is so important.
Abortion rights advocates protest near the Supreme Court building in Washington on June 24.
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The 1960s Provide a Path For Securing Legal Abortion in 2022

How activists can secure legal abortion with a diverse all-of-the-above movement.
Members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union break open barrels of liquor seized during Prohibition, 1929.

Roe Is the New Prohibition

The pro-life movement needs to know that such culture wars result not in outright victory for one side but in reaction and compromise.
Lithograph depicting Margert Garner standing over the body of her dead daughter, to the shock of slave catchers.
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Discarding Legal Precedent to Control Women's Reproductive Rights is Rooted in Colonial Slavery

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made reference to the legal opinions of English jurist Henry de Bracton, foreshadowing the court overturning Roe v. Wade.
James Madison
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What Would Madison Think of Originalism? Depends When You Asked Him.

The concern of this article is with the unraveling of precedent based upon a judicial philosophy known as originalism.
Black and white photo of D-Day Normandy Landings

For the Anniversary of D-Day - Blitzkrieg Manquée? Or, a New Mode of "Firepower War"?

Why and how did D-Day succeed? The question has given postwar historians no peace.
Graphic of money breaking the chains holding black hands.

There’s No Freedom Without Reparations

A movement to secure payments for descendants of enslaved people rages on.
A 1912 painting by Edward Percy Moran shows Francis Scott Key pointing to the American flag at Fort McHenry in Baltimore.

The National Anthem Was a 19th-Century Meme

Like many patriotic songs of its time, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ was created by fitting a popular tune with topical new lyrics.
Black and white photo of Women's Overseas Service League Members
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"Our Best Memorial to the Dead Would be Our Service to the Living"

By learning about an overlooked cohort of women who served in World War I, we can expand our understandings of memorials beyond physical statues and monuments.
Painting of Patent Office in 1855

A Sea of “Savage Islands”: How Antebellum Americans at Home Imagined the Pacific World

When most U.S. nationals in the early republic thought of the Pacific Ocean, they conjured lands instead.
Minnehaha County Courthouse

Seeking the Last Remnants of South Dakota’s ‘Divorce Colony’

How Sioux Falls became a controversial Gilded Age “Mecca for the mismated.”
Members of the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps pose on Minerva Terrace at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park in 1896. From Montana Historical Society.

The Black Buffalo Soldiers Who Biked Across the American West

In 1897, the 25th Infantry Regiment Bicycle Corps embarked on a 1,900-mile journey from Montana to Missouri.
6 African American's at an Emancipation Day celebration on June 19, 1900

The History of How Emancipated People Were Kept Unfree Needs To Be Remembered Too

Emancipation Days symbolized America’s attempt to free the enslaved across the nation. But those days were unable to prevent new forms of economic slavery.
Mug shot of a woman in the Jane Collective.
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Abortion Was Illegal. This Secret Group Defied the Law.

We tell the story of the Jane Collective, which provided thousands of illegal abortions fin Chicago rom 1969 to 1973, before Roe v. Wade.
Angela Davis meeting with Communist Party leader Valentina Tereshkova

Angela Davis, Charlene Mitchell, and the NAARPR

A Red-Black alliance defended political prisoners and drew attention to death and prison sentences disproportionately handed out to people of color.
Alexander Berkman speaks in Union Square at a gathering of the Industrial Workers of the World.

The “Wobblies” Documentary Reminds Us Why Bosses Are Still Scared of the IWW

The recently rereleased 1979 film can teach today’s workers how to throw their weight around.
Former attorney general John N. Mitchell appears before the Senate Watergate Committee in Washington, D.C., on July 11, 1973.
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Primetime Watergate Hearings Helped Make PBS a National Network

Mired in a funding crisis — and the target of politicians — the hearings transformed public broadcasting.
Photo of Franklin Delano Roosevelt grilling hot dogs.

Why American Leaders Relish Hot-Dog Diplomacy

For 80 years, wieners have been an essential component of foreign policy.
Photo of Vincent Chin superimposed on "Stop Anti-Asian Attacks" Protests.

Remembering Vincent Chin — And The Deep Roots of Anti-Asian Violence

40 years after Vincent Chin’s murder, the struggle against anti-Asian hate continues.
Delegates from 34 tribes in front of Creek Council House, Indian Territory, in 1880.

We Have Always Been Global: Tribal Nations in the Democratic Slide

In the 19th century, Native American nations were early pioneers in constitutional democracy.
Arlen Parsa's Painting, Declaration of Independence Revisited (2019), the famous painting of the signing but with red dots over the faces of slaveholders.

How to Decolonize the Capitol

Art historians, legislators, and activists have long decried themes of white supremacy in the art collection of the U.S. Capitol. Can this place be decolonized?
Muscular men in underwear doing competitive sport fighting while others watch.

Dangerous as the Plague

The rhetoric that the Nazis used to denounce gay men mirrors that coming from the right in the United States today. Both view queerness as a contagion.
A parrot and a monkey superimposed over a map of Northern California. Illustration by Emily Lankiewicz.

The Monkeys and Parrots Caught Up in the California Gold Rush

Researchers combed through 19th-century records and found evidence of the species, which joined a menagerie that included Galapagos tortoises and kangaroos.
Attendees pray during a worship service at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Anaheim, California, on June 14, 2022.

The History of Southern Baptists Shows They Have Not Always Opposed Abortion

How the Southern Baptist Convention’s views on abortion changed during the 1980s, when a more conservative wing seized control of the denomination.
Harriet Tubman in the late 1860s.

When Harriet Tubman Met John Brown

Looking back at the short but deep friendship of John Brown and Harriet Tubman, who gave their lives to the abolitionist cause.
An enslaved Alabama family and the question of generational wealth in the US

An Enslaved Alabama Family and the Question of Generational Wealth in the US

Wealthy planter Samuel Townshend wanted to leave this estate to his children when he died—an ordinary enough wish. The trouble was: his children were enslaved.
Photo of Jane Grant.

Confession of a Feminist I

A serialized biography of Jane Grant (1892-1972), first woman reporter at The New York Times and co-founder of The New Yorker.

The Lesbian As Villain or Victim

In Oregon in the 1960s, the debate over capital punishment hinged on shifting interpretations of the gendered female body.
Swimmers of all ages enjoy the Tidal Basin Bathing Beach in 1922. (Photo source: Library of Congress)

Cooling Off in the Tidal Basin

In the 1920s, Washingtonians dealt with the summer heat by going to the nearest beach...at the Tidal Basin.
Painting of Daniel Boone escorting settlers through the Cumberland Gap by George Caleb Bingham. (Washington University, St. Louis)

The Articles of Confederation and Western Expansion

In settling a rivalry between Maryland and Virginia and preventing individual states from getting into bed with France and Spain, maybe the Articles weren't a failure after all.
Still from The Wire (HBO): two detectives, McNulty and Bunk.

20 Years Later, "The Wire" Is Still a Cutting Critique of American Capitalism

The Wire — both stylish and smart, follows unforgettable characters woven into a striking portrait of the depredations of capitalism in one US city.
Noam Chomsky

“Every Time We Build Up Our Military Budget, We’re Attacking Ourselves”

Noam Chomsky discusses the hypocrisies of US empire and why if we really wanted to build a decent society, we’d immediately slash the massive military budget.
Collage of photos of musicians.

How a Saxophonist Tricked the KGB by Encrypting Secrets in Music

Using a custom encryption scheme based on musical notation, US musicians smuggled information into and out of the USSR.
Students and professor at a 19th century furnace in the Jefferson National Forest.

In Jefferson National Forest, Trees are Survivors

"The tallest trees at Roaring Run remember sending down taproots even as the furnace stones were still warm. Desecration is not ironclad."
Two helicopters flying low over the rice paddies of South Vietnam looking for Viet Cong insurgents during the Tet Offensive in 1968. (Keith Tarrier / shuttlestock.com)

Whither, America?

At the turn of the century, two important books wrestled with the question of how a nation "conceived in liberty" should engage with the world.
Poster for HBO documentary "Exterminate All the Brutes," featuring a human skull painted to look like a globe.

We Must Burn Them: Against the Origin Story

"History​ is written by the victors, but diligent and continual silencing is required to maintain its claims on the present and future."
Illustration from Percival Lowell's Mars as the Abode of Life, 1908.

Alien Aqueducts: The Maps of Martian Canals

Observing the visible features of Martian landscapes, Giovanni Schiaparelli began seeing things almost immediately.
Photo illustration of a button causing death courtesy of MIT Press Reader.

How Americans Got Comfortable With Killing at the Push of a Button

For years, the idea seemed immoral and dangerous.
"The Patriot" Newspaper featuring a political cartoon in which immigrants hold signs of disloyalty while Americans stand for constitution and laws.

Xenophobia Powers the United States

Since 1892, the United States has deported more immigrants (over 57 million) than any other nation.
A picture of switchboard operators.

Intimacy at a Distance

Hannah Zeavin’s history of remote and distance psychotherapy asks us whether the medium matters more than the message.
Statue of a man reading to children: the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial, Annapolis, Maryland.

Black Genealogy After Alex Haley’s Roots

"A lot has been hidden from Black Americans. And so there is always a longing to know who you are and where you come from.”
Harvey Milk (left) at Gay Pride, San Jose, California 1978.

Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech

Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.
The Supreme Court Building in the nation's capital.

A Family’s Journey From a School Prayer Dispute to the Supreme Court

The Weisman family objected to religious prayers at a 1986 school graduation. The case went to the Supreme Court, which is again ruling on prayer in schools.
"IX" surrounded by female athletes

The Pursuit of Equal Play: Reflecting on 50 Years of Title IX

How a 37-word clause tucked inside a new education legislation reshape women’s sports forever.
Free Julian Assange free speech protesters
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The Espionage Act Has Become Dangerous Because We Forgot Its Intention

The Julian Assange case exposes how changing concepts unintentionally broadened a law.
People on a rollercoaster

Are We Having Too Much Fun?

In 1985, Neil Postman observed an America imprisoned by its own need for amusement. He was, it turns out, extremely prescient.
Phyllis Schlafly and a group of supporters with signs and "Stop ERA" buttons.

The End of the Equal Rights Amendment

As the deadline to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment lapsed in June 1982, the amendment's foes celebrated, while its proponents looked to the future.
Flooding in Livingston, Montana, with Yellowstone National Park mountains in the background.

What Extreme Flooding in Yellowstone Means for the National Park's Gateway Towns

These communities rely almost entirely on tourism for their existence—yet too much tourism, not to mention climate change, can destroy them.
Michikinikwa ("Little Turtle") statue by Douglas Hyde.

Native Prohibition in the Federal Courts

Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Congress enacted several laws restricting the sale of alcohol to Native Americans.
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