Excerpts

The first woman to run for president was infamous in her day.

Religion was no barrier for Southern lynch mobs intent on terror.

Abortion in the 19th century was widely accepted as a means of avoiding the risks of pregnancy.

In the 1960s, a man named Robert E. Simon Jr. dreamed of a city that would be open to all, regardless of race or income: Reston, VA.

More than a century before GoPro, Thomas Stevens’ around-the-world bike ride vaulted first-person “sports porn” into the mainstream.

How an industry responded to the needs of workers and of the federal government during a time of rapid mobilization for wartime production.

American government succeeded, Tocqueville thought, because it didn’t empower the people too much.

Paul Samuelson’s mathematical brilliance changed economics, but it was his popular touch that made him a household name.

Joetha Collier, a young Black woman, was killed by a white man in 1971, near the Mississippi town where Emmett Till was murdered. Why isn’t her case well-known today?

100 years ago, it took a combination of salesman and dictator to launch a historic era for black teams.

How feminists transformed Valium from a wonder drug to a symbol of medical sexism.

Why our politics are growing ever more extreme — and democracy itself is under siege.

An interview with Jesse Tarbert about the history of the American state, “big government,” and the legacy of government reform efforts.

Is the American conception of constitutional rights too absolute?

The fundamentalist movement took the war as an opportunity to rebrand.

In the 1950s, 'coming out' meant quietly acknowledging one's sexual orientation. Today, the term is used by a broad array of social movements.

The author of new book explains the fraught and turbulent relationship between religion and government in the U.S.

The school said it had benefited from slave-generated wealth and practiced racial discrimination.

How cars changed the lives of black Americans.

A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin knew the fates of the civil rights and labor movements were intertwined. The same is true today.

Digitization allows researchers to trace editorial and authorial changes in archival content. Both are central to the study of this famous abolitionist pamphlet.

Dreams of Central America in the era of the Erie Canal.

The public widely opposed wiretapping until the 1970s. What changed?

Neo-Nazi propaganda, military deployment and the F.B.I. raid in Waco, Texas, radicalized Timothy McVeigh and led to the Oklahoma City attack.

In "A Nation of Descendants," Francesca Morgan traces the American use and abuse of genealogy from the Daughters of the American Revolution to Roots.

What the president understood that the zealous Republican reformers in Congress didn’t.

When Washington left the presidency, he didn’t really leave politics at all.

Our first President understood that armed citizens are essential to American freedom.

Throughout history, the family bomb shelter has reflected the shifting optimism, anxieties, and cynicism of the nuclear age.

What connection does the party of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson have to the party of Barack Obama and Kamala Harris?

When Pete Townshend whacked Abbie Hoffman offstage.

Before Bernie Bros vs. the DNC, there was Jesse Jackson vs. the Atari Democrats.

In a sermon two weeks after MLK's funeral, Walker urged young seminarians to be hopeful and take action for making change happen. His sermon has valuable lessons today.

How the dental history of the nation’s first president is interwoven with slavery and privilege.

Alan Berg was an outspoken radio host known for debating people with racist views. His death in a 1984 shooting uncovered a web of white supremacists.

Lisa C. Hickman reconstructs William Faulkner’s tumultuous Hollywood sojourn of 1932–1936.

I live in a place where the wind blows history into my path.

Bernie Sanders is a Democratic Socialist, a potential problem for the presidential candidate. A Cold War campaign to link American-ness and capitalism helped create popular distrust of socialism.

Searching for meaning in the shooters’ infamous “basement tapes.”

Nikole Hannah-Jones' new book sidesteps scholarly critics while quietly deleting previous factual errors.

The Confederate Army required owners to loan their slaves to the military. The National Archives has now digitized those records.

The GE exec was known for his big personality. He should be known for the role he played in creating America's toxic corporate culture on a base of inequality.

How high-fructose corn syrup became an American staple.

Ben Katchor's Brief History of the Dairy Restaurant.

Satire and an inflated sense of self-importance collide in a series of maps that goes back more than 100 years in American history.

The iconic songwriter has transcended time and place for 60 years. What should that mean for the rest of us?

Failing upward with Oliver North.

The dark history of how coffee took over the world.

The counterculture dictum to “turn on, tune in, drop out” did not quite capture Janis’s philosophy to “get it while you can.”

While New York has yet to break away from the rest of the country, it's not for lack of trying.