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John Quincy Adams Kept a Diary and Didn’t Skimp on the Details

On the occasion of his 250th birthday, the making of our sixth president in his own words.
by Sara Georgini via Smithsonian Magazine on July 11, 2017
John Adams

How John Quincy Adams Made Lincoln Possible

Adams, whose 250th birthday is today, did not end slavery but his battle against the House "Gag Rule" helped pave the way.
by Richard Samuelson via Weekly Standard on July 11, 2017
Sojourner Truth

Compare the Two Versions of Sojourner Truth's “Ain’t I a Woman” Speech

Why is there more than one version of the famous 1851 speech?
by Leslie Podell via The Sojourner Truth Project on June 6, 2017
Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau: A Radical for All Seasons

The surprising persistence of Henry David Thoreau.
by Jedediah Britton-Purdy via The Nation on June 1, 2017
Walden Pond through the trees.

Darwin's Early Adopters

A new book argues that Darwin failed to capture the American imagination because of the untimely death of Henry David Thoreau.
by John Hay via Public Books on April 5, 2017
U.S. soldiers in the Civil War.

Expanding the Slaveocracy

The international ambitions of the US slaveholding class and the abolitionist movement that brought them down.
by Eric Foner, Matthew Karp via Jacobin on March 21, 2017

How The Hutchinson Family Singers Achieved Pop Stardom with an Anti-Slavery Anthem

"Get Off the Track!" borrowed the melody of a racist hit song and helped give a public voice to the abolitionist movement.
by Tom Maxwell via Longreads on March 7, 2017
Corey M. Brooks, Liberty Power: Antislavery Third Parties and the Transformation of American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

#FEELTHEBIRNEY

The most important third party in the history of American politics is one you may never have heard of before.
by W. Caleb McDaniel via Commonplace on September 4, 2016
Booker T. Washington writing at a desk.

Toward a Usable Black History

It will help black Americans to recall that they have a history that transcends victimization and exclusion.
by John McWhorter via City Journal on December 23, 2015

3 Reasons the American Revolution Was a Mistake

Washington changed the world forever when he crossed the Delaware—for the worse.
by Dylan Matthews via Vox on July 2, 2015
A painting of U.S. Navy Lt. Stephen Decatur battling Muslim sailors, Tripoli, August 1804.

America’s Forgotten Images of Islam

Popular early U.S. tales depicted Muslims as menacing figures in faraway lands or cardboard moral paragons.
by Peter Manseau via The Wall Street Journal on February 27, 2015

Black History Is American History

What is the greatest libertarian accomplishment of all time? The abolition of slavery.
by David Boaz via Cato Institute on February 11, 2015
Raised scars on the back of a formerly enslaved man.

“A Typical Negro”

Gordon, Peter, Vincent Colyer, and the story behind slavery's most famous photograph.
by David Silkenat via American Nineteenth Century History on August 8, 2014

The Weeping Time

A forgotten history of the largest slave auction ever on American soil.
by Kristopher Monroe via The Atlantic on July 10, 2014
Side-by-side portraits of Franklin Pierce and Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Dix and Franklin Pierce: The Battle for the Mentally Ill

Dorothea Dix and Franklin Pierce were in many ways ideological soulmates, but he would not help her effort to improve conditions for the mentally ill.
via New England Historical Society on February 8, 2014
Thaddeus Stevens imagined as a boxer.

Remarkable Radical: Thaddeus Stevens

Thaddeus Stevens was a fearsome reformer who never backed down from a fight.
by Steve Moyer via Humanities on November 1, 2012

A Topic Best Avoided

After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln faced the issue of sorting out a nation divided over the issue of freed slaves. But what were his views on it?
by Nicholas Guyatt via London Review of Books on December 1, 2011
John Ridge

Cherokee Slaveholders and Radical Abolitionists

An unlikely alliance in antebellum America.
by Natalie Joy via Commonplace on July 1, 2011
Harriet Beecher Stowe imagining her characters.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the Art of Persuasion

Stowe’s novel shifted public opinion about slavery so dramatically that it has often been credited with fuelling the war that destroyed the institution.
by Annette Gordon-Reed via The New Yorker on June 6, 2011

Phillis Wheatley: an Eighteenth-Century Genius in Bondage

Vincent Carretta takes a look at the remarkable life of the first ever African-American woman to be published.
by Vincent Carretta via The Public Domain Review on December 2, 2006
Black and white divided star on the cover of "Two Nations" by Andrew Hacker.

The American Dilemma

The moral contradiction of a nation torn between allegiance to its highest ideals and awareness of the base realities of racial discrimination.
by David Brion Davis via New York Review of Books on July 16, 1992
William Lloyd Garrison.

From William Lloyd Garrison to Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

There has been a long history of nonviolent resistance in the United States, from William Lloyd Garrison to Martin Luther King Jr.
by Bennett Parten via Public Seminar on November 18, 2025
The Jefferson Memorial, with storm clouds outside, and light from within.

How Jefferson’s Words Were Doctored in his Memorial

A great-great-grandson pushed to portray Jefferson as an abolitionist, leaving a misleading impression about his actions on equality and slavery.
by Michael Kranish via Washington Post on November 2, 2025
Lincoln, Washington, and a snippet from a lyceum address.

The Lincoln Way

How he used America’s past to rescue its future.
by Jake Lundberg via The Atlantic on October 10, 2025
Collage illustration of a founder, Declaration of Independence, and the body of an enslaved person whose arms are in chains.

Whose Independence?

The question of what Jefferson meant by “all men” has defined American law and politics for too long.
by Annette Gordon-Reed via The Atlantic on October 9, 2025
Charles Sumner

The Senator Will Not Yield

Charles Sumner's example reminds us that "with enough courage and drive, can alter the trajectory of American racial history."
by H. W. Brands via The Washington Free Beacon on August 10, 2025
Totwar Land Office building.

No Place of Grace

Coming to terms with free-state slavery through historic buildings and public history.
by Richard Newman via The Panorama on July 7, 2025
Samuel Gompers the president of the American Federation of Labor in December 1920.

America’s Brutal Capitalist Class Tamed Its Labor Movement

The unique brutality of the US capitalist class bred a labor movement that has often limited itself to being a private insurance provider.
by Maya Adereth via Jacobin on July 7, 2025
Graphic of a nickel displays the words "nullification," "compact," and "sever" on Jefferson's head.

Thomas Jefferson Would Like A Word With You

Thomas Jefferson's limited government ideal quickly conflicted with the U.S. Constitution and the dominant Federalist Party, prompting a radical proposal.
by Michael Liss via 3 Quarks Daily on June 16, 2025
Charles Sumner

How Charles Sumner Convinced Abraham Lincoln and the Union To Take a Stand Against Slavery

The domestic and international dynamics of the early days of the Civil War.
by Zaakir Tameez via Literary Hub on June 11, 2025
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