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The Depression-Era Book That Wanted to Cancel the Rent

“Modern Housing,” by Catherine Bauer, argued—as many activists do today—that a decent home should be seen as a public utility and a basic right.
The USS Constitution glides through Boston Harbor.
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Early Americans Knew Better Than President Trump How To Prioritize Health

A public uprising forced Boston to prioritize fighting smallpox over the economy in 1792.

The Influenza Masks of 1918

Images from a century ago of people doing their best to keep others and themselves safe.

Americans Need to Know the Hard Truth About Union Monuments in the West

During the Civil War, Union soldiers in the West weren’t fighting to end slavery, but to annihilate and remove Native Americans.
Exhibit

COVID-19 in History

Living through a momentus time has prompted many reflections on what the past has to teach us about why the pandemic took the shape that it did – and how we can better respond to it.

Photograph of Mike Mahoney on the White House grounds.

Blood and Vanishing Topsoil

“We’re the virus.” So read a tweet in March praising reports of less pollution in countries under COVID-19 lockdown. By mid-April, it had nearly 300,000 likes.
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How Black Women Fought Racism and Sexism for the Right to Vote

African American women played a significant and sometimes overlooked role in the struggle to gain the vote.
Still from "The Baby Sitters Club" TV show.

The Baby-Sitters Club Is Ready to Teach a New Generation About Work

Locked-down parents will need an army of tween child-minders. Let "The Baby-Sitters Club" show them the way.
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The Mainstreaming of Christian Zionism Could Warp Foreign Policy

How the history of dispensationalism shapes U.S. foreign policy today.
An artist's rendition of a ghost.

The Indebted Dead

Tracing the history of the Grateful Dead folktale and the evolving obligations of being alive.

The Surprising Cross-Racial Saga of Modern Wealth Inequality

Why the “racial wealth gap” fails to explain economic inequality in black and white America.
A walkman and a headphone set

The Walkman, Forty Years On

The gadget that taught the world to socially distance.

Asian Americans Are Still Caught in the Trap of the ‘Model Minority’ Stereotype

Generations of Asian Americans have struggled to prove an Americanness that should not need to be proven.

When Schools Closed in 1916, Some Students Never Returned

Research into the long-term consequences of a polio outbreak found that older students are at highest risk for harm.

The Republican Choice

How a party spent decades making itself white.
Black Lives Matter march.

Civil Rights Has Always Been a Global Movement

How allies abroad help the fight against racism at home.
A group of seven black sharecroppers stand by the road.

Black Americans, Crucial Workers in Crises, Emerge Worse Off – Not Better

In many national crises, black Americans have been essential workers – but serving in crucial roles has not resulted in economic equality.
Woman in the doorway of a kitchen.

Abolish Oil

The New Deal's legacies of infrastructure and economic development, and entrenching structural racism, reveal the potential and mistakes to avoid for the Green New Deal.

The United States Has a Long History of Mutual Aid Organizing

On the roots of the community-based model that reemerged in the COVID era to counter the absence of adequate state support.

The Unpresident and the Unredeemed Promise

A combination of historical surpluses—the afterlives of slavery, of the deranged presidency—has raised the stakes in the present struggle.

The Idea of a Nation

The idea of a modern nation is both confusing and conflicting. And as the world confronts the current global health crisis, its weaknesses become more apparent.
Two posterboards covered in red handprints that read "Black Lives Matter" and "No Justice, No Peace."

Stop Comparing Today’s Protests to 1968

There are superficial similarities, but what we’re seeing now is something completely new.

If This Is Like 1968, Then Trump Is in Big Trouble

Trump campaigns like Richard Nixon and George Wallace, but in reality, he is Lyndon Johnson: a man who has lost control of the machine.

COVID-19 Didn’t Break the Food System. Hunger Was Already Here.

Like everything else in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, American food has become almost unrecognizable overnight.

Eugenics and the White Moderate

Reflections on the COVID crisis from Reconstruction.

How White Backlash Controls American Progress

Backlash dynamics are one of the defining patterns of the country’s history.

One Parallel for the Coronavirus Crisis? The Great Depression

“The idea that the federal government would be providing emergency relief and emergency work was extraordinary,” one sociologist said. “And people liked it.”

A Complete Halt to the Liquor Traffic: Drink and Disease in the 1918 Epidemic

In Philadelphia, authorities faced a familiar challenge: to protect public health while maintaining individuals' rights to act, speak, and assemble freely.
A woman updates a museum display of newspaper front pages.
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The Answer to the Media Industry’s Woes? Publicly Owned Newspapers.

Newspapers must be for the people. It’s worth investing our tax dollars in them.

Patients and Patience: The Long Career of Yellow Fever

Extending the narrative of Philadelphia's epidemic past 1793 yields lessons that are more complex and less comforting than the story that's often told.
Hands exchanging money.
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Will Covid-19 End the Use of Paper Money?

Our cash could spread disease — and there is precedent for changing it because of the pandemic.

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