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Thanks a Lot, Ken Burns

Because of you, my Civil War lecture is always packed with students raised on your romantic, deeply misleading portrait of the conflict.
by James M. Lundberg via Slate on June 7, 2011
Still from the film Medium Cool, 1969.

That Ain't Cool

Capturing the 1968 DNC.
by Sammy Feldblum via The Baffler on August 20, 2024
John Wayne plays Genghis Khan in "The Conqueror" (1956)

The John Wayne Flop Linked to High Cancer Rates

"The Conqueror" was filmed downwind of a nuclear test site. A new documentary tells the story of the fatal film set, and the community affected.
by Zach Budryk via The Hill on June 30, 2024
A collage of photographs of the cast and crew of "The Real World" over the show's logo.

How “The Real World” Created Modern Reality TV

The rules governing everything from “Big Brother” to “The Real Housewives” started three decades ago, with a radical experiment on MTV.
by Emily Nussbaum via The New Yorker on June 15, 2024
A scene from "Time Bomb Y2K" depicting a situation room filled with computers.

Heritage 2000

Some years wield such power that you must comply with them.
by Dan Piepenbring via n+1 on January 26, 2024
Sedat Pakay, James Baldwin, Istanbul, 1966.

James Baldwin in Turkey

How Istanbul changed his career—and his life.
by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi via The Yale Review on June 12, 2023
Route of Horatio Jackson's and Sewall Crocker's coast-to-coast road trip in 1903.

The Coast-to-Coast Road Trip is 120 Years Old

In 1903, a doctor bet $50 that he could cross America by car. The first coast-to-coast road trip in history took 63 days and cost $8,000.
by Frank Jacobs via Big Think on April 11, 2023
U.S. soldier in Iraq

Iraq Veterans, 20 Years Later: ‘I Don’t Know How to Explain the War to Myself’

Nearly 20 years after their deployment to Iraq, veterans grapple with their younger selves and try to make sense of the war.
by Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker via New York Times Op-Docs on March 15, 2023
For most of her 74 years, Ruth Ann Hills took a certain innocent pride in her family’s story and its place in Staten Island history. Generations of her family had resided in Mariners Harbor on the island’s North Shore. She and her brother David Thomas live in the house their grandfather built on Van Pelt Avenue. They had found Black ancestors on Staten Island as far back as the 1700s, and incredibly they had all eluded slavery. Or so Hills thought. All of that changed one day in 2021, when Hills received a visit from a filmmaker. Heather Quinlan was working on a documentary about a nearby graveyard. Over the course of her genealogical research, Quinlan had discovered that one of the people buried there was Hills’ great-great-great-grandfather. Neither Hills nor Thomas had ever heard of the man, Benjamin Prine, but his death in 1900 at the age of 106 had been covered by the New York Times and the wire services. Prine, a U.S. veteran of the War of 1812, had been the last enslaved person born on Staten Island, Quinlan told them. A photograph of a man, seated, holding a cane. The photograph has a long caption beneath, that is headlined "THEY CAN'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME." Hills' and Thomas' great-great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Prine. Staten Island Historical Society. Prine had once been enslaved by Peter Van Pelt, a highly influential Dutch Reformed Church minister – meaning that the street on which the siblings now live took its name from the same white family that enslaved their ancestor. “I thought I was a big history buff. ‘Oh, I know about history,’” Hills said. “I guess I was naive.” A crosswalk scene underneath two large street signs that both read "Van Pelt Av." The intersection of Van Pelt Avenue and Forest Avenue on Staten Island. Reece T. Williams/Gothamist

How the Remains of Formerly Enslaved People Came to Rest Beneath a Staten Island Strip Mall

Benjamin Prine's descendants didn’t know about their family ties – or their connection to his enslaver.
by Arun Venugopal via Gothamist on February 9, 2023
Collage of images of fetuses and placentas.

Fetal Rites

What we can learn from fifty years of anti-abortion propaganda.
by S. C. Cornell via The Drift on October 27, 2022
Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by police Lt. D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala., on Feb. 22, 1956, two months after refusing to give up her seat in a bus for a White passenger.
partner

Pitting Rosa Parks Against Claudette Colvin Distorts History

A new documentary explores the origins of the Montgomery Bus Boycott — with lessons on how we see movements.
by Jeanne Theoharis, Say Burgin via Made by History on October 19, 2022
The Almanac Singers playing various instruments, including guitars, a banjo, and an accordion.

"Which Side Are You On, Boys..."

Watching the Ken Burns series on the U.S. and the Holocaust and thinking about American folk music.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on October 3, 2022
Image from the documentary "Descendant" showing a man standing on a beach looking over the water.

Reckoning with the Slave Ship Clotilda

A new documentary tells the story of the last known slave ship to enter the United States and takes on the difficult question of how to memorialize America’s history of racial violence.
by Vera Carothers via The New Yorker on September 21, 2022
Mural of Harriet Tubman in Cambridge, Maryland, by Michael Rosato

Harriet Tubman Is Famous As An Abolitionist and Political Activist, but She Was Also A Naturalist

The Underground Railroad conductor's understanding of botany, wildlife biology, geography and astronomy allowed her to guide herself and others to safety.
by Liza Weisstuch via Smithsonian on March 10, 2022
Silver medalists Karen Chen and Nathan Chen pose for a photo after the team event in the figure skating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Feb. 7, 2022, in Beijing.
partner

The ‘Miracle on Ice’ Shaped the Olympics Coverage We’re Seeing Every Night

How rooting for American athletes became part of Olympic TV coverage.
by Bruce Berglund via Made by History on February 9, 2022
A man stands beside a sign that reads: future home of the Africantown welcome center

The Last Known Ship of the US Slave Trade

The discovery of the remains of the Clotilda, 160 years after it sank, brings new life and interest to the settlement built by the original survivors.
by Zoey Goto via BBC News on February 8, 2022
“Our first camp.” Vado de Piedra, Chihuahua, Mexico. January 26, 1921.

The Photo Album That Succeeded Where Pancho Villa Failed

The revolutionary may have tried to find my grandfather by raiding a New Mexico village—but a friend’s camera truly captured our family patriarch.
by Stacey Ravel Abarbanel via Zócalo Public Square on February 2, 2022
William Faulkner in front of bookshelf

William Faulkner’s Tragic Vision

In Yoknapatawpha County, the past never speaks with a single voice.
by Jonathan Clarke via City Journal on January 4, 2022

Macho Macho Men

Bodybuilding is routinely presented as the very apex of male heterosexuality—but its history is a bit gayer than you might think.
by Benjamin Weil via The Baffler on November 23, 2021
The full chart of television genres from 1945 to present.

Television Genres Over Time

Here’s how the distribution of genres has changed since 1945 up to present.
by Nathan Yau via FlowingData on October 26, 2021
Clay Shaw and two aides, holding up the newspaper announcing his acquittal. Copyright AP 1969.

The Homophobic Backdrop to Garrison’s Persecution of Clay Shaw

A review of "Cruising for Conspirators: How a New Orleans DA Prosecuted the Kennedy Assassination as a Sex Crime."
by Martin J. Kelly via Washington Decoded on October 11, 2021
Portrait drawing of Luther Martin
partner

For Constitution Day, Let's Toast the Losers of the Convention

Anti-federalist Luther Martin's agenda failed at the Constitutional Convention, but his criticisms of the Founders may still resonate with us today.
by Richard Hall via HNN on September 19, 2021
President Obama in the Oval Office.

Pictures at a Restoration

On Pete Souza’s Obama.
by Blair McClendon via n+1 on August 10, 2021
Glass with spilled rainbow alcohol

Chasing 'Phantoms of the Past': Gay & Lesbian Bar Archivists on Preserving LGBTQ+ Nightlife History

VinePair interviewed eight LGBTQ+ archivers around the country about documenting America’s gay and lesbian bars while they still can.
by Dave Infante via VinePair on June 15, 2021

How the Modern NRA Was Born at the Border

A conversation between a historian and the creator of a new documentary short about NRA leader Harlon Carter.
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Sierra Pettengill via Boston Review on May 7, 2021
A Union soldier sitting with his family

The Problem With Patriotism

I can’t ignore what this country has done to Black people. How do I find my place in it?
by Sasha Banks via The Atlantic on May 6, 2021
Andra Day as Billie Holiday in her dressing room

The Trials of Billie Holiday

Two new movies emphasize the singer’s spirit of defiance and political courage.
by Lidija Haas via The New Republic on February 26, 2021
A group of people striking with 9to5.

The Labor Feminism of 9to5 Should Guide Our Organizing Today

The vision of feminist labor organizing that guided the women’s white-collar organizing project 9to5 should still be our north star.
by Marianela D’Aprile via Jacobin on February 1, 2021
A Seminole man puts his hand inside the mouth of an alligator

How Florida’s Seminole Tribe Transformed Alligator Wrestling Into a Symbol of Independence

Once a means of survival, and then an exploitative spectacle, the sport can also embody a synergy with a top predator in Florida’s changing landscape.
by Adam Piron, Murat Oztaskin, Adam Khalil via The New Yorker on January 27, 2021

Re-watching ‘The Civil War’ During the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd Protests

The landmark Ken Burns documentary hasn’t aged well. But it continues to shape American perceptions about the Confederacy and slavery.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on September 26, 2020
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