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A scene from the film Orphans of the Storm depicting a group carrying a sign bearing the slogan “Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité,” 1921.

The History of Equality: It’s Complicated

The strange and contradicting development of the liberal version of egalitarianism.
Actress Bobby Bradshaw is tempted by a pearl necklace, 1925.

Pearl Jam

In the twentieth century, the mollusk-produced gem was a must have for members of WASP gentility. In the twenty-first century, its appeal is far more inclusive.
Collage of women's rights symbolism. Woman outline waving flag.

Who Lost the Sex Wars?

Fissures in the feminist movement should not be buried as signs of failure but worked through as opportunities for insight.

"Though Declared to be American Citizens"

The Colored Convention Movement, black citizenship, and the Fourteenth Amendment.
Exhibit

“All Persons Born or Naturalized in the United States...”

A collection of resources exploring the evolving meanings of American citizenship and how they have been applied -- or denied -- to different groups of Americans.

Citizens: 150 Years of the 14th Amendment

In 1868, black activists had already been promoting birthright as the basis of their national belonging for nearly half a century.

How Do We Explain This National Tragedy? This Trump?

On 400 Years of Tribalism, Genocide, Expulsion, and Imprisonment.
partner

Trump’s View of America as a White Nation Is as American as Apple Pie

But it’s seriously dated. And there's another tradition he could draw on.

The Nationalist's Delusion

Trumpism emerged from a haze of delusion, denial, pride, and cruelty—not as a historical anomaly, but as a profoundly American phenomenon.

Growing Up in the Shadow of the Confederacy

Memorials to the Lost Cause have always meant something sinister for the descendants of enslaved people.

The Military, Minorities, and Social Engineering

Trump’s transgender ban restarts the debate about the relation between military service and social policy.

The Captive Aliens Who Remain Our Shame

On the origins of racial exclusion in the society that would become the United States of America.

Who Tells America's Story? 'Hamilton,' Hip-Hop, and Me

How the hit musical allows those who have been left out of the story to claim the narrative of America as their own.
Photo of Wong Kim Ark and document about Chinese Exclusion.

History’s Lessons on Anti-Immigrant Extremism

Even Trump’s recent assertion that he would use executive action to abolish birthright citizenship has a historical link to the Chinese American experience.
‘Two girls at Bamberg led to the stake, 1550’; etching by Jan Luyken from the 1685 edition of Thieleman van Braght’s The Bloody Theater, or Martyrs Mirror of the Defenseless Christians.

Dispirited Away

The rise and fall of an evangelical church, founded with progressive intentions and undone by dissension and bad faith.
Ballet dancers (all ages and genders)posing in christmas costumes.

How Christmas Became an All-American Holiday

What kind of Christmas did we used to know? To hear some critics and historians tell it, the holiday used to be a lot more religious than it is now.
A large crowd of women marching in New York City for the Women's Strike for Equality in 1970.

When the Personal Was Political

Second-wave feminists meant business—but they had a lot of fun at it, too.
A group of indigenous Pacific Islanders forced to work on a sugar plantation, with a white overseer in the background.

How ‘Blackbirders’ Forced Tens of Thousands of Pacific Islanders Into Slavery After the Civil War

The decline of Southern industries paved the way for plantations in Fiji and Australia, where victims of “blackbirding” endured horrific working conditions.
Jade Stevens rests near Lake Putt on land in California’s Tahoe National Forest.

Can Land Repair the Nation’s Racist Past?

California’s approach to Black reparations shifts toward land access, ownership and stewardship.
A sign reading "Ladies" above a doorway.

“The Relationship Between Public Morals and Public Toilets”

Christine Jorgensen and the birth of trans bathroom panic.
Birthright citizenship form, with infant footprints stamped in black ink, on fire.

The Plot Against Birthright Citizenship

The incoming Trump administration wants to take away citizenship for the US-born children of undocumented immigrants. Here’s how.
Young people running through the streets of Taipei; a middle aged businessman in Houston.

Texas’ Hotbed of Taiwanese Nationalism

For decades, Houston families like mine have helped keep the flame of independence burning.
A girl in Native American tribal regalia being crowned as homecoming queen.

The Complex Politics of Tribal Enrollment

How did the U.S. government become involved in “adjudicating Indianness”?
Collage of Matilda Gage and good and bad witches from "The Wizard of Oz" and "Wicked."

The Feminist Who Inspired the Witches of Oz

The story of suffragist Matilda Gage, the woman behind the curtain whose life story captivated her son-in-law L. Frank Baum as he wrote his classic novel.
The cover of "Martian Time-Slip," featuring a man tending to a farm on Mars.

“Multiple Worlds Vying to Exist”: Philip K. Dick and Palestine

A critique of colonialism from Martian science fiction.
A Public Health Services physician checking a woman immigrating into the United States for illness.

How the Irish Became Everything

Two new books explore the messy complexities of immigration—from the era of Lincoln to Irish New York.
A drawing of two parents and a child running at a border, their silhouettes being sliced by a chainlink fence.

The Crime of Human Movement

Two recent books about our immigration system reveal its long history of exploiting vulnerable individuals for financial gain.
A photograph of the massive AIDS memorial quilt with the Washington Monument in the background.

“I Am the Face of AIDS”

Ryan White helped challenge existing understandings of the AIDS epidemic. But his story also reinforced arbitrary divisions between the guilty and the innocent.
Illustration of John Tanton

The Ghosts of John Tanton

Today’s contentious immigration debate is the construct of one man’s effort to halt overpopulation.
Sen. Joe McCarthy confers with Roy Cohn during a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

A Not-So-Hostile Takeover

Long before the rise of Trump, the American conservative mainstream enjoyed a complex partnership with the Far Right.
State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill Administration Building, with a restricted entrance sign in front of its doors.

The Porous Prison

How incarcerated people have become separated from American society.

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