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Mount Rushmore with painted crowd behind it

A Usable Past for a Post-American Nation

We are living through a time when we cannot take our shared identity—and therefore our shared stories—for granted.
by Johann N. Neem via The Hedgehog Review on July 8, 2022
Graph of immigrants showing a peak of western/Northern Europe in 1860, a peak of southern/Eastern Europe in 1910, and a peak of all other locations ca. 2018.

Today’s Newcomers Succeed Just As Quickly As Ellis Island Immigrants

Using records digitized in part by amateur genealogists, economists have upended conventional wisdom about which immigrants succeed and why.
by Andrew Van Dam via Washington Post on July 1, 2022
Reenactment of Old West gun fight

American Gun Culture Ignores How Common Gun Restrictions Were In The Old West

A scholar of gun culture looks at the roots of Americans’ love affair with firearms – and their willingness to accept gun violence as a price of freedom.
by Pierre M. Atlas via The Conversation on June 29, 2022
“America” carrying the nation’s flag, circa 1860. Lithograph by Currier and Ives.

Our Flag Was Still There

In his comprehensive study of the national anthem, a historian and musicologist examines our complicated relationship to a famously challenging song.
by Peter Sagal via New York Times on June 14, 2022
Still from The Wire (HBO): two detectives, McNulty and Bunk.

20 Years Later, "The Wire" Is Still a Cutting Critique of American Capitalism

The Wire — both stylish and smart, follows unforgettable characters woven into a striking portrait of the depredations of capitalism in one US city.
by Helena Sheehan, Sheamus Sweeney via Jacobin on June 14, 2022
A line of people holding each others' shoulders as they walk with their eyes closed on a sidewalk in front of a building.

Ukraine Yesterday & Tomorrow

Ukraine didn’t become an epicenter of world history all of a sudden; it became an epicenter again.
by Oksana Forostyna via European Review Of Books on June 13, 2022
Harvey Milk (left) at Gay Pride, San Jose, California 1978.
partner

Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech

Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.
by Liz Tracey, Harvey Milk via JSTOR Daily on June 13, 2022
Picture of two warring sides of the abortion debate in a heated exchange.

The Myth That Roe Broke America

The debate over abortion is an important part of the story of polarization in American politics, but it is not its genesis.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on May 18, 2022
The Alamo.

Texas' White Guy History Project

The 1836 Project will indoctrinate new Texans with fables about our history.
by James Dobbins via Texas Observer on May 11, 2022
Painting of Yosemite Valley

How Place Names Impact The Way We See Landscape

Western landscapes and their names are stratified with personal memories, ancestral teachings, mythic events and colonial disturbances.
by B. 'Toastie' Oaster via High Country News on May 1, 2022
Book cover featuring abstract watercolor splotches behind the title "American Exceptionalism."

"A New History of an Old Idea"

On Ian Tyrrell’s "American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea."
by Richard Cándida Smith via Society for U.S. Intellectual History on April 17, 2022
At the filling station and garage at Pie Town, New Mexico, in October 1940. Photo by Russell Lee, FSA/Library of Congress.

Cowboy Progressives

You likely think of the American West as deeply conservative and rural. Yet history shows this politics is very new indeed.
by Daniel J. Herman via Aeon on April 8, 2022
Illustration by Nilé Livingston of the many flags used throughout America as symbols of freedom, patriotism, and protest.

Scars and Stripes

Philadelphia gave America its flag, along with other enduring icons of nationhood. But for many, the red, white and blue banner embodies a legacy of injustice.
by Martha S. Jones via Philadelphia Inquirer on April 6, 2022
Portrait illustration of Volodymyr Zelensky with the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

The Zelensky Myth

Why we should resist hero-worshipping Ukraine’s president.
by David A. Bell via New Statesman on March 24, 2022
Silhouette of a woman's head against a blue and green back drop, with writing within the outline.

The Myth of Agent 355, the Woman Spy Who Supposedly Helped Win the Revolutionary War

A single reference in the historical record has spawned an array of adaptations, most of which overstate the anonymous figure's role in the Culper Spy Ring.
by Bill Bleyer via Smithsonian on March 21, 2022
A crowd watches a roller skater dance at block party in the Bronx.

The Stories of the Bronx

"Urban Legends: The South Bronx in Representation and Ruin" is a vibrant cultural history that looks beyond pervasive narratives of cultural renaissance and urban neglect.
by Emily Raboteau via New York Review of Books on March 17, 2022
Four members of House committee on Jan. 6. U.S. Capitol Riot, sitting in a hearing.
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What History Says About The Jan. 6 Committee Investigation

The importance of an unambiguous report that cannot be weaponized by Trump supporters.
by Stephen A. West via Made By History on March 13, 2022
Patricia Hearst in front of SLA flag, 1974; CSU Archives/Everett Collection/Alamy Stock Photo.

American Captivity

The captivity narrative as creation myth.
by Ed Simon via The Hedgehog Review on March 1, 2022
A purported "jackalope" (jackrabbit with antelope horns) mounted to a wall.

The Legend of the Horned Rabbit of the West

Jackalopes have migrated from Wyoming across the nation, but what’s really known about the mythical creature?
by Michael P. Branch via High Country News on February 24, 2022
Photograph of Sam Chamberlain

Crossing the Blood Meridian: Cormac McCarthy and American History

McCarthy imagined a vast border region where colonial empires clashed, tribes went to war, and bounty hunters roamed.
by Bennett Parten via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 9, 2022
Billboard claiming MLK was a Republican

The Uses and Abuses of the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Politics have diluted King's dream.
by Andre E. Key via Religion Dispatches on January 13, 2022
Statue of Stonewall Jackson, on its side in slings and propped up by tires, in front of its graffiti-covered pedestal.

What the 1619 Project Got Wrong

It erases the fact that, for the first 70 years of its existence, the US was roiled by intense, escalating conflict over slavery – a conflict only resolved by civil war.
by James Oakes via Catalyst on December 17, 2021
This 1925 painting depicts an idealized version of an early Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth.

How to Tell the Thanksgiving Story on Its 400th Anniversary

Scholars are unraveling the myths surrounding the 1621 feast, which found the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag cementing a newly established alliance.
by David Kindy via Smithsonian on November 23, 2021
A crowd gathered around a railroad track at the ceremony marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad.

Breaking the Myth About America’s ‘Great’ Railroad Expansion

Historian Richard White on the greed, ineptitude and economic cost behind the transcontinental railroads, and the implications for infrastructure policy today.
by Richard White, Jake Blumgart via Governing on November 18, 2021
Image of McClure's book, Winter in America: A Cultural History of the Neoliberalism, from the Sixties to the Reagan Revolution.

The Conservative Culture War

American innocence, the possession of history, and January 6, 2021.
by Daniel Robert McClure via UNC Press Blog on November 8, 2021
Ralph Nader

The Myth of the “Pinto Memo” is Not a Hopeful Story for Our Time

Drawing analogies between industries can be instructive. But only if we do it right.
by Lee Vinsel via Medium on October 21, 2021
Statue of missionary Marcus Whitman in a park.
partner

The Nomination of Chuck Sams to Lead the Park Service is Already Changing History

The NPS is working with Cayuse historians and students to correct a historical lie that shaped the West.
by Blaine Harden via Made By History on October 18, 2021
Oil cloth cape, worn to protect a firefighter’s upper body from embers and water. Likely from the Shiffler Fire Hose Company No. 32, of Philadelphia, founded in 1846.

There Was an Ashli Babbitt in the 19th Century. His Story Is a Warning.

To understand the right’s plans for Babbitt, look to George Shiffler.
by Zachary M. Schrag via Slate on September 1, 2021
Join or Die woodcut of a chopped up rattlesnake representing un-unified colonies.
partner

The Serpents of Liberty

From the colonial period to the end of the US Civil War, the rattlesnake sssssssymbolized everything from evil to unity and power.
by Zachary Mcleod Hutchins, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on August 30, 2021
Black and white photo of the 1940 Chevrolet half-ton.

The Rugged History of the Pickup Truck

At first, it was all about hauling things we needed. Then the vehicle itself became the thing we wanted.
by Jeff MacGregor via Smithsonian on August 17, 2021
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