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Indigenous girl among a line of U.S. peace commissioners.

American History Needs More Names

Identifying Sophie Mousseau from a Civil War-Era photo helps us understand our complex past.
by Martha A. Sandweiss via Zócalo Public Square on April 21, 2025
Leonardo Dicaprio in "Titanic."

Which Celebrities Popularized (or Tarnished) Baby Names? A Statistical Analysis

Which public figures impacted baby naming trends?
by Daniel Parris via Stat Significant on January 8, 2025
An American flag themed tapestry.

Do American Family Names Make Sense?

What's in a name? According to the "Dictionary of American Family Names," it depends.
by Peter McClure via OUPblog on April 12, 2024
Crowd holding shirts with names of Triangle Fire victims

A Memorial Restores Humanity To The 146 Ghosts of the Triangle Fire

Over a century after one of New York City’s deadliest industrial accidents, the names of its victims, most of them women, are being enshrined in steel.
by David Von Drehle via Washington Post on October 9, 2023
Birds spliced onto a cracked photograph of Winfield Scott.

The Fight Over Animal Names Has Reached a New Extreme

Forget changing only the names that honor the horrors of the past. Some biologists now argue no species should ever be named after a single individual.
by Ed Yong via The Atlantic on May 25, 2023
A diagram of the solar system from 1781, focused on Uranus.

American Uranus

The early republic and the seventh planet.
by M. A. Davis via Age of Revolutions on April 3, 2023
Colorful graphic showing famous Black Americans

What’s In a Black Name? 400 Years of Context.

From Phillis Wheatley to Lil Uzi Vert, Black names and their evolution tell the story of America.
by Soraya Nadia McDonald via Andscape on March 1, 2022
Handwritten magazine index

‘Index, A History of the’ Review: List-O-Mania

At the back of the book, the index provides a space for reference—and sometimes revenge.
by Ben Yagoda via The Wall Street Journal on February 11, 2022

You Know Karen

She's been having a moment — and that's not a good thing. Using baby name data, we found other names that are equally as “Karen” as Karen.
by Jan Diehm, Sara Stoudt, Amber Thomas via The Pudding on July 16, 2020

Of Womb-Furie, Hysteria, and Other Misnomers of the Feminine Condition

Clare Beams on women's bodies and the power of names.
by Clare Beams via Literary Hub on February 11, 2020
A black father watching his child play with blocks, both of them smiling.

A Brief History of Black Names, from Perlie to Latasha

A scholar disproves the long-held assumption that black names are a recent phenomenon.
by Trevon Logan via The Conversation on January 23, 2020

What the Name "Civil War" Tells Us-- and Why it Matters

Today’s battles over Confederate iconography emerge, in part, out of the failure to address the centrality of slavery to the war.
by Gaines M. Foster via Muster on September 11, 2018

How Our Grandmothers Disappeared Into History

A historian turned novelist ponders the absence of women from America's historical archives.
by Katy Simpson Smith via Zócalo Public Square on June 8, 2018

The Woman Who Helped Change How Hurricanes Are Named

For decades, only female names were used.
by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on September 6, 2017

Why Has America Named So Many Places After a French Nobleman?

The Marquis de Lafayette's name graces more city parks and streets than perhaps any other foreigner
by Laura Auricchio via Zócalo Public Square on June 22, 2017
Prince Wichaichan, also known as Prince George Washington

George Washington at the Siamese Court

Ross Bullen explores the curious case of Prince George Washington, a 19th-century Siamese prince.
by Ross Bullen via The Public Domain Review on April 21, 2016
Names in Ellis Island log of immigrants.

Why Your Family Name Was Not Changed at Ellis Island (and One That Was)

It is more likely that immigrants were their own agents of change.
by Philip Sutton via The New York Public Library on July 2, 2013

The Ledger

In researching his family's past, the author learns of his ancestors' efforts to thrive despite the confines of racial oppression.
by Lawrence Jackson via n+1 on June 14, 2012

Making the Memorial

Maya Lin recounts the experience of creating the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
by Maya Lin via New York Review of Books on November 2, 2000
Portrait of George Washington

Conotocarious

When Native Americans met George Washington in 1753, they called him by the Algonquian name "Conotocarious," meaning "town taker" or "devourer of villages."
via The Digital Encyclopedia Of George Washington
Mottled photographs of immigrants set against the Statue of Liberty.

The American Dream 100 Years After the National Origins Act

How a clerk on Ellis Island at the dawn of the 20th century documented discrimination through photography, and what that tells us about today’s malaise.
by Yousef O. Bounab via New Lines on February 17, 2025
Faneuil Hall in Boston at night.

Why Faneuil Hall Is a Metaphor for the American Revolution’s Complicated Definition of Liberty

How a lively market on Boston Harbor became part of many defining moments of the Colonial and Revolutionary eras.
by Michael Snyder via Smithsonian on January 8, 2025
Mexican-American wife standing with her hand on the shoulder of her seated Punjabi husband.

The “Mexican-Hindus” of Rural California

Anti-Asian immigration restrictions led male Punjabi farm workers in California to marry Mexican and Mexican American women, creating new cultural bonds.
by Bruce LaBrack, Karen Leonard, H. M. A. Leow via JSTOR Daily on July 8, 2024
Content of Frank B's suitcase. A luggage tag, a black and white photograph of a young man in military uniform, a notebook with Frank's name written, a guide to Brooklyn, a copy of the Gospel of John, and an address book.

Tales From an Attic

Suitcases once belonging to residents of a New York State mental hospital tell the stories of long-forgotten lives.
by Sierra Bellows via The American Scholar on March 4, 2024
Coral polyps.
partner

Will the Sun Ever Set on the Colony?

Tracking the history of a curious scientific term.
by Whitney Barlow Robles via HNN on February 13, 2024
Nellie Bly.

How Nellie Bly and Other Trailblazing Women Wrote Creative Nonfiction Before It Was a Thing

On the early origins of a very American kind of writing.
by Lee Gutkind via Literary Hub on January 23, 2024
“The Washington Family” painting by Edward Savage from the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Political Nepo Babies Root Back to America’s Founding

How family political dynasties in America came to be.
by Cassandra A. Good via TIME on October 12, 2023
A painting of an American landscape with green hills and a river.

The Early Days of American English

How English words evolved on a foreign continent.
by Rosemarie Ostler via Lapham’s Quarterly on September 15, 2023
Portrait photo of Elsie Robinson.

A Woman Who Composed the First Draft of History Finds Herself Written Out of the History Books

Prominent institutions, such as the Smithsonian, have historically erased or omitted US women from archival records.
by Allison Gilbert via CNN on August 14, 2023
Title page and verso of a 1727 printing of Plutarch's Lives

"Those Noble Qualities": Classical Pseudonyms as Reflections of Divergent Republican Value Systems

Writing under ancient veneers allowed partisans to politicize and weaponize ancient history during the turbulent start of the Federal Republic.
by Shawn David McGhee via Journal of the American Revolution on August 3, 2023
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