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Painting of a young boy working as an apprentice, wearing an apron

How Long Did the School Year Last in Early America?

Even throwing off of a colonial power, representative institutions, Protestantism, and local autonomy in school decisions did not produce an egalitarian system.
by Carole Shammas via Cambridge Core Blog on June 12, 2023
A rainbow over a waterscape.

Queer History Detective: On the Power of Uncovering Stories from the Past

With more queer history detectives, what could our future look like?
by Amelia Possanza via Literary Hub on May 30, 2023
Clare Boothe Luce and Henry Luce in New York City, 1954

A Better Journalism?

‘Time’ magazine and the unraveling of the American consensus.
by Paul Baumann via Commonweal on May 28, 2023
Illustration of a person reading, sitting on a giant stack of books.

Is Writing History Like Solving a Mystery?

Why historians like to think of themselves as detectives.
by Carolyn Eastman via Slate on May 21, 2023
Mary Cassatt painting of a nurse reading to a little girl.
Exhibit

Reading About Reading

Read up on the history of books.
Collage of poets and scoring.

The Gift of Slam Poetry

A short history of a misunderstood literary genre and the world it created.
by Joshua Bennett via The Nation on April 26, 2023
Signage for Hachette Book Group is displayed at BookExpo America in New York.

When You Buy a Book, You Can Loan It to Anyone. This Judge Says Libraries Can’t. Why Not?

The lawsuit against Controlled Digital Lending is about giving corporations—rather than readers, buyers, borrowers, or authors—control over content.
by Michelle M. Wu via The Nation on April 20, 2023
Painting of of C.L.R. James.

The Dialectician

The paradoxes of C.L.R. James.
by Gerald Horne via The Nation on April 18, 2023
Collage of poets and words.

Spoken Like a True Poet

In Joshua Bennett’s history of spoken word, poetry is alive and well thanks to a movement that began in living rooms and bars.
by Stephen Kearse via Poetry Foundation on March 27, 2023
Bobby Seal and Huey Newton standig in front of a Black Panther Party sign

How Huey P. Newton’s Early Intellectual Life Led Him To Activism

The role of family in Huey P. Newton's educational journey.
by Mark Whitaker via Literary Hub on February 13, 2023
Man under the starry sky.

Thoreau and the Business of Distraction

Thoreau-themed goods, designed for mindfulness, are the marketplace’s remedies for a problem which, according to Thoreau, was created by the marketplace itself.
by Caleb Smith via Princeton University Press on February 4, 2023
Uncle Tom’s Cabin jigsaw puzzle.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Jigsaw Puzzle: Jumbling the Pieces of Stowe’s Story

Understanding puzzles as agents of disorder runs counter to a common interpretation that associates puzzles with the quest for order.
by Patricia Jane Roylance via Commonplace on January 31, 2023
Industrial Workers of the World Labor Day Picnic, Oakland, California, 1939.

Lessons from the Wobblies for Labor Activism Today

Despite their failure to achieve their ultimate goal, the IWW and its resilient members can be examples for the resurgent unions of today.
by Ahmed White via University Of California Press Blog on December 19, 2022

The Making of Norman Mailer

The young man went to war and became a novelist. But did he ever really come back?
by David Denby via The New Yorker on December 19, 2022
Adam Smith.

The Contradictions of Adam Smith

Smith's influence on American politics, and the misunderstanding at the heart of our idea of the "champion of capitalism."
by Glory M. Liu, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on December 14, 2022
Illustration of Harold drawing the moon, from "Harold and the Purple Crayon"

On "Harold of the Purple Crayon" and the Value of an Imaginative Journey

Considering the lessons and history of Crockett Johnson’s classic.
by Ross Ellenhorn via Literary Hub on November 8, 2022
A photo of three young girls smiling seated around a table with dolls next to them.

Reading Disability History Back into American Girl

The author's personal history with the dolls, and an argument for American Girl to make a new doll with a disability.
by Marissa Spear via Nursing Clio on November 1, 2022
Black and white photo of Lydia Maria Child reading a book

Living in Words

A new biography explores the work of the influential abolitionist Lydia Maria Child, who wrote about the social, political, and cultural issues of her time.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on October 13, 2022
Mark Wallinger's "Self-Portrait," a painting showing black dripping paint in the silhouette of an unfurled scroll on a grey background

The Illusion of the First Person

The personal essay is the purest expression of the lie that individual subjectivity exists prior to the social formations that gave rise to it.
by Merve Emre via New York Review of Books on October 11, 2022
Collage image of Emily Dickinson in Dunkin Donuts

Did Emily Dickinson Have A Boston Accent? An Investigation

An exploration of the potential effects of regional accents on poetry and slant-rhyme.
by Kelsey McKinney via Defector on October 11, 2022
Black and white photo of Bessie Beatty

Woman on a Mission

For pioneering journalist Bessie Beatty, women’s suffrage and the plight of labor were linked inextricably.
by Jessica George via JSTOR Daily on September 21, 2022
The cover of "Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History."

An “Imperial Bridge” Between Britain and the North American Colonies

How British protestantism connected colonies and empire until the rupture of the American Revolution.
by Joseph M. Adelman, Katherine Carté via Uncommon Sense on September 7, 2022

Panic at the Library

The sinister history of fumigating “foreign” books.
by Brian Michael Murphy via Lapham’s Quarterly on August 24, 2022
A family tree relating Aaron Sachs' book "Up From the Depths" with Lewis Mumford and Herman Melville.

Why Reading History for Its “Lessons” Misses the Point

On Lewis Mumford, Herman Melville, and the gentle art of looking back in time.
by Daniel Immerwahr via Slate on June 6, 2022
Graphic of money breaking the chains holding black hands.

There’s No Freedom Without Reparations

A movement to secure payments for descendants of enslaved people rages on.
by Fabiola Cineas via Vox on June 6, 2022
A Denmark Vesey monument is seen in Hampton Park in Charleston, S.C., in 2015.
partner

The Formerly Enslaved Man Whose Faith Inspired a Slave Revolt

Denmark Vesey expressed the Bible’s anti-slavery messages.
by Jeremy Schipper via Made By History on April 7, 2022
Illustration of a bookshelf at CYCO with a bust of I.L. Peretz.

The Joy of Yiddish Books

The language sustained a Jewish diasporan secular culture. Today, that heritage survives in a gritty corner of Queens to be claimed by a new generation.
by Molly Crabapple via New York Review of Books on February 26, 2022
Zora Neale Hurston browsing books at a book fair, looking at a book called "American Stuff."

The Zora Neale Hurston We Don’t Talk About

In the new nonfiction collection “You Don’t Know Us Negroes,” what emerges is a writer who mastered a Black idiom but seldom championed race pride.
by Lauren Michele Jackson via The New Yorker on February 14, 2022
African American students and teacher in a classroom, Henderson, KY, 1916.

The Origin Story of Black Education

As Frederick Douglass’s master put it, a slave who learned to read and write against the will of his master was tantamount to “running away with himself.”
by Jarvis R. Givens via Harvard University Press Blog on February 1, 2022
Profile photograph of Margaret Wise Brown.

The Radical Woman Behind “Goodnight Moon”

Margaret Wise Brown constantly pushed boundaries—in her life and in her art.
by Anna E. Holmes via The New Yorker on January 27, 2022
Collage of nature images and transcendentalists' faces, with flowers in Emerson's eyes.

Emerson and Thoreau’s Fanatical Freedom

Why do the Transcendentalists still have an outsize influence on American culture?
by Sarah Blackwood via The New Republic on January 6, 2022
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