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A mule carrying packs sits defiantly, while one man pushes, another pulls, and a third cracks a whip.

Mule Power

Unpacking empires and diaspora in Mexico and the United States.
George Washington portrait in which he rests his hand on his hip.

A Great Reputation Among Men: Race and Contested Masculinities in the Early American Republic

A Quaker abolitionist hoped to convince the Virginian Founders to end slavery by appealing to their sense of manhood. They were not persuaded.
Illustration by Matt Huynh.

What Is Colonial Williamsburg For?

Telling the full story of the town’s past is an easy way to make a lot of people mad.
Lincoln, Washington, and a snippet from a lyceum address.

The Lincoln Way

How he used America’s past to rescue its future.
John Brown stands armed, positioned before Union and Confederate people fighting amid smoke and devastation.

Why Donald Trump Wants to Erase John Brown’s Fiery Abolitionist Legacy (and Why He Will Fail)

Reflections on Harper's Ferry amid a government shutdown.
Collage illustration of a founder, Declaration of Independence, and the body of an enslaved person whose arms are in chains.

Whose Independence?

The question of what Jefferson meant by “all men” has defined American law and politics for too long.
British flag with writing that says, "Liberty for Slaves."

The Black Loyalists

Thousands of African Americans fought for the British—then fled the United States to avoid a return to enslavement.
Federal encampment on Cumberland Landing, Virginia.
partner

How the Union Lost the Remembrance War

The victors of the American Civil War failed to write their story into the history books, leaving a gap for the mythologizing of the Confederacy.
Apples on a branch of an apple tree.

To Understand America, Look to the Everyday Apple

The country is losing neighbourhood orchards—and a connection to its origins.
Ruins of Mrs. Henry’s House, Battlefield of Bull Run.
partner

Reactionary Revolutionaries

In the mid-19th century, governments on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border set out to recast North America’s political landscape.
A person white washing over a Texan Independence exhibit.

Texas’ Official History Museum Hides More Than It Shows

The Bullock Museum glorifies Texas heroes while treating slavery like an awkward uncle no one wants to talk about.
James M. Hinds portraits shown blurry as if ink colors were misaligned during printing.

The Eloquent Vindicator in the Electric Room

No one remembers the assassination of Congressman James M. Hinds. What do we risk by making it just another part of American history?
"Home in the Woods," an 1847 painting by Thomas Cole.

A Republican Excursion

As a new book on their travels together shows, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's friendship went beyond politics.
The 1893 World's Fair.
partner

A Ghost from Kitchens Across the Nation

The 1893 World’s Fair and the origins of Aunt Jemima.
Buildings drawing and black and white negative, on the cover of "Yale and Slavery."

What Universities Owe

David Blight's report "Yale and Slavery" considers institutional accountability in the context of a world marked by systemic violence and inequality.
A group of men in 19th-century clothing groom their beards.

The First Time America Went Beard Crazy

A sweeping new history explores facial hair as a proving ground for notions about gender, race, and rebellion.
Mary Virginia Montgomery

The Montgomerys of Mississippi: How a Once Enslaved Family Bought Jefferson Davis’ Plantation House

In 1872, former slave Mary Virginia Montgomery, now a cotton plantation owner, records her life’s changes after moving from slavery to self-sufficiency.
A throng of Trump supporters, some in colonial garb, march through Washington D.C.

The 19th-Century Precursors to the Crises of Trump’s America

Revisiting history shows that violence and constitutional disputes are nothing new in US politics.
Conservative protesters hold signs and flags at a Tea Party protest.

Lone Star Futures

Texas might have been a place to start a conversation about widening the scope of civil liberties, but it has also been a place where those liberties end.
Portraits of David Crichton and William Ansah Sessarakoo.

The Record Scratch: Uncovering Documents Relating to William Ansah Sessarakoo

As it turns out, as much as this clutch of papers is about a specific story of Atlantic slavery it still relates to British finance and national politics.
Lithograph depicting General Washington leading his troops in battle against British troops.

Why George Washington Integrated the Army

The commander-in-chief initially barred black soldiers from joining the ranks, but he came to understand the value—both moral and strategic—of a diverse force.
Graphic of a nickel displays the words "nullification," "compact," and "sever" on Jefferson's head.

Thomas Jefferson Would Like A Word With You

Thomas Jefferson's limited government ideal quickly conflicted with the U.S. Constitution and the dominant Federalist Party, prompting a radical proposal.
A row of California National Guardsmen stand atop a top step in riot gear.

Trump’s Deportation Frenzy Echoes the Fugitive Slave Hunts of the 1850s

Trump's crackdown on immigrants bears alarming parallels to the fugitive slave obsessions of the pre-Civil War South.
Charles Sumner

How Charles Sumner Convinced Abraham Lincoln and the Union To Take a Stand Against Slavery

The domestic and international dynamics of the early days of the Civil War.
Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution.

States’ Rights to Racism

On the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, racism, and federal power.
Tamara Lanier

Harvard Relinquishes Photographs of Enslaved People in Historic Settlement

Tamara Lanier, who sued the school over daguerreotypes of her enslaved ancestors held in its museum, called the outcome “a turning point in American history.”

Nottoway Dishonored My Enslaved Ancestors. Why I Still Hated to See it Destroyed.

Material history, including at places such as Nottoway, has messages for people studying Black history.
African American baseball team photo.

How Baseball Shaped Black Communities in Reconstruction-Era America

On the early history of Black participation in America's pastime.
Mark Twain

The Impossible Contradictions of Mark Twain

Populist and patrician, hustler and moralist, salesman and satirist, he embodied the tensions within his America, and ours.
Abraham Lincoln

Was the Civil War Inevitable?

Before Lincoln turned the idea of “the Union” into a cause worth dying for, he tried other means of ending slavery in America.

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