Puerto Rican Domestic Workers and Citizenship in the 1940s
Recruited to work on the US mainland for long hours at less than the prevailing rate, women migrants fought for dignity and recognition.
How Commonly Was Smallpox Used as a Biological Weapon?
Once introduced into the Americas, smallpox spread everywhere. Is it possible to know how often that was done intentionally to kill people?
How the Black Labor Movement Envisioned Liberty
To Reconstruction-era Black republicans, the key to preserving the country’s character was stopping the rise of a wage economy.
Could Negentropy Help Your Life Run Smoother?
In physics, entropy is the process of a system losing energy and dissolving into chaos. This applies to social systems in everyday life, too.
Celebrating National Poetry Month
Our best stories about poetry and poems offer free links to poems from contemporary and classic American poets.
Are We Getting Shakespeare’s Rhythms All Wrong?
Trippingly on the tongue? Yeah, right.
Black Conquistadors and Black Maroons
Some formerly enslaved Blacks and freedmen accompanied the Spanish invaders; others formed their own communities.
The Origins of the Feminist Art Movement
Before the Guerrilla Girls, Women Artists in Revolution pressured institutions to include women artists, inspiring similar groups around the U.S.
Is There a First Amendment Right to Tweet?
How social media companies have imported relatively restrictive European free speech norms to the US.
What Happens to a Tree When It Dies?
Decomposing trees on the forest floor become "dead wood"—a part of ecosystems that researchers are only beginning to understand.