The Free People of Color of Pre-Civil War New Orleans
Before American concepts of race took hold in the newly-acquired Louisiana, early 19th-century New Orleans had large population of free people of color.
Whitewashing American History
One of the National Park Service's first historic preservation projects, the Colonial National Monument, wrote people of color completely out of the story.
How Love Transformed American Immigration Law
Love was a deciding factor in the expansion of Asian immigration to the United States, via laws that emerged from Congress in the 1960s.
When Victorian Scientists Caught Ballomania
In a moment when scientists were working to fashion a credible identity for themselves, they had to decide how much showmanship was too much.
How “Pyrrhic Victory” Became a Go-To Metaphor
We call futile victories "pyrrhic," after an ancient Roman battle. But that battle may have been misinterpreted--or had a different conclusion altogether.
Did Kongolese Catholicism Lead to Slave Revolutions?
The legacy of Kimpa Vita, a Kongolese Catholic mystic, was felt from the U.S. to Haiti.
Racial Violence as Impetus for the Great Migration
Historians traditionally point to economic and social conditions as the primary causes for the Great Migration, but racist hate crimes played a role as well.
The Man Behind the USA’s Decision to Build the Bomb
FDR's "czar of research," an electrical engineer named Vannevar Bush, was working on an atomic bomb months before Pearl Harbor.
Did Black Rebellion Win the Civil War?
Historians are giving credence to W.E.B. DuBois's assertion that enslaved workers coordinated a general strike, which helped end the Civil War.