Julia C. Collins & the Black Elite of the Gilded Age
HBO's The Gilded Age has done its homework on Black History, creating a character based upon real life wealthy Black women of the time.
The Foundations of Chicana Feminism
The Chicana feminist movement was initially met with resistance from within, and racism from without.
The Invention of Incarceration
Prisons have been controversial since their beginnings in the late 1700s — why do they keep failing to live up to expectations?
St. Patrick’s Day in Prison
Offhand references to St. Patrick’s Day showcase broader humor, humanity, and history in the American Prison Newspapers collection.
Mass Incarceration: A Syllabus
This selection of stories focuses on prison and mass incarceration in the US, which has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world.
Beware the Ides of March. (But Why?)
Everybody remembers that the Ides of March was the day Julius Caesar was assassinated. But what does it mean, and why that day?
The Working Class Roots of Canadian Feminism
The increased participation of women in labor helped create the Canadian feminist movement.
The USDA Versus Black Farmers
Current attempts to correct historical discrimination by local and regional offices of the USDA have been met with charges of "reverse discrimination."
Elizabeth Keckley’s Memoir Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four in the White House
Keckley’s decision to write about her employers from the viewpoint of a household laborer—she was seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln—enraged audiences.
Philanthropy and the Gilded Age
As the HBO series The Gilded Age suggests, charity allowed wealthy women to play a visible role in public life. It was also a site of inter-class animosity.