Eulalie Mandeville’s Fortune in Court Records
Court records can function as a kind of archive for those without any other paper trail in history: free people of color and the enslaved.
The US Army as a Slaveholding Institution
Until the Civil War, US Army officers relied on enslaved servants even while serving in “free states.”
Joseph McCarthy in Wheeling, West Virginia: Annotated
Senator Joseph McCarthy built his reputation on fear-mongering, smear campaigns, and falsehoods about government employees and their associates.
How Mail Delivery Has Shaped America
The United States Postal Service is under federal scrutiny. It’s not the first time.
The Literal Magic of the Kennedys
Americans have long viewed the Kennedy family as a kind of magical royalty associated with occult notions and conspiracies.
The First Green Money: Nature-Printed Currency
Benjamin Franklin used naturalist Joseph Breintnall’s botanic prints of leaves on his paper currency to foil counterfeiters.
“Lynch Law in America”: Annotated
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, whose January 1900 essay exposed the racist reasons given by mobs for their crimes, argued that lynch law was an American shame.
Toledo’s Most Singular Pharmacist
The Ella P. Stewart Scrapbooks offer insight into the life and legacy of a pioneering Black woman who broke color barriers and helped birth the fight for civil rights.
Nationalism Before It Was in the News
Nationalist rhetoric has surged to the center of US politics, but what do Americans actually mean when they say “nationalism” in the twenty-first century?