pumpkins, squashes and gourds , dried a corn cob with kernels and dried beans were randomly spread on a wooden plate on a black background.

The Macronutrients of the Three Sisters System

If the intercropping of beans, squash, and corn produces smaller yields, why did the the Haudenosaunee prefer the Three Sisters system?
Dancers prepare to enter the contest powwow at the 100th Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial at Red Rock Park on August 13, 2022

Honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day: A Reading List

With scholarship on Indigenous knowledge, environmental justice, resistance, and decolonization, this list honors Native sovereignty and self-determination.
Federal encampment on Cumberland Landing, Pamunkey River, VA, 1862

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.
Copy of the signature page of the Declaration of Sentiments, 1848

“Declaration of Sentiments”: Annotated

The document that came out of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention extended the long-lived and hard-fought movement for women’s rights in the United States.
A Sunday Scene, at Warner’s Cobweb Palace

Miners and Monkeys

There were compensations for the hardscrabble life of the Gold Rush—like monkeys and parrots brought to California for companionship and entertainment.
This family from Alabama was presented as "white trash" celebrities who had escaped the debilitating effects of hookworm, 1913

Defining “White Trash”

The term “white trash” once was used to disparage poor white people. In the Civil Rights era, its meaning shifted to support business-friendly racial politics.
People standing around a shopping cart with Trump's head inside

From Neoliberalism to Trumpism

The neoliberal politics that developed in the 1970s created financial instability and fragmented cultural markets, helping to pave the way for Trumpism.
Newspaper clipping about the Haymarket Riot from Harpers Weekly, 1887

Demonizing Immigrants in the 1880s

American newspapers portrayed members of immigrant groups as potential anarchists, linking the ideology to other anxieties and stereotypes about foreigners.
James R. Schlesinger, 1973

Politicizing Intelligence: Nixon’s Man at the CIA

James R. Schlesinger was only head of the CIA for six months, but he nevertheless ranks as the least popular director in the agency’s history.
Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbul, 1792

Hamilton’s Real Immigration Story

The popular musical poses Alexander Hamilton as a symbol of the value of immigrants brought to America, but over time, his party became increasingly xenophobic.