The Alien Enemies Act: Annotated
Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.
The Storied History of HBCU Marching Bands
Marching bands at historically Black colleges and universities can be seen as both celebratory emblems and complicated arbiters of Black American culture.
A Gold Rush of Witnesses
Letters, diaries, and remembrances shared on JSTOR by University of the Pacific reveal the hardships of day-to-day life during the California Gold Rush.
How White Women Organized Against Lynching
In the 1930s, a coalition southern white women fought against lynching, disproving the idea that extrajudicial killings were intended to protect them.
When Does Political Resistance Work?
The effectiveness of popular movements for social change depends on both underlying political conditions and the strategies adopted by activists.
Lesbians and the Lavender Scare
Lesbian relationships among government workers were seen as a threat to national security in the 1950s. But what constituted a lesbian relationship was an open question.
A Short Course in Justice: the Freedmen’s Bureau Courts
Freedmen’s Bureau courts provided a forum for newly emancipated people in the “uncertain legal landscape” of the defeated Confederacy.
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.”
