“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?
Hoe History: Complex and Knotted
The plantation hoe, a simple, ubiquitous, and historically ignored farming tool, was specific to the Atlantic colonial project, shows historian Chris Evans.
Praising Washington in Lincoln’s Day
At the time of the Civil War, many Americans revered the nation’s Founding Fathers, and both supporters and opponents of slavery recruited them to their sides.
Origins of the UN: The US and USSR
The genesis of the United Nations came from the nations united as Allies against the Axis powers, but who really pushed the institution into being?
E. P. Thompson and the American Working Class
Published in 1963, Thompson’s influential The Making of the English Working Class quickly led to questions about the nature of the American working class.
The Mysterious Madame Montour
Montour presented herself as a cultural intermediary between Native Americans and whites in colonial America. But who was she?
The Murder Behind the George Polk Awards for Journalism
The murder of American journalist George Polk in Greece remains unsolved more than seventy-five years later.