New York City, the beach street dumping barge, 1866

A History of Garbage

The history of garbage dumps is the history of America.
A page from The Angolite that features a photograph of a prison guard holding a shotgun while watching prisoners work in a field.

Slavery and the Modern-Day Prison Plantation

"Except as punishment for a crime," reads the constitutional exception to abolition. In prison plantations across the United States, slavery thrives.
The "world's littlest skyscraper" in Wichita Falls, Texas, 2015

Boom, Bust, and the “World’s Littlest Skyscraper”

The discovery of oil near Wichita Falls in 1911 not only brought money to the Texas town, it brought a swindler who promised the sky(scraper).
Poverty Point, Louisiana

The Riches of Poverty Point

Earthworks built around 3,700 years ago in Louisiana centered an exchange system that stretched up the Mississippi and into the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys.
GAZA CITY, GAZA - JULY 24: A general view of the Beit Hanoun neighborhood on July 24, 2017 in Gaza City, Gaza. For the past ten years Gaza residents have lived with constant power shortages, in recent years these cuts have worsened, with supply of regular power limited to four hours a day. On June 11, 2017 Israel announced a new round of cuts at the request of the Palestinian authorities and the decision was seen as an attempt by President Mahmoud Abbas to pressure Gaza's Hamas leadership. Prior to the new cuts Gaza received 150 megawatts per day, far below it's requirements of 450 megawatts. In April, Gaza's sole power station which supplied 60 megawatts shut down, after running out of fuel, the three lines from Egypt, which provided 27 megawatts are rarely operational, leaving Gaza reliant on the 125 megawatts supplied by Israel's power plant. The new cuts now restrict electricity to three hours a day severely effecting hospital patients with chronic conditions and babies on life support. During blackout hours residents use private generators, solar panels and battery operated light sources to live. June 2017 also marked ten years since Israel began a land, sea and air blockade over Gaza. Under the blockade, movement of people and goods is restricted and exports and imports of raw materials have been banned. The restrictions have virtually cut off access for Gaza's two million residents to the outside world and unemployment rates have skyrocketed forcing many people into poverty and leaving approximately 80% of the population dependent on humanitarian aid. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Israel and Gaza: A Syllabus of Background Readings

How can we help students begin to make sense of the current and recurring violence in Israel and Gaza?
Fundraising card used by Anita Bryant to support Save Our Children

Parents’ Rights, Sex, and Race in 1970s Florida

Save Our Children is remembered as an effort to keep gay people out of public life. But it was also rooted in the movement against school integration.
A diagram for Ebenezer Howard’s To-morrow, 1898

Urban Planning, Then and Now

Humans have been designing cities for millennia. California Forever is just the newest entry in a long list of planned communities around the world.
The Peshtigo Fire on October 8, 1871, Wood engraving, published in 1872.

Peshtigo: The Nation’s Deadliest Fire

On the same night as Chicago’s Great Fire of 1871, some 2,400 square miles of Wisconsin and Michigan burned in a firestorm that took more than 1,000 lives.
Pat McCarran

The End of Asian Exclusion, the Beginning of Caribbean Exclusion

The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act allowed first-generation Japanese American immigrants to become US citizens while keeping African Caribbean immigrants out.
Young female and her little son planting tree in one of city parks on summer day

Building Community and Urban Tree Canopy

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Black communities and other reformers in New York City recognized the ameliorative social effects of greening urban spaces.