Feeding a City the Municipal Way
Between 1790 and 1860, New York City’s food markets were public, sustained by active government involvement. What happened?
The Ballad of Railroad Bill
The story of Morris Slater, aka Railroad Bill, prompts us to ask how the legend of the "American outlaw" changes when race is involved.
The 1970s Cow Mutilation Mystery
When ranchers began reporting incidents of mutilated cattle, the ensuing panic fed both conspiracy theories and a growing cynicism about the government.
The Importance of Newspapers for the Red Power Movement
In the 1960s and 1970s, activists and organizers used Indian Country newspapers to cultivate a pan-Indigenous identity through a poetics of resistance.
Was She Really Rosie?
The unlikely, true story of the Westinghouse “We Can Do It” work-incentive poster that became an international emblem of women’s empowerment.
Jade Snow Wong’s Cold War World Tour
In 1953, the US Department of State sent ceramicist and author Constance Wong—known professionally as Jade Snow Wong—on a four-month goodwill tour of Asia.
Jackie’s French Connection
Jacqueline Kennedy, with her French ancestry and command of the language, was a not-so-secret American weapon in US-France relations in the early 1960s.
Yale’s Lost Indian Museum
The (now lost) collection of Native American artifacts at Yale College reveals the mechanics and high cost of the settler-colonialist nation-building project.
Chainlink Chronicle: Celebrating Black History in Louisiana
An exploration of one prison newspaper’s commitment to celebrating Black History with a unique focus on its home state.
Prisoners Like Us: German POW and Black American Solidarity
During World War II, almost a half million POWs were interned in the United States, where they forged sympathetic relationships with Black American soldiers.