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.
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: Annotated
The 2010 decision, enabling the rise of super PACS, made possible new and more covert mechanisms for funding election campaigns in the United States.
Foreign Germs: The Stigmatization of Immigrants
The stigmatization of immigrants through the language of disease and contagion is as American as apple pie.
Working on the (Underground) Railroad
Born a free Black man, William Still kept the books and managed the money for the Philadelphia branch of the Underground Railroad.