The electric chair was promoted as civilized and at the same time imbued with the technological sublime, the mystery of electrical power harnessed by humans.

In the 1980s, Cold War tensions led to thousands of Cubans languishing in American prisons, unable to be released or repatriated. Uprisings followed.

The Ancestral Puebloans were driven from their homes in the American Southwest by a combination of factors rather than a single cause.

Prospector Alferd Packer, stranded in the San Juan Mountains, was forced to eat his companions to survive the brutal winter conditions. Or was he?

The Town of Boston’s invention of the standing committee 250 years ago provided a means for building consensus during America’s nascent independence movement.

Formerly incarcerated people comprise the largest group of disenfranchised American voters. The American Prison Newspapers collection offers fresh insight into the issue.

Telling a spooky story around a campfire—or in a dorm room—may be the best way to keep a local legend alive.

Proposition 6, better known as the Briggs Initiative, was the first attempt to restrict the rights of lesbian and gay Americans by popular referendum.

How marketing made guns a fundamental element of contemporary boyhood.

The White Citizens’ Councils used the transportation of Black Americans to Northern states as a way to embarrass liberal critics and rally segregationists.