The Oregon Civilian Conservation Corps

The First New Deal Was Green, Too

An integral part of FDR's New Deal was the Civilian Conservation Corps, which focused on environmental conservation work.
Wendell Willkie

An Untested Businessman Almost Became President During WWII

In 1940, Wendell Willkie ran against FDR. The rumpled "man of the people" was a New York businessman with no political experience, but voters loved him.
Illustration of Mexican agricultural laborers forming a raised fist of solidarity

How “Measured Militancy” Empowered California’s Fieldworkers

When Mexican-American fieldworkers' strikes didn't net results, César Chávez led the Ventura County Community Service Organization in alternate tactics.
W.E.B. DuBois, 1904

W.E.B. Du Bois Fought “Scientific” Racism

Early 20th century intellectual W.E.B. DuBois countered the then-popular idea that African-Americans could be scientifically proven to be inferior.
The Miscegenation Troll

The “Miscegenation” Troll

The term “miscegenation” was coined in an 1864 pamphlet by an anonymous author.
Creole in a Red Turban by Jacques Aman

The Free People of Color of Pre-Civil War New Orleans

Before American concepts of race took hold in the newly-acquired Louisiana, early 19th-century New Orleans had large population of free people of color.
Yorktown Victory Monument, Colonial National Historic Site, Yorktown, Virginia

Whitewashing American History

One of the National Park Service's first historic preservation projects, the Colonial National Monument, wrote people of color completely out of the story.
Wedding rings on an American flag

How Love Transformed American Immigration Law

Love was a deciding factor in the expansion of Asian immigration to the United States, via laws that emerged from Congress in the 1960s.
Employment of Negroes in Agriculture by Earle Richardson

Racial Violence as Impetus for the Great Migration

Historians traditionally point to economic and social conditions as the primary causes for the Great Migration, but racist hate crimes played a role as well.
Leaders of the S-1 project, consider the feasibility of the 184-inch cyclotron at Berkeley, March 29, 1940. Left to right: E.O. Lawrence, Arthur Compton, Vannever Bush, James B. Constant, Karl Compton, Alfred Loomis.

The Man Behind the USA’s Decision to Build the Bomb

FDR's "czar of research," an electrical engineer named Vannevar Bush, was working on an atomic bomb months before Pearl Harbor.