Making Malt Liquor at Monticello
Thomas Jefferson thought whiskey was harmful to the country. Together with enslaved brewer Peter Hemings, he experimented with making less potent drinks.
Understanding Capitalism Through Cotton
Looking at the development of cotton as a global commodity, explains historian Sven Beckert, helps us understand how capitalism emerged.
A Boatload of Knowledge for New Harmony
Leaders of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences voyaged down the Ohio River in 1825–1826, taking academic education on a journey in search of utopia.
Consuming Hawai‘i’s Golden People
With statehood in 1959 came “Aloha Spirit” tourism, turning Hawai‘i’s ethnic diversity into a commodity that benefited both business and US foreign policy.
How the Black Press Helped Integrate Baseball
In the 1930s and ’40s, Black newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier used their platform to help break the sport’s color line.
“A Time To Speak”: Annotated
On September 15, 1963, a bomb killed four Black children in Birmingham, Alabama. Who threw that bomb? Each of us, argued Birmingham lawyer Charles Morgan, Jr.
Vanillagate? Ice Cream Parlors and White Slavery
At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was no more dangerous place for a young white woman than the ice cream parlor.
Sport in America: A Reading List
Covering the colonial era to the present, this annotated bibliography demonstrates the topical and methodological diversity of sport studies in the United States.
The Sanitary Commission’s Other Agenda
The US Sanitary Commission is credited with saving lives during the Civil War, but its leadership hoped it would be remembered for advancing racialized science.