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Black and white headshot of author Matthew Wills

Matthew Wills

Matthew Wills has advanced degrees in library science and film studies and is lapsed in both fields. He has published in Poetry, Huffington Post, and Nature Conservancy Magazine, among other places, and blogs regularly about urban natural history at matthewwills.com.

A man in a uniform holding a camel
Politics & History

The US Army’s Remarkable Camel Corps of the 1850s

Imported from Mediterranean ports, the marvelous pack animals served to great acclaim in the military.
An African-American miner poses with a shovel in Auburn Ravine during the Gold Rush, California, 1852.
Politics & History

Slavery in a Free State: The Case of California

California came into the Union as a free state in 1850, but proslavery politicians held considerable sway there.
Photograph: Muhammad Ali, 1966 Source: Getty
Politics & History

How Muhammad Ali Prevailed as a Conscientious Objector

The heavyweight champion lost his title when he refused induction into the military during the Vietnam War.
Annie Lee Moss
Politics & History

How Annie Lee Moss Survived McCarthyism

Moss, a Black government employee with activist experience, was hauled in front of Congress on suspicion of being a Communist.
A cowgirl participates in the barrel race competition at the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo on April 1, 2017 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Politics & History

Black Cowboys and the History of the Rodeo

Long overlooked in histories of the West, African-American rodeo stars also faced discrimination and erasure in that sport, too.
Claude McKay, 1920
Politics & History

Black Caribbeans in the Harlem Renaissance

The "Capital of Black America" was also a world capital, thanks to the influence of West Indian–born artists and writers like Claude McKay.
Fredi Washington and Louise Beavers in a scene from Imitation of Life
Arts & Culture

Why Didn’t Movies about Passing Cast Black Actors?

"Social problem" films were all the rage after World War II. So how could movies about racism be so conservative?
A map of Illinois from 1894
Politics & History

The Meaning of Racist Place Names

In one river town in central Illinois, a wetlands called N— Lake was scapegoated for destructive flooding.
New York, 1855
Politics & History

How One Household Avoided Emancipation Laws

The Volunbruns enslaved twenty people and moved relentlessly between empires and states as more jurisdictions outlawed slavery.
A man displays a Ku Klux Klan cross tattooed onto his arm
Education & Society

How White Supremacy Is Like a Drug

Four researchers found that identifying with a hate group can produce pleasurable sensations in the brain.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Klu_Klux_Klan,_3-18-22_LOC_npcc.05904.jpg
Politics & History

A German Klan in the Weimar Republic

The little-known story of how the vicious American hate group spawned a counterpart in 1920s Germany.
Ho Chi Minh, 1921
Politics & History

The First Vietnamese in America

Before 1945, many Vietnamese migrants to the United States were laborers. One was Ho Chi Minh.
Ghost plant
Plants & Animals

Why Some Plants Are Parasites

Tap into the underground network of plants and fungi with mysterious myco-heterotrophes.
New York city from Hoboken, New Jersey, c. 1800
Politics & History

The Early American Radical Fiction of John Lithgow

In the early 1800s, the Scottish immigrant wrote an anonymous tract imagining equality. He was worried about the brand-new American republic.
Monochrome vintage engraving drawing human brain with wind up key
Science & Technology

How Technology Got Its Modern Meaning

If we give technology credit for changing history, does that mean we give ourselves less?
A cheerful painting of Kim Jong-il in North Korean propaganda
Arts & Culture

Don’t Cry for Me, North Korea

Western media outlets were obsessed with whether North Koreans were truly sad about Kim Jong-il's death. Why?
A painting of Strawberry Hill from the Southeast by Paul Sandby
Art & Art History

Is This a Gay House?

The British aristocrat Horace Walpole's villa Strawberry Hill was said to be evidence of his "degeneracy."
Konstantin Mereschkowski
Politics & History

Can You Be a Good Scientist and a Horrible Person at the Same Time?

Consider Constantin Merezhkowsky, theorist of symbiogenesis.
A woman in Ireland makes a 'wren' from ribbons.
Plants & Animals

Wren Folklore and St. Stephen’s Day

The tiny winter songbirds are clever kings to the Irish. They're also fodder (literally) for post-Christmas ritual.
US Airmail stamp: Inverted Jenny Air Mail Issue of 1918
Business & Economics

Stamp Collecting as Metaphor for the Free Market

The hobby was originally pursued by middle-class women and children. But its resemblance to capitalist values made it attractive to men.
On the left stands King George III surrounded by symbols of British peace and liberty, while across the Channel the figure of Napoleon is stalked by poverty and ‘universal destruction’.
Politics & History

Jacobin Hating, American Style

The most radical faction of the French Revolution was hated by everyone in the United States from reactionaries to abolitionists.
Illustration: Branding Iron by Henry Rasmusen, c. 1937 Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Rasmusen,_Branding_Iron,_c._1937,_NGA_21119.jpg
Business

A Fistful of Data: Information and the Cattle Industry

Beef barons needed cowboys less and bookkeepers more as the nineteenth century wore on.
The coronation of Charlemagne
Education & Society

Making Sense of the Divine Right of Kings

The United States threw off the yoke of a king more than two centuries ago. Funny how we can't get enough of our erstwhile sovereigns today.
A troupe of mummers in animal costumes performing in a Medieval Baronial Hall at Christmas, c. 1500
Education & Society

Nittel Nacht: The Jewish Christmas Eve

'Twas the night before Christmas, and an undead Jesus walked the earth. No wonder early modern Jews played games and sang songs to scare him off.
Getty
Politics & History

How the Fascists Rewrote Spanish National History

National origin stories can be the stuff of fancy. Francoist Spain also showed how quickly those stories could be rewritten.

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