The Mansion of Happiness, 1894

Bring on the Board Games

The increasing secularism of the nineteenth century helped make board games a commercial and ideological success in the United States.
From the cover of From Rupture to Refuge: The Coordinates of Contemporary Refugee Narratives by Peter Sloane

Refugee Lit Stakes Its Worthy Claim

Peter Sloane’s new study examines the narratives put forth by asylum seekers striving to reclaim their stories from mainstream media and political discourse.
A portrait of Merze Tate from a scrapbook of photographs, letters and newspaper clippings

The Trailblazing Merze Tate

A celebrated historian of race and imperialism, Tate was an intrepid traveler who avidly shared her passion and meticulously documented her journeys.
A group of children, among them are some dressed in Highland regalia with others wearing sailor suits, during League of Nations Rally in Hyde Park London, England, June 1921. The children, all of Hampstead, hold small signs reading 'Peace' and 'No War' and are gathered before a large banner reading 'We Revel in Peace'.

Teaching Peace Between the Wars

In the years between the world wars, the League of Nations attempted to change how history was taught to emphasize commonalities across national lines.
"Noah Webster, The Schoolmaster of the Republic," print by Root & Tinker, 1886

Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated

Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language declared Americans free from the tyranny of British institutions and their vocabularies.
Crystal Eastman

“Now We Can Begin”: Annotated

To mark the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, activist Crystal Eastman described the path to full freedom for American women.
Central High School Annual Yearbook, Cleveland, Ohio,1920. Langston Hughes’s senior portrait is on the far right.

Class Production

A collection of high school yearbooks from Cleveland captures the rise, fall, and uncertain future of the American middle class.
Anita Bryant is hit in the face with a pie during a press conference on October 14, 1977

Proposition 6 (The Briggs Initiative): Annotated

Proposition 6, better known as the Briggs Initiative, was the first attempt to restrict the rights of lesbian and gay Americans by popular referendum.
Harvey Milk at Gay Pride, San Jose 1978

Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech: Annotated

Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.
A classroom in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in 1944

Teaching Race at School

Shaken by Nazi propaganda, educators tried to teach anti-racist lessons in the 30s-40s. Their methods, however, would be considered very problematic today.