Journal of American History Archives

Frederick Law Olmsted: The Complicated Man Behind Central Park & The Nation

Struck by something naturally beautiful in an American city? Odds are that you have stumbled across the work of Frederick Law Olmsted.

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Business & Economics

How We All Got in Debt

Consumer debt shapes American lives so thoroughly that it seems eternal and immortal, but it’s actually relatively new to the financial world.

Education & Society

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: Annotated

Jonathan Edwards’s sermon reflects the complicated religious culture of eighteenth-century America, influenced not just by Calvinism, but Newtonian physics as well.

Politics & History

Guns in America: Foundations and Key Concepts

This non-exhaustive list of readings on the role of guns in US history and society introduces the field as a subject of scholarly inquiry.

Politics & History

How Stovemakers Helped Invent Modern Marketing

Most people in the United States have a stove in their kitchen. But how did this “must-have” come to be?

Politics & History

The Swedish-American Coffee Tradition

For many Swedish immigrants to the United States, coffee was a key to hospitality and a way to signal prosperity.

Frederick Law Olmsted: The Complicated Man Behind Central Park & The Nation

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