1837 Merchant's Exchange Hard Times Token

“Hard Times Tokens” Were Not One Cent

The counterfeit currencies issued in response to 1837’s coin shortage were worthless—or were they?
A barefoot pedestrian is overtaken by the Royal Caledonian Basket on a road near Glasgow.

The Forgotten Craze of Women’s Endurance Walking

Hardy athletes called pedestriennes wowed the sporting world of the nineteenth century. They also shocked guardians of propriety.
Mary Malone records Henry Higgs for the Woman's Club oral history project from a Miami Herald article of June 19, 1975.

How to Gather the Oral Histories of COVID-19

The Federal Writers’ Project offers vital lessons for capturing the oral histories of ordinary Americans living through the coronavirus pandemic.
Cover of Trumbull Park by Frank London Brown

How Trumbull Park Exposed the Brutal Legacy of Segregation

Frank London Brown’s 1959 novel, which presents a powerful story of white supremacist hatred, has been selected for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.
Convicts working at Reed Camp, South Carolina, 1934

How Mass Incarceration Has Shaped History

A historian argues that it's time to look at the consequences of locking up millions of people over several decades.
Mothers' Crusade for Victory over Communism

The Red Scare and Women in Government

In 1952, a government administrator named Mary Dublin Keyserling was accused of being a communist. The attack on her was also an attack on feminism.
Boris Sidis

How Jewish Immigrants Changed American Psychology

Secular Jewish psychologists like Boris Sidis criticized the positive optimism of Protestant-centered psychology.
Anthony Benezet

The Undercover Abolitionists of the 18th Century

Since many people considered them an off-putting radical sect, some Quaker abolitionists worked behind the scenes to eradicate slavery.
A family poses for a portrait in front of a fabric backdrop on the veranda of their home, in the early 1900s.

What the Reconstruction Meant for Women

Southern legal codes included parallel language pairing “master and slave” and “husband and wife.”
A 19th-century advertisement for Hood's Tooth Powder

How the Ban on Medical Advertising Hurt Women Doctors

Intended to protect consumers from unscrupulous quackery, a nineteenth-century ban on medical advertising proved to be a double-edged sword.