Sassafras: From Scent to Science in American Medicine
How did sassafras go from cure-all to carcinogen? Its history links Indigenous knowledge, colonial trade, and modern scientific debate.
Defying Slave Hunters in Boston’s Courts
A dramatic 1836 courtroom escape shows how Black women challenged slave hunters—and Boston’s elite.
Tarring and Feathering, American Style
What began as a European folk practice became a distinctly American ritual of public punishment.
The First Futurists and the World They Built
From Saint-Simon to Silicon Valley, the urge to forecast the future has always masked a struggle over who gets to define it.
An Untimely Death at Sycamore Gap
The outcry over the violent felling of a beloved tree in 2023 affirms the power trees hold in our cultural memory.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated
The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.
The Alien Enemies Act: Annotated
Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.
Lowell’s Forgotten House Mothers
As vital to the success of industrial New England as the mill girls who toiled in the factories were the women who oversaw their lodging.
Hoosier Cabinets and the Dream of Efficiency
Out of Indiana came a beloved wooden innovation that helped change the status of the kitchen in the American home.
Self-Publishing and the Black American Narrative
Bryan Sinche’s Published by the Author explores the resourcefulness of Black writers of the nineteenth century.