A painting of Homer by William Blake

“Tell Me about a Complicated Man”: A Homer Reading List

One could argue that a single man created the first creative franchise, which then spawned the first reboots, spin-offs, sequels, and prequels long before the birth of cinema, the novel,...
People at a civil rights demonstration holding posters reading 'No More Birminghams', in reference to the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church (in Birmingham, Alabama), Washington DC, US, 22nd September 1963.

“A Time To Speak”: Annotated

Sixty years ago today, the city of Birmingham, Alabama, reeled from the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, the latest attack in a period of terrorism against the Black...
Employees of Ottenheimer on strike for poor treatment

Labor Day: A Celebration of Working in America

...their famous husbands to produce world-renowned research. “Now We Can Begin”: Annotated Liz Tracey August 25, 2023 To mark the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution,...
Crystal Eastman

“Now We Can Begin”: Annotated

Crystal Eastman, described as “the most neglected feminist leader of the twentieth century” (at least among those lost or faded from history), was a leader in multiple political and social...
Storage jar by Dave the Potter

Dave the Potter’s Mark on History

...where, writes Liz Tracey for JSTOR Daily, “mounds of shells tossed from consumed mollusks are found, sometimes with pottery, clothing, and plants mixed in.” Before the Civil War, “the American...
Frederick Douglass

“What to the Slave is The Fourth of July?”: Annotated

On Monday, July 5 1852 Frederick Douglass gave a speech to the “Ladies of the Rochester Anti-Slavery Sewing Society,” which arguably became his most famous public oration. Rather than a...
Facsimile of the original draft of the United States Declaration of Independence with images of the signers around the border.

Celebrating the Fourth of July

...the US Constitution The Declaration of Independence: Annotated Liz Tracey December 9, 2021 Related links to free scholarly context on JSTOR for the foundational document in American government. The Native...
Margaret Chase Smith being sworn into the House of Representatives on June 10, 1940

Declaration of Conscience: Annotated

On the first day of June 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine, gave a speech on the floor of the Senate that sounded the first shot in...
Image from a poster for safe sex awareness

Reading for LGBTQ+ Pride Month

...with each story. Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech: Annotated Liz Tracey June 13, 2022 Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the...
A uniformed member of the Nazi SA and a student of the Academy of Physical Exercise examine materials plundered from the library of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, director of the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin on May 6, 1933.

90 Years On: The Destruction of the Institute of Sexual Science

Ninety years ago this month, the Institute for Sexual Science (ISS) in Berlin was vandalized and looted, its library burned, in an early organized spectacle of the power of the...