Map of the Missouri Compromise, 1820

Missouri Compromise of 1820: Annotated

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was neither the first nor the last time the men of American government “compromised” on the issue of slavery, and the freedom of more than...
A full-page newspaper advertisement published in the New York Times on March 29, 1960. It was paid for by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South.

“Heed Their Rising Voices”: Annotated

On February 1, 1960, four young men, students at the historically Black North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (NCA&T), went to Woolworth’s in Greensboro and sat down at the lunch...
The first page of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution

The Fourteenth Amendment: Annotated

On February 8, 2024, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in Trump v. Anderson: whether a state (Colorado) can remove a presidential candidate from a primary ballot under...
Grand Central terminal clock

Keeping Time: A New Year’s Collection

...system that determines the High Holy Days is a relatively new creation, dating to around 350 CE. Beware the Ides of March. (But Why?) Liz Tracey March 15, 2022 Everybody...
A cattle roundup in Nevada, 1973, with a photoshopped UFO in the sky

Editors’ Picks of 2023

...Comstock Walks Among US (Again) Liz Tracey April 19, 2023 Or, how a moribund act of legislation continues to shape the fight for reproductive rights in the United States. Ground...
The covers of Partition by Saadat Hasan Manto, Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris, The Flew by Carlos Eire, Running While Black by Alison Mariella Désir, Living the Beatles Legend by Kenneth Womack, and The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris

What We’re Reading 2023

...In just eighty-one words, we’re reminded that violence isn’t new—nor is our apparent indifference to it. Liz Tracey “History is a silent record of people who could not leave, it...
Ulysses

Ulysses Obscenity Decision: Annotated

Ninety years ago this month, Judge John Woolsey of the Southern District of New York issued what would become one of the most widely published (and perhaps even read) legal...
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,...