Exporting the Convict Clause: Slaves of the State in the Canal Zone
The criminalization of Blackness enabled by the Thirteenth Amendment brought chain gangs to the construction projects of the Panama Canal Zone.
Life According to Phosphorus
Phosphorus is essential for fertilizing high-yield agriculture. The US domestic supply, restricted to Florida, is expected to run out in a couple of decades.
Of Heights and Men
Given its strong gendered associations, it may be surprising that height hasn’t been well studied by historians.
Coffee for the Resistance
During Indira Gandhi’s autocratic Emergency in 1975, one New Delhi coffeehouse became a key gathering place for opponents of her politics.
Juneberry: A Summer Sweet for People, Pollinators, and Birds
For millennia, Indigenous peoples in North America derived sustenance from the juneberry, known also as the misâskwatômin, serviceberry, shadbush, or saskatoon.
How a Postwar German Literary Classic Helped Eclipse Painter Emil Nolde’s Relationship to Nazism
While Nolde was one of the many victims of the Third Reich’s repressive responses to “degenerate art,” he was also one of Nazism’s great admirers.
Stonewall National Monument Declaration: Annotated
In June 2016, President Obama proclaimed the first LGBTQ+ national monument in the United States at the site of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City.
Phantoscopes, Radiovision, and the Dawn of TV
After creating a projector called the Phantoscope in 1895, C. Francis Jenkins successfully tackled the problem of transmitting motion pictures through radio.
How Hungary’s Hard Rock Became Hard Right
Punk and hard rock—or at least extremist, right-wing versions of them—are alive and well in post-Cold War Hungary.
Walking the Race Line on the Train Line
Investigators never reached a conclusion about the death of Pullman porter J. H. Wilkins, but his killing revealed much about the dangers of his profession.