The Stickiness of Teflon
From excitement about its potential to revelations of its possible toxicity, Teflon has taken a wild ride through American science, manufacturing, and marketing.
The “Mexican-Hindus” of Rural California
Anti-Asian immigration restrictions led male Punjabi farm workers in California to marry Mexican and Mexican American women, creating new cultural bonds.
The French Historian Who Invented the Olympics
Pierre de Coubertin harnessed an enduring fascination with ancient Greece to create a new institution that blended national pride with global unity.
History’s Footnotes
The addition of footnotes to texts by historians began long before their supposed inventor, Leopold von Ranke, started using them (poorly, as it turns out).
Black Freedom and Indian Independence
Activists including W. E .B. Du Bois in the United States and Lajpat Rai in India drew connections between Black American and Indian experiences of white rule.
Real Estate and the Revolution
When George III issued a proclamation forbidding settlement west of a line running through the Appalachian Mountains, colonists decided they’d had enough.
The Georgia Peach: A Labor History
The peach industry represented a new, scientifically driven economy for Georgia, but it also depended on the rhythms and racial stereotypes of cotton farming.
Racial Hierarchies: Japanese American Immigrants in California
The belief of first-generation Japanese immigrants in their racial superiority over Filipinos was a by-product of the San Joaquin Delta's white hegemony.
Matilda Tone, Historian of Irish Republicanism
Through the work and writing of Matilda Tone, her late husband, Theobold Wolfe Tone, was constructed as the hero of Irish republicanism.