Roundup

A Brief History of the Vatican and Western Canadian Missions

by Roberto Perin

"Residential schools and the papal bulls justifying the fallacious doctrine of discovery call out for concrete acts of atonement and reparation on the part of the church."

Companies Worried about Worker Turnover? Benefits and Baseball Worked at the Turn of the 20th Century

by Jeffrey Smith

A generation of industrialists adopted a slate of extracurricular benefits like baseball teams as part of a welfare capitalist movement to improve production and thwart unionization. 

Can America Apply Lessons from HIV/AIDS Crisis to Deal with Monkeypox?

by Dan Royles

Public health debates on monkeypox need to look at the history of health messaging about HIV-AIDS to focus on communities of gay men currently at risk while avoiding triggering homophobic responses and stigma. 

The Fatally Selective Memory of "Make America Great Again"

by Leonard Steinhorn

"The 1950s were great only for some Americans. Restoring that America — as many Republicans are attempting to do in places where they wield political power — would hurt almost everyone else."

The Irish Lesson: Abortion Bans Won't Stop Abortion

by Fintan O'Toole

The recently overturned Irish constitutional ban on abortion and the recent attack by conservative Americans on abortion rights have a common intellectual champion in Notre Dame's Charles E. Rice. The Irish learned the hard way what followed. 

Why Breezewood, PA is the Most American Place on Earth

by Ed Simon

"This damned half-mile stretch of gas-stations, motels, fast food restaurants, and tchotchke shops exists on purpose."

What Conservative Justices Get Wrong About the Founders

by Timothy C. Leech

It's preposterous to argue that the Founders, men of the Enlightenment generation, would have intended for the constitution they drafted to be immutable and unchanging. 

What Does an Electric Makeover Mean for the Car of the Counterculture?

by Jill Lepore

The new electric VW bus seems to lack the charm of the vehicle of the counterculture, reflecting changes in technology and society. 

Till's Accuser's Memoir Shows the Pandora's Box She Opened has Never Closed

by Peniel E. Joseph

"What does it say about America that we are still in search of justice for the victim of an almost 70-year-old crime that helped spark the modern civil rights movement?"

Trump's Reelection Threatens a Politicized Civil Service

by Heather Cox Richardson

Since 1883, the federal civil service has been protected from the old spoils system by rules for merit-based hiring and promotion. Trump has threatened to revert to a system of rewards for loyalists and punishment for enemies, without regard for performing the public's business. 

"They Want Your Children!": Right-Wing School Panics Seek to Repeal Modernity

by Rick Perlstein

"Reactionary panics about what children learn in school are about as old as time. And they won’t ever go away."

Picturing Scent: The Tale of a Beached Whale

by Lizzie Marx

17th century Dutch art developed a particular visual language for conveying the experience of smell. 

The Roundup Top Ten for July 22, 2022

The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week. 

A Historian's Reflections on Love and the Eternal

by Walter G. Moss

Keeping the past, including past writings and thinking alive, is one of the great services that historians perform – including preserving the practices and professions of love. 

Letting States Legislate Morality Will End Badly (Again)

by Nancy C. Unger

The shameful history of Mann Act prosecutions shows what happens when panics over sexual morality are hastily written into criminal laws. 

Fanaticism May be Alarming, but It's Not New

by Zachary R. Goldsmith

The term "fanatic" evolved from a value-neutral name for participants in Roman religious cults to describe someone with dangerous and erroneous beliefs in religion and then in modern politics. Philosophers from Kant to Burke show the need to pull back from such absolute judgments of our adversaries. 

The Dangerous Misunderstanding of America's History of Mob Action

by Stefan Lund

Contrary to the protestations of January 6th apologists, mob action in America has usually worked to suppress, rather than defend, democracy.

The Right-Wing Court Has a New Target: Native American Rights

by Nick Estes

The Court recently overturned precedent to allow state governments criminal jurisdiction over tribal lands, which has historically been a tactic of oppression and elimination. 

Archival Structures and the Preservers and Retrievers of Stories

by Fernando Amador II

"Historians rarely understand the terminology, organizational strategies, or labor required for establishing and maintaining an archive, and I was no exception."

What the Antebellum Period Tells Us about the Coming Battles Over Abortion

by Kate Masur

"The history of the 19th century reminds us that arguments for states’ rights, or for federal power, have no intrinsic political or moral valence."