Roundup

What 19th-Century Domestic Manuals Say about Housing as Infrastructure

by Leah Marie Becker

"We are only as safe as the person breathing the most polluted air or with the least access to stable housing."

My Ancestors Were Enslaved—But Their Freedom Came at a Price for Others

by Alaina E. Roberts

Historian Alaina Roberts' work grew out of a family history in which her ancestors were brought to Indian Territory as slaves of Cherokee masters expelled from the southeast, then became landowners as the government erased tribal control of land. 

Trump, Defying Custom, Hasn’t Given the National Archives Records of His Speeches at Political Rallies

by Shannon Bow O'Brien

"Until President Trump, there have been no missing public speeches in the permanent collection. By removing these speeches, Trump is creating a false perception of his presidency, making it look more serious and traditional."

Registering Women for the Draft Wouldn’t be a Big Departure from the Past

by Kara Dixon Vuic

An odd alliance of the ACLU and the antifeminist National Coalition for Men is petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling exempting women from registering with the Selective Service and potentially being drafted into the military. Many voices have long advocated this change. 

Virginia Police, Army Lt. Caron Nazario and America's Bloody Traffic Stop Catch-22

by Matthew Guariglia

The incident of Lt. Caron Nazario illustrates the argument of 1960s Black radical activist Robert Williams that violence against Black people has always been part of maintaining the social order; recognizing nonviolence as a tactic of civil rights activism should not obscure the constancy of violence from the other side. 

Stacey Abrams’s Fight against Voter Suppression Dates Back to the Revolution

by Karen Cook Bell

"The roots of Black women’s activism can be traced back to the Revolutionary Era, when thousands of Black women protested with their feet and ran away from their enslavers." This act would shape the demands of radical Black politics in the ensuing decades.

"Where Perversion is Taught": The Untold History of a Gay Rights Demonstration at Bucks County Community College in 1968

by Marc Stein

A student protest at Bucks County (PA) Community College in 1968, sparked by the college's decision to block a speech by gay rights advocate Richard Leitsch, should be recognized as a key event in the growing movement for gay liberation. 

Return the National Parks to the Tribes

by David Treuer

"The idea of a virgin American wilderness—an Eden untouched by humans and devoid of sin—is an illusion" that has hidden the forced removal of Native people from the lands converted to national parks. Native people should tend and protect the land again.

Slaughter Central: The United States as a Mass-Killing Machine

by Tom Engelhardt

The American armanents industry is profiting from the sales of weapons of potential planetary destruction, mass shootings, and all manner of violence in between. We should understand the gun industry as a global public-private partnership of death.

It’s Time to Break the Traditions of White Nationalism in our Civic Institutions

by Walter Greason

The Capitol riots on January 6 and the wave of voter restriction legislation since demonstrate that a significant section of White America views citizenship in racially exclusive terms. Despite civil rights gains, there has been no real engagement with this American tradition. 

Are you ready for the Roaring '20s?

by Nicole Hemmer

The end of the pandemic may portend a repeat of the "roaring 20s" a century later. But anyone anticipating a wild party should recall the nativism, racism, and rampant inequality of the era. Can the individual desire to live life to the fullest support a politics of inclusion and equality? 

Black Protesters Have Been Rallying Against Confederate Statues for Generations

by Karen L. Cox

The movement to remove monuments and memorials to the Confederacy and historical figures with ties to racism or slavery is not new; it should be recognized as part of a longstanding effort by African Americans to challenge the public veneration of white supremacy. 

The Media will be Key to Overcoming a Senate Filibuster on Voting Rights

by Donald A. Ritchie

"From the Boston Massacre to Watergate, the power of the media became manifest whenever editors and reporters, convinced of the seriousness of their cause, kept a story alive until they forced people to pay attention." TV journalist Roger Mudd kept the story of the Senate's filibuster of the Civil Rights Act in the public eye. 

Trump-Loving White Women are Protecting Matt Gaetz. History Tells Us Why

by Keisha N. Blain

While the allegations of potentially criminal sexual conduct by Rep. Matt Gaetz are shocking, it should not be shocking that conservative white women have closed ranks in support of the Congressman. 

A Once-in-a-Century Crisis Can Help Educate Doctors

by Molly Worthen

The COVID-19 pandemic has offered valuable lessons on the necessity of humanistic education in the training of medical professionals. 

Roundup Top Ten for April 9, 2021

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

Back to the Future at the Pentagon

by William Astore

The Pentagon's shift away from planning for asymmetrical warfare toward "near-peer" conventional conflict is reviving the defense contracting gravy train for big-ticket weapons systems, with a revival of Cold War nuclear danger as a side effect. 

Why Weimar is an Imperfect Mirror

by Helmut Smith

Peter Gay's "Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider" became a key text for understanding the Weimar era as an allegory for understanding political conflict when it was published in 1968. But his psychoanalytical approach can be an impediment to understanding the historical specificity of the era. 

Our Greatest Libraries are Melting Away

by David Farrier

Ice core samples from the Greenland shelf are a physical archive of the long sweep of human history, and demonstrate the connections of humanity's past and future. 

April 6, 2021: On the Republican Party

by Heather Cox Richardson

Since the time of Lincoln, the Republican Party has been part of a bipartisan understanding that expanding the nation's infrastructure – meaning investing in all sorts of supports to economic and social activity – has been a boon to prosperity. That commitment is fraying today.