Historians in the News

The Elite Sisterhood of Amy Coney Barrett

Although abortion rights are receiving much of the focus from Amy Coney Barrett's critics, writer Melissa Gira Grant argues that her participation in a decades-long conservative effort to undermine the social safety net will have broad consequences on every dimension of the lives of women who lack Barrett's privilege. 

The Persistence of Segregation in South Carolina

The Supreme Court's artful directive to desegregate with "all deliberate speed" invited many school districts to do so as slowly as possible. Historian Millicent Brown was the first Black student to integrate a white high school in Charleston, South Carolina and has researched a book about the experiences of similar students. 

Standing up for Professors

Washington and Lee University offered a strong defense of its faculty when they were vilified in right-wing media and received threats and online abuse. 

What’s in a Name? For Some Clubs in the South, Uneasy Ties to the Confederacy

Historian Adam Domby comments on pressures faced by many golf courses in the South to change their names to remove Confederate associations (he's in favor). 

Bawdy Civil War Letters, In the Style of Ken Burns

by Katie Hemphill

Historian Katie Hemphill's recent crash course in video editing for Zoom teaching let her fulfill a longtime goal: set the bawdiest Civil War letters she found in her research to the stirring sounds of documentary music. Content Warning: Cuss Words.

Power, Propaganda And What Justice Might Look Like For Breonna Taylor (audio)

Historian Keisha Blain joins "On Point" to discuss the decision not to charge most of the police officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor during a botched search warrant at her residence. 

Pandemic Imperils Promotions for Women in Academia

As primary education has gone remote for another term, women professors with children argue that uneven distribution of domestic labor means their scholarly work is at a disadvantage compared to male and childless colleagues. "“I don’t need a clock extension,” Dr. Magdalena Osburn said. “I need an acknowledgment that this year is trash.”

Stephen Wertheim's "Tomorrow the World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy" (video)

In his new book, Tomorrow, the World, Stephen Wertheim reveals how American leaders suddenly and unexpectedly decided to turn the United States into the world's armed superpower — and never looked back.

How Mass Incarceration Has Shaped History

Political forces pushing for mass incarceration have been closely connected to those restricting the power of labor and pressing to keep wages low. 

Amid the Monument Wars, a Rally for ‘More History’

“Historians have different views on taking down statues,” said Gregory Downs, a professor at the University of California, Davis, and one of the organizers. “But that debate doesn’t really capture what historians do, which is to bring more history.”

How a Fight Over a Black Lives Matter Statement Transformed an Academic Association

Debates catalyzed by a policy statement on the police killing of George Floyd illuminated political and generational rifts in the Puerto Rican Studies Association and led to a turnover of leadership.

The Problem of Confederate Statues on U.S. Public Lands

Governments have recently addressed the problem of memorializing the Confederacy on public land. Why should monuments in cemeteries like Arlington or on Civil War battlefields be treated differently? 

‘Classic Authoritarian’: How Historians Rate Trump’s Danger to Democracy

Leading academic scholars suggest parallels from American and world history for the present situation. 

Why New Mexico’s 1680 Pueblo Revolt Is Echoing in 2020 Protests

Indigenous groups in the Southwest are imbuing their activism this year with commemorations of the 340-year-old Pueblo Revolt, one of Spain’s bloodiest defeats in its colonial empire.

Re-Watching ‘The Civil War’ During the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd Protests

by Gillian Brockell

Ken Burns's Civil War documentary series sparked tremendous interest in history, but the series has a big Shelby Foote problem. 

OAH Statement on White House Conference on American History

"The history we teach must investigate the core conflict between a nation founded on radical notions of liberty, freedom, and equality, and a nation built on slavery, exploitation, and exclusion." 

Telling the Truth About Slavery Is Not ‘Indoctrination’

“'We have too often a deliberate attempt so to change the facts of history that the story will make pleasant reading for Americans,' Du Bois wrote in Black Reconstruction." Today, American students' levels of ignorance about slavery suggests this too often remains true. 

Ways of Remembering: A Racial Geography Tour of UT-Austin’s Campus

What makes the campus such a great teaching tool? "Nothing goes up on a college campus that hasn't been thought through," explains Gordon. "Everything that gets placed and gets named on a college campus has a meaning behind it."

The Red Scare and Women in Government

McCarthyite attacks on the political left also pushed women out of policymaking positions in the federal government, the historian Landon Storrs argues. 

The Forgotten Feminists of the Backlash Decade

Lisa Levenstein's book assesses a shift in the women's movement in the 1990s into digital spaces and professionalized issue organizations. A reviewer considers what that shift enabled women to achieve and what it cost.