Recently Published

Irrelevant at Best, or Else Complicit

by Maggie Gram

The state of design in 1970.

German Radicals vs. the Slave Power

by Devin Thomas O’Shea

In Memoirs of a Nobody, Henry Boernstein chronicles the militant immigrant organizing that helped keep St. Louis out of the hands of the Confederacy.

Telling Chestnut Stories

by Carolyn Barske Crawford

How to use public history and memories to mobilize people to solve environmental challenges.

So Ductile Is History in the Hands of Man!

by Madeline Grimm

The past and present of counterfactual history, from antiquity to the Napoleonic Wars to a few very active subreddits.

An Attempt to Defeat Constitutional Order

by Marcus Alexander Gadson

After the Civil War, conservatives used terrorism, cold-blooded murder, and economic coercion to fight the new state constitution in South Carolina.

Solve for AI

by Bronwen Everill

What the history of the pocket calculator reveals about the future of AI in classrooms.

Lethal Injection Is Not Based on Science

by Corinna Barrett Lain

The history of the three-drug combo used in death-penalty executions. 

How to Succeed in Government Without Really Trying

by Camille Walsh

The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. 

Are You Not Large and Unwieldy Enough Already?

by Andrew C. Isenberg

John Quincy Adams challenges the idea of an expanding American frontier. 

The Dangerous Afterlives of Lexington and Concord

by Eran Zelnik

How a myth about farmers taking on the British has fueled more than two centuries of exclusionary nationalism.

Mutant Capitalism

by Quinn Slobodian

How the dystopian visions of the nativist right are in keeping with a long tradition of neoliberal ideology.

The Constitution Does Not Speak for Itself

by Eric Eisner and David B. Froomkin

In 1841, John Tyler said he was the president. The Constitution said he wasn’t. What happened next?

“The End Is Coming! The End Is Coming!”

by Ross Benes

In the 1990s, an entire industry was born of trying to convince Americans that Beanie Babies were a great investment opportunity.

The Blood on the Keyboard

by Marina Manoukian

The history of ivory-topped piano keys and the invisible human suffering caused by our cultural commodities.

Scared Out of the Community

by Abraham Hoffman

Between 1929 and 1939 approximately half a million Mexicans left the United States. Many of the departing families included American-born children to whom Mexico, not the United States, was the foreign land.

Whose Side Are College Administrators On?

by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd

There’s a long history of politicians targeting student protesters — and of campus leaders abetting those efforts.

Creating the “Senior Citizen” Political Identity

by Linda Gordon

On the movement that fought for old-age pensions during the Great Depression.

Indifferent to the Fate of Freedom Elsewhere

by Will Teague

Jimmy Carter is known for his defense of human rights worldwide. But in 1979, he threatened to deport thousands of Iranian student protesters.

There’s Some Spirit Left Yet

by Michael Meyer

When Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh tried to publish a birth control pamphlet, they ended up in court “on a charge of publishing a book alleged to be immoral.” 

Thaddeus Stevens and the Power of the Purse

by Cecily Zander

The Radical Republican oversaw federal spending at the dawn of Reconstruction. How did his support for Black equality affect his leadership in the House?