How the Civil War Got Its Name
From "insurrection" to "rebellion" to "Civil War," finding a name for the conflict was always political.
The Early American Radical Fiction of John Lithgow
In the early 1800s, the Scottish immigrant wrote an anonymous tract imagining equality. He was worried about the brand-new American republic.
Political Divisions Led to Violence in the U.S. Senate in 1856
The horrific caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate in 1856 marked one of the most divisive moments in U.S. political history.
Politics and Power in the United States: A Syllabus
Historical and scholarly context for the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
The Campus Underground Press
The 1960s and 70s were a time of activism in the U.S., and therefore a fertile time for campus newspapers and the alternative press.
Desegregating the Girl Scouts
The Girl Scouts had always professed that they were open to all girls. But how did that play out in segregated cities?
Ione Quinby, Chicago’s Underappreciated “Girl Reporter”
She started off as a "stunt" journalist and moved into covering stories about women and crime in the Roaring Twenties.
Did Communists Really Infiltrate American Schools?
Fears that teachers were indoctrinating kids were rampant in the 1950s. But the reality was more complicated.
AIDS, from the Perspective of “Patient Zero”
We now know a great deal about how the man who's often blamed for the AIDS epidemic saw himself and his community. That's important.