Today we welcome a guest post from Vanessa May, author of Unprotected Labor: Household Workers, Politics, and Middle-Class Reform in New York, 1870-1940 (June 2011). Here she reflects on how some of the recent policies that now protect domestic workers in New York mirror the struggle for rights and reform during the era highlighted in her book. The passing of… Continue Reading Vanessa May: When the Workplace Is Someone Else’s Home
David Stowe reflects on meeting and interviewing Marsha Stevens-Pino, a popular singer in the 1970s Jesus Movement who was ostracized for coming out as a lesbian. Continue Reading David W. Stowe: Coming Out of the Jesus Movement: A Conversation with Marsha Stevens-Pino
As we mark Loretta Lynn’s 50th anniversary in country music, I think it’s important to recognize her not only for her contributions to country music, but also for her role in women’s history as a troubadour for working-class women everywhere. Continue Reading When You’re Lookin’ at Her, You’re Lookin’ at History
What to do with all those root vegetables at the winter farmers’ market?? Try this hearty March recipe from The New Southern Garden Cookbook: Enjoying the Best from Homegrown Gardens, Farmers’ Markets, Roadside Stands, and CSA Farm Boxes, by Sheri Castle. Continue Reading Sheri Castle: Creamy Baby Turnip Soup with Smoked Trout Butter
One of the goals of the Toshiko Takaezu Book Foundation, who contracted with me to act as editor for the book, was that Toshiko would be able to hold it in her hands. It pleases me to no end this was accomplished a week prior to her passing. Continue Reading Peter Held: Remembering Toshiko Takaezu (1922-2011)
The popular uprisings of the sort now spreading across North Africa to the Persian Gulf were hard to anticipate—but the American response wasn’t. U.S. history is filled with moments like the present one when upheavals abroad generated great hopes for the advance of freedom. Those moments have also evoked deep anxieties rooted in a suspicion that most peoples reaching for… Continue Reading Michael H. Hunt: Caught in Contradictions: The United States and the Middle East
We welcome a guest post from James Marten, author of Sing Not War: The Lives of Union and Confederate Veterans in Gilded Age America. Today is the anniversary of President Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural, in which he made a promise that was kept by passing federal programs that took care of war veterans and their families. Here, Marten discusses the importance… Continue Reading James Marten: Charity for All: A Little-Known Legacy of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural
When we read about Beyoncé‘s recent photo shoot in blackface, we asked for some historical insight from W. Fitzhugh Brundage, editor of the forthcoming book Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930 (July 2011). The book includes essays from sixteen scholars who depict popular culture as a crucial arena in which African Americans struggled to… Continue Reading W. Fitzhugh Brundage: Beyoncé, Bert Williams, and the History of Blackface in America
In today’s guest post, Leon Fink, author of Sweatshops at Sea: Merchant Seamen in the World’s First Globalized Industry, from 1812 to the Present, reflects on the recent Somali pirate attack on a group of Americans on a private yacht. With piracy on the rise off the Somali coast, the relationship between commerce, globalization, power, and security becomes problematic. Fink… Continue Reading Leon Fink: Oceanic Piracy–A War without Nations
My students, and probably some friends and relatives, would be surprised to learn that I am a fan of southern hip hop. What, pray tell, would a 40-something white woman know and enjoy about music from the Dirty South? Well, to answer that I’d have to go back to the days of my youth. Way back. I’ve long been a… Continue Reading The Dirty South: Why It’s on MY Pop Culture Radar
We welcome a guest post today from David Stowe, author of the forthcoming book No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism. In his cultural history of evangelical Christianity and popular music, Stowe demonstrates how mainstream rock of the 1960s and 1970s has influenced conservative evangelical Christianity through the development of Christian pop music.… Continue Reading David Stowe: Larry Norman, the Bad Boy of Christian Rock
We welcome a guest post today from Shawn Smallman, coauthor (with Kimberley Brown) of Introduction to International and Global Studies. Their new book is a thematic introduction to the intellectual and structural underpinnings of globalization. Here, Smallman shows how increased regulation and security can actually exacerbate the issues of the international drug war that those measures try to quell. -Alex… Continue Reading Shawn Smallman on The Concept of Security: The U.S. Drug War, Mexico, and Portugal
Whose idea was Black History Month? Who picked February to celebrate it? We welcome this brief but informative history of Black History Month from Stephen G. Hall, author of A Faithful Account of the Race: African American Historical Writing in Nineteenth-Century America, as he lays out the facts and debunks the myths of the celebration’s origins.–ellen There are many misconceptions… Continue Reading Stephen G. Hall: Black History Month: Setting the Story Straight
Today we welcome a guest post from James Wolfinger, author of Philadelphia Divided: Race and Politics in the City of Brotherly Love. Here, Wolfinger sheds light on the rocky beginnings of the Levittown in Bucks County outside of Philadelphia, which was fraught with racial tension and forced segregation by Bill Levitt himself, even years after its 1951 opening. But seven… Continue Reading James Wolfinger: A Tale of Two Levittowns: Race and Housing in Suburban Philadelphia
Two mouth-watering recipes that go great together – from Sheri Castle’s forthcoming book (coming in April!), The New Southern Garden Cookbook: Enjoying the Best from Homegrown Gardens, Farmers’ Markets, Roadside Stands, & CSA Farm Boxes. Continue Reading Skillet Apples and Miracle Drop Biscuits
As you know by now, Charlotte, North Carolina was selected to host the 2012 Democratic National Convention, and between Michelle Obama’s email announcing the decision and the national media’s comments on said decision, there’s a lesson or two in how the South continues to elicit both positive and negative statements about its character that are drawn from the same tired… Continue Reading The DNC and the National Media—Bringing Southern Stereotypes to a City Near You
In celebration of National Girls and Women in Sports Day, we welcome a guest post from Susan Ware, author of Game, Set, Match: Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women’s Sports. Ware explains King’s importance in gender equality both within and beyond the world of sports, even before Title IX. Here, she recalls her interview with the icon at… Continue Reading Susan Ware: Happy National Girls and Women in Sports Day!
We present commentary today from Michael Barkun, author of the forthcoming Chasing Phantoms: Reality, Imagination, and Homeland Security Since 9/11 (April 2011). In the book, Barkun demonstrates that U.S. homeland security policy reflects significant nonrational thinking, and he offers new recommendations for effective–and rational–policymaking. In this post, he addresses changes at the Department of Homeland Security since the arrival of… Continue Reading Michael Barkun: A New Era of Rational Thinking at DHS?
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