Category: History

Alice Elizabeth Malavasic: The Momentous Issue of Our National Soul

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Alice Elizabeth Malavasic, author of The F Street Mess:  How Southern Senators Rewrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Pushing back against the idea that the Slave Power conspiracy was merely an ideological construction, The F Street Mess argues that some southern politicians in the 1850s did indeed hold an inordinate amount of power in… Continue Reading Alice Elizabeth Malavasic: The Momentous Issue of Our National Soul

Michael D. Robinson: Where Was the Political Middle Ground during the Secession Crisis?

Today, we welcome a guest post from Michael D. Robinson, author of A Union Indivisible:  Secession and the Politics of Slavery in the Border South. Many accounts of the secession crisis overlook the sharp political conflict that took place in the Border South states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. In A Union Indivisible, Michael D. Robinson expands the scope… Continue Reading Michael D. Robinson: Where Was the Political Middle Ground during the Secession Crisis?

Alice Elizabeth Malavasic: What’s in a Name?

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Alice Elizabeth Malavasic, author of The F Street Mess:  How Southern Senators Rewrote the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Pushing back against the idea that the Slave Power conspiracy was merely an ideological construction, The F Street Mess argues that some southern politicians in the 1850s did indeed hold an inordinate amount of power in… Continue Reading Alice Elizabeth Malavasic: What’s in a Name?

M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska : New Museums and New (Kinds of) Histories

Today, we welcome a guest post from M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, author of History Comes Alive:  Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s, on our changing ideas about museums. During the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, millions of Americans engaged with the past in brand-new ways. They became absorbed by historical miniseries like Roots, visited museums with new exhibits that immersed them in… Continue Reading M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska : New Museums and New (Kinds of) Histories

Megan Raby: Ecology and U.S. Empire in the Caribbean

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Megan Raby, author of American Tropics:  The Caribbean Roots of Biodiversity Science. Biodiversity has been a key concept in international conservation since the 1980s, yet historians have paid little attention to its origins. Uncovering its roots in tropical fieldwork and the southward expansion of U.S. empire at the turn of the twentieth… Continue Reading Megan Raby: Ecology and U.S. Empire in the Caribbean

Mary Elizabeth Basile Chopas: The Lessons of World War II Selective Internment

Today, we welcome a guest post from Mary Elizabeth Basile Chopas, author of Searching for Subversives:  The Story of Italian Internment in Wartime America. When the United States entered World War II, Italian nationals living in this country were declared enemy aliens and faced with legal restrictions. Several thousand aliens and a few U.S. citizens were arrested and underwent flawed… Continue Reading Mary Elizabeth Basile Chopas: The Lessons of World War II Selective Internment

Joan Marie Johnson: November 6, 1917 — Women Win the Right to Vote in New York State

Today we welcome a guest post from Joan Marie Johnson, author of Funding Feminism: Monied Women, Philanthropy, and the Women’s Movement, 1870–1967, on how women won the right to vote in New York State. In Funding Feminism, Joan Marie Johnson examines an understudied dimension of women’s history in the United States: how a group of affluent white women from the… Continue Reading Joan Marie Johnson: November 6, 1917 — Women Win the Right to Vote in New York State

Happening this week: An online roundtable on Antiracism in Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution by Devyn Spence Benson

Black Perspectives, the blog of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS), is hosting an online roundtable on Devyn Spence Benson’s Antiracism in Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution, published in 2016 by UNC Press. The roundtable begins on Monday, November 6, 2017, and concludes on Saturday, November 11, 2017. The roundtable will feature responses from Yesenia Barragan (Dartmouth College) Aisha K. Finch (UCLA; author… Continue Reading Happening this week: An online roundtable on Antiracism in Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution by Devyn Spence Benson

Eve E. Buckley: The Power and Paucity of Primary Documents for Latin American Historians

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Eve E. Buckley, author of Technocrats and the Politics of Drought and Development in Twentieth-Century Brazil, on drought and regional development in Brazil. Eve E. Buckley’s study of twentieth-century Brazil examines the nation’s hard social realities through the history of science, focusing on the use of technology and engineering as vexed instruments of… Continue Reading Eve E. Buckley: The Power and Paucity of Primary Documents for Latin American Historians

M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska: Consuming History

Today, we welcome a guest post from M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, author of History Comes Alive:  Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s, on throwback jerseys and limited edition cereal boxes. During the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, millions of Americans engaged with the past in brand-new ways. They became absorbed by historical miniseries like Roots, visited museums with new exhibits that immersed… Continue Reading M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska: Consuming History

Jessica Ziparo: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Equal Pay

Today we welcome a guest post from Jessica Ziparo, author of This Grand Experiment:  When Women Entered the Federal Workforce in Civil War–Era Washington, D.C., looking back on the first debates about equal pay for equal work. In the volatility of the Civil War, the federal government opened its payrolls to women. Thousands of female applicants from across the country… Continue Reading Jessica Ziparo: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Equal Pay

John Hayes: “Those People”

Today we welcome a guest post from John Hayes, author of Hard, Hard Religion:  Interracial Faith in the Poor South, on the history of class and race in the American South. In Hard, Hard Religion, his captivating study of faith and class, John Hayes examines the ways folk religion in the early twentieth century allowed the South’s poor–both white and… Continue Reading John Hayes: “Those People”

Jeffrey J. Crow: Rethinking North Carolina History

Today, we welcome a guest post from Jeffrey J. Crow, co-editor (along with Larry E. Tise) of New Voyages to Carolina:  Reinterpreting North Carolina History, on a new way to view North Carolina history. New Voyages to Carolina offers a bold new approach for understanding and telling North Carolina’s history. Recognizing the need for such a fresh approach and reflecting… Continue Reading Jeffrey J. Crow: Rethinking North Carolina History

Joan Marie Johnson: Supporting the Struggle for Women’s Reproductive Rights

Today we welcome a guest post from Joan Marie Johnson, author of Funding Feminism: Monied Women, Philanthropy, and the Women’s Movement, 1870–1967, on the anniversary of the founding of America’s first birth control clinic, and the women behind the scenes who made it possible. In Funding Feminism, Joan Marie Johnson examines an understudied dimension of women’s history in the United… Continue Reading Joan Marie Johnson: Supporting the Struggle for Women’s Reproductive Rights

Larry E. Tise: A New Narrative for North Carolina History

Today, we welcome a guest post from Larry E. Tise, co-editor (along with Jeffrey J. Crow) of New Voyages to Carolina:  Reinterpreting North Carolina History, on a new way to view North Carolina history. New Voyages to Carolina offers a bold new approach for understanding and telling North Carolina’s history. Recognizing the need for such a fresh approach and reflecting… Continue Reading Larry E. Tise: A New Narrative for North Carolina History

Author Interview: Emily Herring Wilson, The Three Graces of Val-Kill

Gina Mahalek talks to Emily Herring Wilson, author of The Three Graces of Val-Kill: Eleanor Roosevelt, Marion Dickerman, and Nancy Cook in the Place They Made Their Own. # # # Q: How did you discover this story? A: I wanted to understand Eleanor Roosevelt as a woman making her own private life—after a troubled marriage and children going away to… Continue Reading Author Interview: Emily Herring Wilson, The Three Graces of Val-Kill

Author Interview: Karen L. Cox, Goat Castle

“From the time I learned about Goat Castle and the real-life characters that inhabited it, I could see it as a film. Every person I’ve ever talked to about this book project has said, without fail, ‘This needs to be a movie.’” Continue Reading Author Interview: Karen L. Cox, Goat Castle

Stephanie Hinnershitz: Before Loving: How the Naim v. Naim Case Challenges Civil Rights Narratives

Today we welcome a guest blog post from Stephanie Hinnershitz, author of A Different Shade of Justice: Asian American Civil Rights in the South, on the global nature of struggles over civil rights. From the formation of Chinese and Japanese communities in the early twentieth century through Indian hotel owners’ battles against business discrimination in the 1980s and ’90s, Stephanie… Continue Reading Stephanie Hinnershitz: Before Loving: How the Naim v. Naim Case Challenges Civil Rights Narratives

Douglas Hunter: Dighton Rock, Leif Eriksson, and the Origins of Scientific Racism

Today we welcome a guest post from Douglas Hunter, author of The Place of Stone:  Dighton Rock and the Erasure of America’s Indigenous Past, on the contested history of Dighton Rock and it’s petroglyphs. Claimed by many to be the most frequently documented artifact in American archeology, Dighton Rock is a forty-ton boulder covered in petroglyphs in southern Massachusetts. First… Continue Reading Douglas Hunter: Dighton Rock, Leif Eriksson, and the Origins of Scientific Racism