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September 26, 2014

What Ken Burns’s ‘The Roosevelts’ doesn’t tell us (but viewers should know) about Josephus Daniels

Lee A. Craig, author of Josephus Daniels: His Life and Times, talks to Publicity Director Gina Mahalek about his reaction to the portrayal of Josephus Daniels (who was, at the time, one of the most influential men in the world) in the latest Ken Burns PBS documentary series The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. Continue Reading What Ken Burns’s ‘The Roosevelts’ doesn’t tell us (but viewers should know) about Josephus Daniels

Categories American History/Biography / Autobiography/Film/History/Interviews/Video
September 25, 2014

Graham T. Dozier on a Civil War Soldier Who Became a Civil War Tourist

Civil War buffs and historians are not the only people interested in visiting historical battlefields. On our Civil War blog, Graham T. Dozier, editor of A Gunner in Lee’s Army: The Civil War Letters of Thomas Henry Carter observes how Civil War battle sites have long fascinated visitors of all kinds. Continue Reading Graham T. Dozier on a Civil War Soldier Who Became a Civil War Tourist

Categories American History/Biography / Autobiography/Civil War/Military History
September 24, 2014

Excerpt: The Red Atlantic, by Jace Weaver

Leif Erikson sighted the northern coast of North America in approximately 1000 C.E., calling it Vinland. Shortly thereafter, around 1003, the Vikings founded a settlement in present-day L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. They encountered “Red Indians” (as distinguished from the Inuit), whom they called skrælings, an archaic word of uncertain meaning but commonly assumed to mean something like “wretches.” These meetings are recorded in the Icelandic sagas. Continue Reading Excerpt: The Red Atlantic, by Jace Weaver

Categories American History/Excerpts/Genealogy/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
September 18, 2014

Excerpt: Ain’t Got No Home, by Erin Royston Battat

Yet a closer inspection of the Scottsboro case reveals how complicated was the relationship between African Americans and the Communist Party in the 1930s. The CP championed the working-class and unemployed masses, but these were precisely the people who had terrorized the black boys on the train, falsely accused them of rape, and would have lynched them without the governor’s intervention. Antilynching activists, on one hand, and labor defenders, on the other, relied on diametrically opposed conceptions of the populist masses and the law. Whereas the antilynching movement called for the rule of law to quell mob hysteria, labor defense stood up for workers against a prejudicial legal system. These opposing views posed a challenge to the CP in attracting black members and sympathizers. While communists prophesied a future revolution led by an international proletariat, the most visible form of proletarian collective action in the South, according to some skeptical observers at the time, was the lynch mob. Continue Reading Excerpt: Ain’t Got No Home, by Erin Royston Battat

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Excerpts/History
September 11, 2014

Excerpt: Pageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women, by Blain Roberts

On the whole, black southern women forged a more intimate—and more active—relationship with the burgeoning world of beauty than did white southern women. Continue Reading Excerpt: Pageants, Parlors, and Pretty Women, by Blain Roberts

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American Studies/Gender Studies/Women's Studies
September 8, 2014

Come Celebrate NCpedia September 13

North Carolina’s history and more unusual stories will be celebrated at “Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories Found in NCpedia,” a free event at the North Carolina Museum of History, 5 E. Edenton St., Raleigh, on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2014, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Continue Reading Come Celebrate NCpedia September 13

Categories Events/History/North Carolina/Reference
September 2, 2014

Claude Andrew Clegg III: Elijah Muhammad, Then and Now

Our America is a product of Muhammad’s America and to know our times is to appreciate the era in which he lived. Continue Reading Claude Andrew Clegg III: Elijah Muhammad, Then and Now

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Author blog entry/Biography / Autobiography/Guest Bloggers/History/Islamic Studies/Religion
August 28, 2014

Gregory F. Domber: What Putin Misunderstands about American Power

Putin is pushing a new nationalist conservatism with a strong strain of anti-Americanism, promoting a vision of the United States as the primary conspirator pulling strings to foster international chaos and regime change.

As former Ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul noted recently in the New Yorker, “Putin has a theory of American power that has some empirical basis.” The CIA overthrew governments in Iran and Guatemala, the United States bombed Belgrade to remove a dictator, and there is, of course, Iraq. However, a close examination of American policy toward Poland—the country the United States pushed hardest to break from the Soviet sphere in the 1980s—brings to the fore just how far the Russian president’s views are removed from reality. The United States is not nearly the revolutionary mastermind Putin seems to think it is. Continue Reading Gregory F. Domber: What Putin Misunderstands about American Power

Categories Author blog entry/Current Events/European History/Guest Bloggers/History/Political Science
August 21, 2014

Stephen Cushman on one of the quieter anniversaries of the Civil War

Over at our Civil War blog, Stephen Cushman, author of Belligerent Muse: Five Northern Writers and How They Shaped Our Understanding of the Civil War highlights a Civil War anniversary likely to be overlooked in this year’s sesquicentennial observances. Continue Reading Stephen Cushman on one of the quieter anniversaries of the Civil War

Categories American History/Civil War/History
August 20, 2014

Chantal Norrgard: The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission: Tribal Sovereignty in Action

Sovereignty is a contested term in Native American and Indigenous Studies, but as political scientist David Wilkins has asserted, tribal sovereignty is not the same as Western concepts of sovereignty. It exists as a “spiritual, moral, and cultural force” that propels a tribal community towards political economic and cultural integrity and “mature relationships” with itself, with other groups, and with the environment. The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) exemplifies this definition and shows how tribal sovereignty applies to the complex process of decolonization among Lake Superior Ojibwe. Continue Reading Chantal Norrgard: The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission: Tribal Sovereignty in Action

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Native Amer./Indigenous Studies
August 11, 2014

Luther Adams: Claiming the South as Home: African Americans and Southern Identity

Claiming the South as Home was and still is a call to action and for reparations, but it is also an expression of black southern identity. Continue Reading Luther Adams: Claiming the South as Home: African Americans and Southern Identity

Categories African American History/African American Studies/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Southern Studies
August 4, 2014

Sarah S. Elkind: Air Pollution and Prosperity

I was recently interviewed for a series of radio essays called “We Used to Be China,” on China’s air pollution, by Sarah Gardner at American Public Radio’s Marketplace. These stories got me thinking about China’s air pollution problem, and about Marketplace’s premise. Did we, the United States, used to be China? In what ways? Continue Reading Sarah S. Elkind: Air Pollution and Prosperity

Categories American History/Author blog entry/Environmental Studies/Guest Bloggers
July 30, 2014

Excerpt: The Indicted South, by Angie Maxwell

Many white southerners were particularly concerned with the way history would present their side of the sectional conflict and how it would judge their advocates, such as Bryan. Thus controlling, in some way, what children were taught in schools actually carried a significant sub-agenda. Continue Reading Excerpt: The Indicted South, by Angie Maxwell

Categories American History/Excerpts/Southern Studies
July 23, 2014

Excerpt: New Netherland Connections, by Susanah Shaw Romney

Men sailing out from Amsterdam often trusted and relied on their wives above all others. Like all Dutch huysvrouwen, or housewives, maritime women formed essential partnerships with their husbands, and they had detailed knowledge of their seafaring spouses’ interests and personal property. Continue Reading Excerpt: New Netherland Connections, by Susanah Shaw Romney

Categories American History/Excerpts/Women's Studies
July 21, 2014

Raúl Necochea López: Therapeutic Abortion Finally Regulated in Peru after Being Legal (Kinda) for 90 Years

Article 163 of the Penal Code defined therapeutic abortions as those demanded by women and performed by clinicians, in consultation with a committee of their peers, “if there is no other way to save a mother’s life or avoid a permanent and severe lesion in her.” However, Peruvian authorities at the time did not answer crucial questions to make the law applicable, such as which lesions counted as permanent and severe, or what interventions should be used to cause an abortion, or how far into a pregnancy an abortion could be provoked. Continue Reading Raúl Necochea López: Therapeutic Abortion Finally Regulated in Peru after Being Legal (Kinda) for 90 Years

Categories Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/Latin American/Caribbean Hist./Women's Studies
July 8, 2014

Marc Stein: Sotomayor v. Roberts: Race, Affirmative Action, and Impatience

When I teach students about the history of constitutional law, I usually focus on the substantive legal arguments in Supreme Court decisions, but sometimes I encourage my students to focus on the tone, the emotion, the affect. I try to show my students that this can help us understand what is really going on in these decisions and it can help us consider the underlying issues and the political stakes. Continue Reading Marc Stein: Sotomayor v. Roberts: Race, Affirmative Action, and Impatience

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Author blog entry/Guest Bloggers/History/Law / Legal History
July 2, 2014

Excerpt: The Making of a Southern Democracy by Tom Eamon

Unlike many white leaders of the time, Sanford was acquainted with many black business and political leaders. He brought Durham bank executive John Wheeler into interracial discussions. Wheeler publicly prodded Sanford to take bolder steps toward integration but also offered vital links to more militant younger people whom Sanford did not know. Continue Reading Excerpt: The Making of a Southern Democracy by Tom Eamon

Categories American History/Excerpts/North Carolina/Politics