On the complex history and triumphant ubiquity of America’s most comforting staple.
American History
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
The Making of a Black Fortune
America’s first black millionaires were born into slavery — and built wealth alongside political power.
Posted inScience & Nature, Story
Atomic City
On January 3, 1961, a nuclear reactor the size of a small grain silo exploded in the Idaho desert, causing one of the only recorded nuclear fatalities on U.S. soil.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story
American Sphinx
Civil War monuments in the North erased an emancipated Black population. But the Sphinx looked to a new world: an integrated Africa and America.
Posted inArts & Culture, Blog Post
The 1972 Movie of the 1969 Musical, “1776”
The scene was restored, but thanks to Richard Nixon, a song about conservatism was cut from the 1972 movie “1776.”
Posted inBlog Post, Reading List
Celebrating a Second Independence Day: A Juneteenth Reading List
Nine stories that explain the fraught history of the holiday, and the need for celebration.
Posted inCurrent Events
What It Takes to Remove a President Who Can’t Do the Job
Is he confused, insane, or just paranoid? Evan Osnos traces the history of presidential incapacity for the New Yorker
Posted inNonfiction, Story
‘The Stakes May Be the Survival of Civilization’
The first report from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1966 was a passionate defense of the government’s role in the arts.
Posted inBlog Post, History, Nonfiction, Quotes
Greetings from Alabama
“The lesson is simple: populism rises above all other concerns in Alabama.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
It’s Wednesday, So This Must Be the Vice President’s House
Historian Merry Ellen Scofield, writing in Common-Place, dives deep into the intricacies of 19th century social etiquette: calling cards, the hierarchies and politics of who visits who and when, and the details of the cards themselves.