The Young America Movement and the Crisis of Household Politics
For Mark Power Smith, the famous 1859 murder of Philip Barton Key reveals the gender politics of the Young America movement.
Slavery, Freedom, and the Fourth of July
Matthew Clavin meditates on the symbolic importance of the Fourth of July for American movements of liberation.
Marietta Falls: Rufus Putnam, Big Larry, and White Settler Nostalgia
Honor Sachs celebrates the new TV series Rutherford Falls as a satirical antidote to McCullough’s hagiography.
Vilification and Erasure: The Story of Indigenous History in The Pioneers
Michael John Witgen sees a through line between McCullough’s erasure of Indigenous history and the modern right wing’s ethnocentric gaslighting.
How Should History Make Us Feel?
Michael A. Blaakman asks us to center the historian as storyteller as a way to escape the culture-war traps of American history.
Next Steps
Stephen Aron calls for public history that uses recent scholarship to answer the public’s questions.
Good Things, Sacred Cows, and Writing about Settler Colonialism
Jason Opal calls for us to attack the myths of settler colonialism like we have those of the American Revolution.
Social Media and a Black Historian’s Journey
Adam McNeil describes the social contexts, both digital and analog, that shaped him as an emerging historian.
Walking the Plank: The Perils of Online Scholarship
Jamie L. H. Goodall draws lessons from an experience of online bullying related to her public scholarship.
