Site Search

90,731 items

History Now Essay

Amateurism and Jim Thorpe at the Fifth Olympiad

Kate Buford

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Thorpe’s deception and subsequent confession deals amateur sport in America the hardest blow it has ever had to take and disarranges the scheme of amateur athletics the world over. New York Times , January 28, 1913 The early years of...

Appears in:

23 | Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010

History Now Essay

The Battle of the Sexes

Gail Collins

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

It’s hard to explain, if you weren’t there at the time, why the "Battle of the Sexes"—the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs—was so important. The most enduring image from the event was the picture of Billie...

Appears in:

23 | Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010

Essay

The War for Independence

Ray Raphael

World History

On July 4, 1774, exactly two years before the United States declared independence, a patriotic club in Worcester, Massachusetts, decided that each member should have in the ready two pounds of gunpowder and twelve flints. With the...

History Now Essay

New Orleans and the History of Jazz

Loren Schoenberg

Art, Geography

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

New Orleans is a city built in a location that was by any measure a mistake. North American settlers needed a way to import and export goods via the Mississippi River, so a city was created atop swamps. By virtue of its location and...

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

History Now Essay

Women and the Great Depression

Susan Ware

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1933 Eleanor Roosevelt’s It’s Up to the Women exhorted American women to help pull the country through its current economic crisis, the gravest it had ever faced: "The women know that life must go on and that the needs of life must...

Appears in:

19 | The Great Depression Spring 2009

Essay

"Hidden Practices": Frederick Douglass on Segregation and Black Achievement, 1887

Edward L. Ayers

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Frederick Douglass recalled his feelings when slavery came to an end, after so much work and so many sacrifices. "I felt that I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life," he admitted. But Douglass hardly...

History Now Essay

Economic Policy through the Lens of History

Roger E. A. Farmer

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be...

Appears in:

24 | Shaping the American Economy Summer 2010

History Now Essay

The Indians’ War of Independence

Colin G. Calloway

Geography, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson clearly described the role of American Indians in the American Revolution. In addition to his other oppressive acts, King George III had "endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of...

Appears in:

21 | The American Revolution Fall 2009

Essay

Reconstruction

Edward L. Ayers

In the twelve years after the Civil War—the era of Reconstruction—there were massive changes in American culture, economy, and politics. These were the years of the "Old West," of cowboys, Indians, and buffalo hunts, of cattle drives,...

Essay

The Failure of Compromise

Bruce Levine

Government and Civics

K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In the spring of 1861, the United States of America split into two hostile countries—the United States and the new Confederate States of America. The two opposing heads of state agreed about what was causing the rupture—the long...

Essay

Colonization and Settlement, 1585–1763

John Demos

Economics, Geography, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy, World History

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

American colonial history belongs to what scholars call the early modern period. As such, it is part of a bridge between markedly different eras in the history of the western world. On its far side lies the long stretch we call the...

Essay

Washington Encourages a Prospective Immigrant: The Economic Potential of the States in 1796

Mary-Jo Kline and Theodore J. Crackel

Geography

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

During his second presidential term, George Washington enjoyed a lively correspondence with Sir John Sinclair, member of Parliament and leader of Britain’s scientific agriculture movement, on matters of mutual interest to the two...

History Now Essay

James Madison and the Constitution

Jack Rakove

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

James Madison had just turned twenty-five when he took up his first public office as a delegate to the Virginia provincial convention that endorsed American independence and then adopted a new constitution and an accompanying...

Appears in:

13 | The Constitution Fall 2007

History Now Essay

The Square Deal: Theodore Roosevelt and the Themes of Progressive Reform

Kirsten Swinth

Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Progressivism arrived at a moment of crisis for the United States. As the nineteenth century came to a close, just decades after the Civil War, many feared the nation faced another explosive and violent conflict, this time between the...

Appears in:

17 | Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Era Fall 2008

History Now Essay

Early America’s Jewish Settlers

Eli Faber

Religion and Philosophy

If you had the opportunity to create a new society from scratch, to build its institutions and establish its social structure from the ground up, how would you go about doing it? This is one of the most fruitful ways for teachers and...

Appears in:

29 | Religion in the Colonial World Fall 2011

History Now Essay

Natural Rights, Citizenship Rights, State Rights, and Black Rights: Another Look at Lincoln and Race

James Oakes

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Stephen Douglas was the first in a long line of observers frustrated by the inconsistent things Abraham Lincoln had to say about racial equality. In their fifth debate, at Galesburg, Illinois, on October 7, 1858, Douglas complained...

Appears in:

18 | Abraham Lincoln in His Time and Ours Winter 2008

History Now Essay

Technology of the 1800s

Brent D. Glass

Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In his classic study, Democracy in America (1835–1840), Alexis de Tocqueville titled one of his chapters "Why the Americans are more Addicted to Practical rather than Theoretical Science." He observed that the political and social...

Appears in:

10 | Nineteenth Century Technology Winter 2006

History Now Essay

Conflict and Commerce: The Rise and Fall of New Netherland

Simon Middleton

Economics, World History

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In September 1609, when Henry Hudson guided his ship, De Halve Maen , through the narrows dividing present-day Staten and Long Islands, he was not the first European navigator to sail into what we know today as New York Bay. The...

Appears in:

12 | The Age Of Exploration Summer 2007

History Now Essay

The Importance of Muhammad Ali

Thomas Hauser

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., as Muhammad Ali was once known, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 17, 1942—a time when blacks were the servant class in Louisville. They held jobs such as tending the backstretch at Churchill...

Appears in:

23 | Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010

History Now Essay

Winning the Vote: A History of Voting Rights

Steven Mintz

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Voting Rights on the Eve of the Revolution The basic principle that governed voting in colonial America was that voters should have a "stake in society." Leading colonists associated democracy with disorder and mob rule, and believed...

Appears in:

1 | Elections Fall 2004

Essay

Jim Crow and the Great Migration

Jonathan Holloway

In September 1895, Booker T. Washington, the head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, stepped to the podium at the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition and implored white employers to "cast down your bucket where you are" and hire...

Essay

The Road to Revolution

T. H. Breen

Government and Civics, World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

The Peace of Paris (February 10, 1763) marked a glorious moment in the history of the British Empire. France surrendered Canada, ending more than a century of warfare on the northern frontier. At the time, no one seriously thought...

Essay

Creating a New Government

Gordon S. Wood

Government and Civics

When on July 4, 1776, Americans declared independence from the monarchy of Great Britain, they were faced with the formidable task of creating new republican governments. Their immediate focus was not on any central authority but on...

Essay

The Gilded Age

T. Jackson Lears

When I was a college student in the late 1960s, the most popular US history courses were the ones that covered the Gilded Age. They promised to illuminate the origins of urgent contemporary problems. Their canvas was broad and filled...

History Now Essay

Indian Slavery in the Americas

Alan Gallay

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The story of European colonialism in the Americas and its victimization of Africans and Indians follows a central paradigm in most textbooks. The African "role" encompasses the transportation, exploitation, and suffering of many...

Appears in:

25 | Three Worlds Meet Fall 2010

History Now Essay

The Slave Narratives: A Genre and a Source

David W. Blight

Economics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The autobiographies of ex-slaves in America are the foundation of an African American literary tradition, as well as unique glimpses into the souls of slaves themselves. The roughly sixty-five to seventy slave narratives published in...

Appears in:

2 | Primary Sources on Slavery Winter 2004

History Now Essay

The Origins and Legacy of the Pennsylvania Quakers

Barry Levy

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

Enthusiastic religious conviction among rustic Quakers contributed much to what seems civilized and refined about American culture and society. Although the movement later attracted intellectual and genteel members, Quakerism began as...

Appears in:

29 | Religion in the Colonial World Fall 2011

History Now Essay

Abraham Lincoln and Jacksonian Democracy

Sean Wilentz

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Abraham Lincoln was, for most of his political career, a highly partisan Whig. As long as the Whig Party existed, he never supported the candidate of another party. Until the late 1850s, his chief political heroes were Whigs, above...

Appears in:

18 | Abraham Lincoln in His Time and Ours Winter 2008

History Now Essay

Motor City: The Story of Detroit

Thomas J. Sugrue

Economics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

"You can see here, as it is impossible to do in a more varied and complex city, the whole structure of an industrial society." So wrote essayist Edmund Wilson, reporting on a visit to the Motor City in the 1930s. As the capital of...

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

History Now Essay

Sandra Day O’Connor: A Life of Action

Meryl Justin Chertoff

Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Sandra Day O’Connor still has a lot of work to do. The first woman on the United States Supreme Court who recently described herself as "a retired cowgirl" continues to break new ground as an advocate for judicial independence and...

Appears in:

15 | The Supreme Court Spring 2008

History Now Essay

Change and Crisis: North America on the Eve of the European Invasion

Christopher L. Miller

Geography, Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

It was around the year 1450. A young man was living alone in the dense forest somewhere southeast of Lake Ontario because there was not enough food in his home village. Many like him were doing the same and some, perhaps even this...

Appears in:

25 | Three Worlds Meet Fall 2010

History Now Essay

The Hundred Days and Beyond: What Did the New Deal Accomplish?

Anthony J. Badger

Economics, Government and Civics

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

There wasn’t anybody in that entire Brains Trust apparently that had given any thought—they had absolutely no plans—or any real study to the problem created by this banking situation. —Walter Wyatt, Federal Reserve official, amazed at...

Appears in:

19 | The Great Depression Spring 2009

History Now Essay

Why Sports History Is American History

Mark Naison

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In the classroom, examples from sports can explain key events in American history and help explore how people in American society have grappled with racial, ethnic, and regional differences in our very diverse nation. Whether it is...

Appears in:

23 | Turning Points in American Sports Spring 2010

Essay

The New Deal

Thomas Kessner

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s protean presidency from 1933 to 1945 (the longest term of leadership in this nation’s history) has provoked many debates about the man and his policies. For some he is the brilliant tactician who wrestled...

History Now Essay

Graft and Oil: How Teapot Dome Became the Greatest Political Scandal of Its Time

Robert W. Cherny

Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In the 1920s, Teapot Dome became synonymous with government corruption and the scandals arising out of the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Since then, it has sometimes been used to symbolize the power and influence of...

Appears in:

20 | High Crimes and Misdemeanors Summer 2009

Essay

Religion and Eighteenth-Century Revivalism

Jon Butler

Religion and Philosophy

Revivals and revivalists seem endemic to the broad sweep of American history—Billy Graham’s 1957 "crusade" appearance at New York City’s Yankee Stadium; Aimee Semple McPherson’s theatrical preaching and healing at her Angeles Temple...

Essay

The Politics of Reform

Julie Des Jardins

At the turn of the twentieth century there was a resurging impulse toward social and political reform. In some ways it continued tendencies already apparent since the industrial revolution of the early nineteenth century, in which...

History Now Essay

Ronald Reagan and the End of the Cold War: The Debate Continues

Michael Cox

World History

For a British professor with more than a passing interest in US foreign policy and the role of the United States in ending the Cold War, it is indeed fascinating to observe how deeply divided opinion still remains over the part played...

Appears in:

27 | The Cold War Spring 2011

History Now Essay

Abolition and Antebellum Reform

Ronald G. Walters

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

When the Boston abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson looked back on the years before the Civil War, he wrote, "there prevailed then a phrase, ‘the Sisterhood of Reforms.’" He had in mind "a variety of social and psychological...

Appears in:

5 | Abolition Fall 2005

History Now Essay

The Rise of an American Institution: The Stock Market

Brian Murphy

Economics, Government and Civics, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On nearly every workday in the United States, if you watch cable news or browse an Internet news site at 9:30 in the morning and 4:00 in the afternoon (Eastern Time), you’ll probably see two utterly unremarkable events covered live....

Appears in:

24 | Shaping the American Economy Summer 2010

Essay

The Great Depression

David M. Kennedy

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

Herbert Hoover got many things wrong about the great economic calamity that destroyed his presidency and his historical reputation, but he got one fundamental thing right. Much legend to the contrary, the Great Depression was not...

History Now Essay

Magellan: Missing in Action

Laurence Bergreen

Geography, Literature, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Ferdinand Magellan, celebrated as the first circumnavigator, has long been the orphan of history. Although he did not survive his famous voyage, Magellan became both an icon of exploration and an outcast—disowned by his native...

Appears in:

12 | The Age Of Exploration Summer 2007

History Now Essay

Robber Barons or Captains of Industry?

T. J. Stiles

Economics, Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

On February 9, 1859, Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New York Times , said something strange about Cornelius Vanderbilt. Raymond didn’t like Vanderbilt, a steamship tycoon with such a vast fleet that he was known as the Commodore,...

Appears in:

24 | Shaping the American Economy Summer 2010

History Now Essay

When the Past Speaks to the Present: Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings

Annette Gordon-Reed

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Annette Gordon-Reed is the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History and a professor of history at Harvard University. Her books include The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (2008), which received the Pulitzer...

Appears in:

2 | Primary Sources on Slavery Winter 2004

57 | Black Voices in American Historiography Summer 2020

Essay

The Fifties

Alan Brinkley

The years from the end of World War II to the end of the 1950s were dominated by four powerful changes in American life. The first was the birth of the Cold War, and the great fears that it created. The second was the dramatic growth...

History Now Essay

Bridging the Caribbean: Puerto Rican Roots in Nineteenth-Century America

Virginia Sánchez Korrol

World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In recent years, the media has tended to portray US Latinos of Hispanic Caribbean ancestry as new immigrants, but this characterization ignores the long connections between these immigrants and the United States. And because Puerto...

Appears in:

3 | Immigration Spring 2005

History Now Essay

The Great Depression: An Overview

David M. Kennedy

Economics, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Appears in:

The Great Depression

History Now Essay

Remembering the Alamo

Char Miller

Geography, Government and Civics, World History

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Just hours before John F. Kennedy was to deliver one of the most important speeches of the 1960 presidential campaign in Houston, Texas, the Massachusetts Democrat stood in front of the Alamo. Here, before some 30,000 San Antonians,...

Appears in:

11 | American Cities Spring 2007

Essay

1945 to the Present

William H. Chafe

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

No event proved more important to the course of modern American history than World War II. The war cast America onto the world stage as a mighty economic and military giant. It rescued the country from the Great Depression, created...

History Now Essay

The Consequences of Defeat in Vietnam

Mark Atwood Lawrence

Government and Civics, World History

As historians of the Vietnam War know all too well, the amount of documentation about the conflict available in US archives—to say nothing of foreign repositories—can be overwhelming. To master even a small slice of this material is a...

Appears in:

27 | The Cold War Spring 2011

Site Search

Stay up to date, and subscribe to our quarterly newsletter.