Election of 1912: The Republican Breakup
A former president comes home, looks at his handpicked successor, and decides the country needs a completely different Constitution in practice. That’s the spark behind the Election of 1912, and we wa...
17 Apr 19min
Roosevelt, Taft, And Wilson Debate The Presidency
The presidency didn’t become powerful by accident. We trace today’s executive-branch arguments back to an early-20th-century clash between three outsized figures and three competing theories of Americ...
16 Apr 25min
Political Thought: T Roosevelt vs Wilson
Two presidents. One Progressive Era dilemma that still won’t go away: do you fix a modern economy by breaking up power or by controlling it with an even stronger federal government? We dig into Theodo...
15 Apr 21min
The Populist Moment
We trace what populism looks like in the 1890s and why it’s less a single doctrine than a coalition of anger, hope, and economic suspicion. We follow the money fight over gold and silver into the Pani...
14 Apr 18min
Sherman Antitrust Act
A law you can read in about five minutes still shapes some of the biggest fights in the American economy. We walk through the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 with Dr. Sean Beienberg and unpack what “res...
14 Apr 17min
Susan B. Anthony and a Constitutional Challenge
Susan B. Anthony’s most radical move was not that she voted, it was why she believed she had every right to. After she walked into a Rochester polling place in 1872 and cast a ballot, the state treate...
13 Apr 10min
Who Becomes President? Succession, the Vice Presidency, and Executive Power
The most fragile part of the presidency isn’t the election. It’s the moment something goes wrong and the country still needs a commander in chief, a working cabinet, and a government that doesn’t free...
13 Apr 41min
Plessy Vs. Ferguson
We walk through Plessy v. Ferguson and how a planned railcar protest helps the Supreme Court legitimize Jim Crow through the “separate but equal” doctrine. We also dig into Justice John Marshall Harla...
2 Apr 18min
