Stories From Captives on The Last Slave Ship to America
The Clotilda was the last slave ship to land on American soil, docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860—more than half a century after the passage of a federal law banning the importation of slaves...
20 Feb 202429min
Was Union Support in the Confederacy Actually Widespread? The Alabamans Who Fought for Sherman Say 'Yes'
As the popular narrative goes, the Civil War was won when courageous Yankees triumphed over the South. But an aspect of the war that has remained little-known for 160 years is the Alabamian Union sold...
15 Feb 202449min
The Heroes, Legends, and Liars Who Fought in WW2
Veterans of World War 2 are called the Greatest Generation for their uncommon courage and self-determination. Whether this descriptor is true or part of America’s self-mythologizing during the 20th ce...
13 Feb 202435min
Turning Okies Into New Dealers: How 1930s Technocrats Pushed Progressivism on Dust Bowl Refugees in Federal Farm Camps
In the midst of the Great Depression, punished by crippling drought and deepening poverty, hundreds of thousands of families left the Great Plains and the Southwest to look for work in California’s ri...
8 Feb 202438min
Whistle-Stop Tours: When Trains Ruled American Presidential Elections
For nearly two centuries, the beating heart of electoral politics was on the back of a train. William Jennings Bryan spoke to an estimated 5 million people from a train car in his 1896 presidential ca...
6 Feb 202436min
The Jewish Bankers Who Built Wall Street, Financed the American Century, and Spawned Countless Conspiracy Theories
Joseph Seligman arrived in the United States in 1837, with the equivalent of $100 sewn into the lining of his pants. Then came the Lehman brothers, who would open a general store in Montgomery, Alabam...
1 Feb 202442min
The Ghost Army of World War 2
In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—including such future luminaries such as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey—landed in France to co...
30 Jan 202441min
How Free Time Transformed From Strolls Through Aristocratic Gardens to Doomscrolling on TikTok
Free time, one of life’s most important commodities, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social medi...
25 Jan 202431min
