When we talk about slavery in Early America, we often focus on plantations: their large, fertile fields, their cash crops, and the people who labored on those fields to produce those cash crops under conditions of enslavement. But what about the...
When we think about the American Revolution, the French Revolution, or the Haitian Revolution, we think about the ideals of freedom and equality. These ideals were embedded and discussed in all of these revolutions. What we don’t always think about...
The words of the Declaration of Independence are not the only aspect of the American Revolution that carry power. Visual and material objects from during and after the Revolution also carry power and meaning. Objects like monuments, uniforms...
What kind of character should Americans have? Is it possible to create a shared sense of national character and identity that all Americans can subscribe to? Americans grappled with many questions about what it meant to be an American and a citizen...
How did everyday men and women experience life in the colonial America? How did the American Revolution transform their work and personal lives? Marla Miller, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the author of Betsy...
What do the objects we purchase and use say about us? If we take the time to think about the material objects and clothing in our lives, we’ll find that we can actually learn a lot about ourselves and other people. The same holds true when we take...
What do historians do with historical sources when they find them? How do they read them for information about the past? Today, Zara Anishanslin, an Assistant Professor of History at CUNY’s College of Staten Island, leads us on an exploration of how...
What can John Hancock’s suit tell you about the man who wore it? The clothing a person wears tells you a lot about them: Whether they are rich or poor, what kind of work they do, what colors they like, and what they value. We know that John Hancock...