What do we mean by “the state?” How is a “state” produced? Is “the state” something everyone can participate in producing? Ryan Quintana, an Associate Professor of History at Wellesley College and the author of Making a Slave State: Political...
We live in an age of information. The internet provides us with 24/7 access to all types of information—news, how-to articles, sports scores, entertainment news, and congressional votes. But what do we do with all of this knowledge? How do we sift...
As many as 70 percent of Americans consider themselves to be members of the middle class. But if you consider income as a qualifier for membership, only about 50 percent of Americans qualify for membership. So what does it mean to be middle class...
History books like to tell us that Native Americans did not fully understand British methods and ideas of trade. Is this really true? Did Native Americans only understand trade as a form of simplistic, gift exchange? Jessica Stern, a Professor of...
Between 1775 and 1783, an estimated 230,000 men served in the Continental Army with another approximately 145,000 men serving in state militia units. But who were the men who served in these military ranks? What motivated them to take up arms and...
What happened to the loyalists who stayed in the United States after the War for Independence? After the war, 60,000 loyalists and 15,000 slaves evacuated the United States. But thousands more opted to remain in the new nation. Rebecca Brannon, an...
We live in an age of information. The internet provides us with 24/7 access to all types of information—news, how-to articles, sports scores, entertainment news, and congressional votes. But what do we do with all of this knowledge? How do we sift...
How did enslaved African and African American women experience slavery? What were their daily lives like? And how do historians know as much as they do about enslaved women? Today, we explore the answers to these questions with Jennifer L. Morgan, a...
The American Civil War claimed more than 620,000 American lives. Did you know that it also cost American forests, landscapes, cities, and institutions? Today, we explore the different types of ruination wrought by the Civil War with Megan Kate...
Between 1754 and 1763, North Americans participated in the French and Indian War; a world war Europeans call the Seven Years’ War. As this world war raged, many South Carolinians, Virginians, Britons, and Cherokee people also fought a war for land...