Enslaved men and women encountered revolutionary rhetoric not as abstract theory but amid a crisis that destabilized authority and opened new possibilities for pursuing their own freedom.

As students of early American life preparing to commemorate America’s 250th year of independence, what should we know and what might we do?

Historians today may have varying interpretations of what caused the Revolution, just as their predecessors did a century ago.

Written to mark the bicentennial of Whitman’s birth, my poems operate within that lacuna, occupying the dissonant threshold between Whitman’s optimistic vision for America, “out of hopeful green stuff woven,” and my own personal history.

If there are two rules about early American history, one is that, no matter how vast, George Washington will always be instructive.

Ultimately, the search for Concord’s lost graves is not solely about stones and names; it is about restoring individuals to history, one clue at a time.

Separating fact from folklore in Kelly’s life is no easy task. Secondhand reminiscences and nautical gossip layer much of the available information.

Innovations in menstrual technology that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century allow us to infer what techniques women used to manage their periods in earlier decades by analyzing...

There is little historical information about Dr. Griggs, but what little there is, is significant. Also important are historians’ assessments of his medical competence and moral character.

When historical details are nonexistent, make them up. Not usually considered sound advice to historians, granted, but possibly warranted under these circumstances.

Review Puritans Native Americans Praying Towns

Innovations in menstrual technology that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century allow us to infer what techniques women used to manage their periods in earlier decades by analyzing...

Such modest allusions to the colonial past were in the decided minority, however, swamped by the more generic Halloween ambience of the event.

Poe’s work reminds us that the separation of “Arts” and “Sciences” into discrete discourses of knowledge is itself a quite recent invention.

The real Whitney story is less grand than the legend, but more interesting and, ultimately, more edifying.

Too often, historians turn to records of constituent or legislative deliberations from the eighteenth century as a source to draw quotations from early American political figures, without questioning ...

Over time, the history of what was consumed in those taverns became more interesting to me than a rather limited subset of drinkers.

This is why you need a plan: to read attentively but efficiently, and sustainably, without surrendering your book-life balance.

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Silence is never something I manage very well.

It turns out that, in legal terms, the mystery of who found the broadside matters a lot less than who lost it.

It turns out that, in legal terms, the mystery of who found the broadside matters a lot less than who lost it.

Because as it turns out, as much as this clutch of papers is about a specific story of Atlantic slavery it still absolutely relates to British finance and national politics.

Understanding puzzles as agents of disorder runs counter to a common interpretation that associates puzzles with the quest for and ultimate affirmation of order.

Ambitious office seekers during the nineteenth century experienced wild swings of fortune that depended on the public’s mood and party benevolence.

Ambitious office seekers during the nineteenth century experienced wild swings of fortune that depended on the public’s mood and party benevolence.

Ambitious office seekers during the nineteenth century experienced wild swings of fortune that depended on the public’s mood and party benevolence.

Join us on June 5, 2025 to celebrate the publication of Director of the APS's Library & Museum Michelle McDonald's book Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States.

Howells makes it clear that Mary Lewis was interviewing them rather than the other way around.

Howells makes it clear that Mary Lewis was interviewing them rather than the other way around.

Published on May 11, 2025

Sensitivity to the influence of BaKongo cosmology on Kongo Christianity provides useful context to that argument and can help us better understand the choices made by leaders of the rebellion.

Sensitivity to the influence of BaKongo cosmology on Kongo Christianity provides useful context to that argument and can help us better understand the choices made by leaders of the rebellion.