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Modern American History

@modamhist.bsky.social
5.5K followers 160 following 277 posts

News and insights from the journal Modern American History, devoted to all aspects of American history since the 1890s.

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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 3m
Excited to announce four new additions to our editorial board: 2: Gretchen Heefner! Heefner researches the history of the U.S. in the world, focusing on militarization, the environment, and the intimate relations between national security and the everyday. Profile Below
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Excited to announce four new additions to our editorial board: 1: Jonathan Bell! Bell is a historian of US politics since the New Deal. His book, The Health Care Closet, unites rights and health care politics to understand the sexual/gender dynamics of medical care since the 1960s. Profile Below
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Victoria W. Wolcott @vwidgeon.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Thrilled to see this article coming out! In addition to exploring the power of noncooperation in the long civil rights movement it offers a sneak preview of my new book on one of those activists, Eroseanna Robinson. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Struggle at the Margins: The Elkton Three and the Power of Noncooperation | Modern American History | Cambridge Core
Struggle at the Margins: The Elkton Three and the Power of Noncooperation
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
On First View! In 1961, the “Elkton Three”—three veterans of pacifist and civil rights movements—refused to leave a racially segregated restaurant in Maryland. @vwidgeon.bsky.social shows how their improvised protest drew attention to the anti-racist cause. Link Below.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
On First View! The Woodlands, Texas, has long been considered an example of early sustainable urban design. Here, Andrew Busch uses a scalar perspective to argue instead that this town hindered sustainability and increased inequality in Houston. Link Below.
Early subdivision in Clear Lake City with the Johnson Space Center in the background. Source: Courtesy Houston Public Library.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
In 1985, some of the first children of Chinese American immigrants—who were themselves blocked from voting—exercised their birthright citizenship and signed up to vote. @migrantherstory.bsky.social shows that nativists failed to disenfranchise them and yet left a racist legacy. Link Below.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
On First View! @eyellin.bsky.social argues that even though Jewish residents of DC remembered restrictive housing covenants discriminating against Black and Jewish home seekers in equal measure, telling these histories separately reveals more about both groups’ experiences. Link Below.
Washington, DC, and vicinity transportation map, 1947.
Source: Geological Survey, U.S., and United States Public Roads Administration, “Washington, D.C., and vicinity transportation map” (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1947), Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/87695585/.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The banjo has a complex symbolic history, from black cultural identity in the 19th century to Post-WWII film associations with lower-class Americans and their presumed criminality. And yet, Rhae Lynn Barnes concludes, Dolly Parton helped redeem the banjo. Link Below. RIP Dolly Parton.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Excited to announce the winner of the 4th annual Brooke L. Blower and Sarah T. Phillips Essay Prize: Maia Silber with “‘Steady Work for the Steady-in-Work’: Unemployment Insurance, Seasonal Layoffs, and Workers' Survival Strategies in Industrial Wisconsin, 1935-1954”
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
In this recent Soapbox, Beryl Satter explores the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act and its recent scholarly treatment. She calls on scholars to carefully avoid reproducing misogynist tropes, especially when writing the history of feminism. Link Below.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
As we remember 9/11, 25 years later, we return to this article by Joanne Meyerowitz, in which she explores some of the understudied repercussions of the attack. The article shows how, in the first days after the attack, a divisive debate began over who deserved the nation’s largesse. Link Below.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
On first view! Jennifer Ritterhouse writes the history of a 1973 ACLU lawsuit and campaign against involuntary sterilization of Black women. She shows how black feminists worked with and taught middle-class white activists about intersectionality, strengthening the ACLU. Link Below.
Brenda Feigen Fasteau and Nial Cox appeared in a photograph accompanying Jack Slater’s important exposé, “Sterilization: Newest Threat to the Poor,” in Ebony magazine, October 1973. Source: Photo by staff photographer, Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Politicians’ deployments of the U.S. Revolution in the 2020s risk converting it into a fractious ideological weapon. Here, Zachary Clary reflects on the historians’ role in deciphering the political memory of the nation’s founding revolution at its 250th Anniversary. Link Below.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
This Labor Day, return to one of MAH’s most cited articles: The “Sonorous Summons.” Here, Nan Enstad argues that for historians to write truly oppositional histories of capitalism amid political crisis, they must take gender and race seriously and center the bodies of the marginalized. Link Below.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Acclaimed novelist and TV producer George Pelecanos writes about the U.S. by crafting dramas of people and cities. Here, historian Adriane Lentz-Smith interviews him about his novel King Suckerman, DC as an exemplary city, and his approach to American stories. Link Below.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Teasel Muir-Harmony contextualizes the 1976 bicentennial logo—the “fat star”—amid Cold War public diplomacy, corporate branding, and federal arts policy. While the logo was designed to mend the nation fractured by the Vietnam War, it in fact further exposed those very fractures. Link Below.
The United States bicentennial logo designed by Bruce Blackburn, Chermayeff & Geismar Associates Inc.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Here, Megan Hunt examines the enduring power of white liberal nostalgia by exploring U.S. public reception of recent adaptations of To Kill a Mockingbird. In public recommitment to what the essay calls the myth of Atticus Finch, it sees liberal compromise amid democratic collapse. Link Below.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Katherine J. Parkin explores Native American women’s participation in the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial celebrations. By doing so, Parkin argues that the women contested the myth of the “violent Indian” and advanced the needs and voices of Native American rights. Link Below.
Thomasine Hill (Crow [Apsáalooke], Pawnee) was an active member of the National Indian Youth Council and served on the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. Thomasine Hill after she was elected Miss Indian America XV, with Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail (Crow [Apsáalooke]) met with Senators Mike Mansfield and George Aiken of Montana on January 23, 1969. Source: Courtesy of the Montana History Project.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The full issue 9.2 is here! This special Issue considers the U.S. Semiquincentennial. Thank you to the editorial board for all their help with putting together this body of scholarship. See the full issue here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Cover image: The equestrian statue of George Washington in Philadelphia during the United States’ Bicentennial celebrations,
March 31st, 1976. Photo by UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
On First View! Stephen Bohigian examines how Los Angeles County responded to fears of a nationwide crime wave spread through American newspapers in November 1918. He arges that newspapers coverage provided a foundation for expansions of police power. Read here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Breaking the Waves: Press Crime Wave Narratives, Police Power, and the End of the Great War in Los Angeles County | Modern American History | Cambridge Core
Breaking the Waves: Press Crime Wave Narratives, Police Power, and the End of the Great War in Los Angeles County
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
On First View from our Special Issue on the United States' 250th: "Commemoration, Creation, and Sounding the Nation’s Future at St. Louis’s Bicentennial Horizons of American Music" by Billy Coleman. Read here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
John W. Warner, director of the ARBA, and Elizabeth Gentry Sayad display a flag with the official logo of the United States Bicentennial at an event in St. Louis. Undated [Mar. 9, 1975]. Source: Elizabeth Gentry Sayad Papers (S0476), folder 195, box 10, picture 731.18. The State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, MO.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
On First View: Joe Merton's article, "'We’re Giving People a Choice': Civilian Crime Prevention, Consumer Citizenship, and the Transformation of 1970s and 1980s New York City." Read here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Photo of Nottingham Association members erecting signs advertising the area’s civilian patrol. Source: Nottingham Park News, March 1977. Reproduced with permission of the Center for Brooklyn History.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
On First View!
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Public Books @publicbooks.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
“The Historical Paths to and from Wong Kim Ark,” originally published in @modamhist.bsky.social: Read the intro by Hardeep Dhillon, @bethlewwilliams.bsky.social, @migrantherstory.bsky.social, Heather Ruth Lee, Anna Pegler-Gordon & @irpinaingiro.bsky.social :
publicbooks.org
The Historical Paths to and from Wong Kim Ark - Public Books
“The decision in Wong Kim Ark’s case marked the culmination of a three-year legal battle and reflected two decades of sustained efforts to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of Chinese…
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Amid the recent Supreme Court decision upholding Birthright Citizenship, learn more about the historical debate from 5 scholars: @migrantherstory.bsky.social, @bethlewwilliams.bsky.social, @irpinaingiro.bsky.social, , Heather Ruth Lee, and Anna Pegler-Gordon. Intro and essays linked below:
Ng Tung Yook Certificate of Birth. Ng Tung You Case File 18431/5-11, Arrival Investigation Case Files, Records of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Record Group 85, National Archives and Records Administration—Pacific Region (San Francisco).
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
New from our special issue on the U.S.'s 250th: "Making Protest Patriotic Again: The Peoples Bicentennial Commission and America’s 200th Anniversary in 1976" by M. Todd Bennett, which examines a New Left group founded in 1971 to provide an alternative to official celebrations of 1776.
Peoples Bicentennial Commission marchers near Boston’s Faneuil Hall, Dec. 16, 1973.
Source: Spencer Grant/Getty Images.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Did you present at #SHAFR2026 and recieve good feedback on your project? Consider submitting an article to Modern American History. Email MAH@cambridge.org if you have questions.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
New from our special issue on the U.S. 250th! "A Commemoration in Washington or a Commemoration for Washington? The Federal Government and the DC Bicentennial Assembly" by @mjrp.bsky.social. It examines DC Bicentennial Assembly's planning in the early 1970s and the Nixon administration’s response
Posters for the 1973 city celebration capture something of Washington as local planners envisioned it.
Source: Collection of Tony Sarmiento.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Now out from our special issue for the bicentennial! "'The Second American Revolution': Murray Rothbard and the Libertarians Imagine the U.S. Founding" by Jennifer Depew. Read here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
“The Second American Revolution”: Murray Rothbard and the Libertarians Imagine the U.S. Founding | Modern American History | Cambridge Core
“The Second American Revolution”: Murray Rothbard and the Libertarians Imagine the U.S. Founding
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
On First View from our special issue on the U.S. 250th! "Thinning the Nation? The 1976 Bicentennial and the Politics of Revolutionary Memory in a Neoliberal Age" by @thomascryer.bsky.social, which considers commemorative occasions not as political sideshows but as key formative moments.
President Gerald Ford Boards the Michigan Wagon at the Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage Encampment, July 4, 1976.
Source: Wikimedia Commons, courtesy of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Due tomorrow!
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M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska @mjrp.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
feel like you need to bone up on imperial presidencies, federal oversight of D.C. and commemorative planning? I have an article for you! Open access as part of @modamhist.bsky.social's forthcoming special issue on the 250th www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
A Commemoration in Washington or a Commemoration for Washington? The Federal Government and the DC Bicentennial Assembly | Modern American History | Cambridge Core
A Commemoration in Washington or a Commemoration for Washington? The Federal Government and the DC Bicentennial Assembly
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
We've got some terrific pieces rolling out at @modamhist.bsky.social on the 1976 bicentennial celebrations. Here's a great one from Jennifer Depew on the libertarian vision for America's 200th:
cambridge.org
“The Second American Revolution”: Murray Rothbard and the Libertarians Imagine the U.S. Founding | Modern American History | Cambridge Core
“The Second American Revolution”: Murray Rothbard and the Libertarians Imagine the U.S. Founding
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Attention graduate students and early career historians: Essay prize submissions due in 10 days!
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Congratulations to @eladiobobadilla.com on his new book "Dangerous Migration: Mexican Labor and the Fight for Immigrant Rights." MAH featured him in our relaunch of Paul Kramer's “Power and Connection: Imperial Histories of the United States in the World." www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Cover of "Dangerous Migration: Mexican Labor and the Fight for Immigrant Rights," which shows armed soldiers and young men seated in front of them.
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Connie Chiang @connieychiang.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Excited to share my latest article in @modamhist.bsky.social. Focuses on a top-secret Army dog-training project that used Japanese Americans as live bait during World War II.
cambridge.org
Japanese American Dog Bait: Racialized Odors, Canine Violence, and the Environment on Cat Island, Mississippi | Modern American History | Cambridge Core
Japanese American Dog Bait: Racialized Odors, Canine Violence, and the Environment on Cat Island, Mississippi
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Now up on First View! "'We All Won That Fight': U.S. Empire and Military Labor in the Battle of Guadalcanal" by Holger Droessler, which looks at how Solomon Islanders assisted Allied soldiers during WWII as construction workers, local scouts, & messengers. Read: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Sergeant-Major Jacob Vouza in United States Marine Corps Uniform. Guadalcanal, March 1943. Source: National archives (127-GW-911-52167-B).
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Inside MAH's special issue: a Take Three on the presence of rivers in modern American history with analyses from Jon Coleman, Scot McFarlane, and Ellen Griffith Spears Links below!
Dredged Kankakee River, Wilson, Charles B.; Clark, H. Walton (chapter authors); Bowers, George M. (Commissioner) "The Mussel Fauna of the Kankakee Basin (Bureau of Fisheries Document No. 758)". Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries For the Fiscal Year 1911 and Special Papers, U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Fisheries, 1913, p. 2.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Inside MAH's special issue: a Forum on Water and the Modern United States, featuring contributions from Martin V. Melosi, Joanna L. Dyl, David Stradling, Sarah R. Hamilton, and Maarten Zwiers All of these pieces demonstrate the importance of water in understanding US history Links below!
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, U.S. Route 51 between Mounds, Illinois, and Cairo, Illinois. River stage at Cairo, 52.8 feet. Source: Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS, “The Floods of 1927 in the Mississippi Basin,” Frankenfeld, H.C., 1927 Monthly Weather Review Supplement No. 29, March 25, 1927.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
Inside MAH's special issue: "War for the Water: The Environmental Origins of Conflict Between Shrimp Fishers and Vietnamese Refugees on the Texas Coast" by Thomas Blake Earle shows the role of marine ecology in conflicts between Texan white & Vietnamese fishers in the 1970s & 80s. Link below!
Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC, May 8, 2018
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Inside MAH's special issue: "Afterlives of an American Waterscape: The Urban Ditch in the Long Twentieth Century" by Michael Holleran explores how nineteenth-century water supply systems in the U.S. West persisted into the twentieth century. Link below!
Arizona Canal at Scottsdale Waterfront, 2016. Photo by author.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Inside MAH's special issue: "Where the Dumps that Used to Be Ponds Used to Be: Urbanization and Waste in Providence, Rhode Island (United States)" by Samia W. Cohen explores how industrial waste management strategies continue to shape hydrological conditions today Link below!
Benedict and other West End ponds circa 1894. Source: USGS topographic maps, Providence 1894 (Survey Year 1887), 1894, Historical Topographic Map Collection (HTMC), 1894, https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/maps/topoview/viewer (accessed Aug. 20, 2025)
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Announcement: We are now accepting submissions for the Fourth Annual Brooke L. Blower and Sarah T. Phillips Essay Prize. Ph.D. candidates and early-career contingent instructors are invited submit until June 15. Details below:
Essays may deal with any period or topic in the history of the post-1890 United States. The author of the winning essay will receive a cash prize of $500.00, and the essay itself will be published in Modern American History (MAH). Past winners, Syrus Solo Jin’s “‘Are You My Kimchi Mother?’ Race, Women, and the U.S. Military’s Study Abroad Training Program in the Early Cold War,” John Miles Branch’s “Union Exemption: Nonprofit Work and the Boundaries of the Commercial Economy, 1951–1976,” and Julia Brown-Bernstein’s “Bring ‘The Plant’ to Life: Imagining Community Revitalization in the Neoliberal Era,” have contributed to our understanding of modern U.S. history, and demonstrate the caliber of research this prize seeks to promote.  
Essays, including footnotes, should be based on original research and analysis, with a total count of between 11,000 and 14,000 words (including footnotes). Submissions should be sent to MAH@cambridge.org with “2026 Essay Prize Entry” noted in the subject line. The author’s name, graduate program/home institution, brief bio, and abstract should appear in the body of the email. An anonymized .docx version of the essay should be attached.  
Significance of the subject matter, significance of core claims, literary craftsmanship, and proficiency in the handling of primary and secondary sources are some of the factors that will be  considered in judging the essays. The deadline for submitting an essay for consideration is June 15, 2026.  
The final decision will be made by the Brooke L. Blower and Sarah T. Phillips Essay Prize Committee by September 30, 2026. Shortly thereafter, the executive editors of MAH will provide the winning author with details regarding the cash prize and publishing process. They will also notify runner-up authors with an honorable mention and the opportunity to submit their revised essays to MAH for consideration of future publication.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
In the latest special issue of MAH, Sam Hege's photoarticle, "The Subterranean Sublime: Whiteness, Masculinity, and the Making of a Visual Politics of Groundwater," explores the effects of power and capital on groundwater through the history of the Ogallala Aquifer Link below!
“Dr. Bradford Knapp,” Winston Reeves studio photograph collection, 2.5.11.4.2, Southwest Collections, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX [SWC]
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Did you present at #OAH2026 and receive good feedback on your research? Consider submitting an article to Modern American History! Email MAH@Cambridge.org with any questions.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
We appreciate our board members and all of their support!
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Are you attending OAH this year? Come join MAH on Saturday for a panel on "Animals in Modern American History" with Susan Nance, Thomas Andrews, @kclement.bsky.social, Tyler Parry, Andrea Ringer, and Dan Vandersommers. Links below to this fascinating forum!
“Male owner with German police dog,” July 1934, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, 42307.
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
In our special issue on A Water's History of the United States, a new Soapbox from guest editors Gaetano Di Tommaso and @dariofazzi.bsky.social makes the case for centering water in histories of the United States, arguing that water was a driving force in American history.
Men with teams working on dam project, NARA, ca. 1935. Wikimedia Commons
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Modern American History @modamhist.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
A special issue of Modern American History, A Water's History of the United States, with Roosevelt Institute for American Studies guest editors Gaetano Di Tommaso and @dariofazzi.bsky.social, is now live!
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Syrus Solo Jin, PhD @syrussolojin.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
New publication! Very excited to share that my article, "Are You My Kimchi Mother? Asian Officers, American Women, and Cold War Military Training," has been published open access in Modern American History. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Are You My Kimchi Mother? Asian Officers, American Women, and Cold War Military Training | Modern American History | Cambridge Core
Are You My Kimchi Mother? Asian Officers, American Women, and Cold War Military Training
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