The Dazzling 1830 Defense of a Strong Federal Government

New England Statesman Daniel Webster Found Religion in Centralized National Power When it Served His Region’s Interests

For generations, school children memorized the ending to Daniel Webster’s “Second Reply to Hayne,” delivered during the famous Webster-Hayne debate of January 1830. This most-famous-of-debates began in a modest fashion, with an argument over westward expansion and morphed into a discussion of tariffs and then nationalism versus states’ rights. Over time, the discussion came to symbolize something much more about American unity, as Webster’s soaring defense of nationalism and American nationhood, crowned with the words “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable,” became a civics lesson in the …

by Christopher Childers | April 18, 2019

Inspired by Luxury Yachts, Station Wagons Were Once the Height of Mid-20th-Century Design

Before the Minivan and SUV, American Families Rode in a Vehicle Fashioned for Comfort and Room for All

April 11, 2019

Today SUVs clog American roads, but in the middle of the 20th century, the station wagon ruled supreme. Built for growing postwar families—with a distinctive nod toward style and luxury—the …

The Black Scholar Who Gave Up Her Family to Earn Her Ph.D.

In the Early to Mid-1900s, Historian Marion Thompson Wright Had to Contend With the Prefeminist Rules and Culture of Howard University

by Graham Russell Gao Hodges | April 4, 2019

Marion Thompson Wright is best known as the first female African-American to earn a doctorate in history. Her 1940 dissertation, defended at Teachers College at Columbia University—The Education of Negroes …

When American Politicos First Weaponized Conspiracy Theories

Outlandish Rumors Helped Elect Presidents Jackson and Van Buren and Have Been With Us Ever Since

by Mark R. Cheathem | March 28, 2019

From claims that NASA faked the moon landing to suspicions about the U.S. government’s complicity in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Americans love conspiracy theories. Conspiratorial rhetoric in …

The Irish-American Social Club Whose Exploits in Their Homeland Sparked a New Understanding of Citizenship

In 1867, the Fenian Brotherhood Was Caught Running Guns to Ireland, Precipitating a Diplomatic Crisis

by Lucy E. Salyer | March 21, 2019

On October 30, 1867, John Warren, a grocer and newspaper man from Charlestown, Massachusetts, entered the dock at Green Street Courthouse in Dublin, Ireland, to stand trial for treason. The …

Why Don’t More Americans Remember the 1897 Massacre of Pennsylvania Coal Miners?

The Mostly Eastern European Victims Were Forgotten Because of an Ensuing Backlash Against Immigrant Workers

by Paul A. Shackel | March 14, 2019

At the western entrance of the coal patch town of Lattimer, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, sits a rough-cut shale boulder, about 8 feet tall, surrounded by neatly trimmed bushes. A …

What It Means to Be American