Paragraph Body
- Sebastian Munster’s Universal Geography — Volume 1, Chapter 1
by Susan Schulten, University of Denver
How did Europeans view the western hemisphere in 1540?
- Queering the Atlantic World — Volume 1, Chapter 1
by Sandra Slater, College of Charleston
How did exploring and settling in the Americas influence Europeans’ understanding of gender and sexuality?
- Graveyards in Colonial New England — Volume 1, Chapter 3
by Anne Valk, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How do seventeenth- and eighteenth-century gravestones reveal white New England residents’ views about family, religion, and community?
- Origins of the Electoral College — Volume 1, Chapter 5
by Evan Rothman, PhD Candidate, The Graduate Center CUNY
Why don’t American voters directly elect their president and vice president?
- Sam Patch's Waterfall Leaps — Volume 1, Chapter 7
by Peter Mabli, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did workers use spectacle and collective action to reveal inequalities in early industrialized America?
- Gender Fluidity in Nineteenth-Century Cities — Volume 1, Chapter 8
by Anne Valk, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did the growth of cities in the early nineteenth century provide opportunities for a range of sexual and gender expressions?
- The Greek Slave — Volume 1, Chapter 9
by Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, CUNY (Emeritus)
What role did one of the most popular statues in antebellum America play in the political debates about slavery?
- Medical Care and the Health of Enslaved People — Volume 1, Chapter 9
by Gretchen Long, Williams College
How did the medical care available to enslaved people on southern plantations reveal many of the contradictions inherent in the slave system?
- Resistance to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act — Volume 1, Chapter 10
by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How does the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 reveal what citizens can do when they consider a federal law immoral or unjust?
- Two Views of a "Dead Rabbit" — Volume 1, Chapter 10
by Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, CUNY (Emeritus)
How does pictorial coverage about an 1850s riot show ways that images of the urban poor expressed and influenced public opinion about immigration?
- "Contraband": Caught between Slavery and Freedom — Volume 1, Chapter 11
by Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, CUNY (Emeritus)
How were African Americans who fled enslavement during the Civil War depicted in popular visual media?
- Black Soldiers and Representations of Citizenship — Volume 1, Chapter 11
by Donna Thompson Ray, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did photographs express the hopes and challenges of Black soldiers?
- From Martyrdom to Depravity: Seeing “Rebel” Women — Volume 1, Chapter 11
by Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, CUNY (Emeritus)
How did images from Union and Confederate sources offer opposing views about southern white women and the Confederate cause?
- Black Officeholders in the Reconstruction South — Volume 1, Chapter 12
by Ellen Noonan, New York University
How was the promise of full citizenship for African Americans both fulfilled and denied during the Reconstruction period?
- Frederick Douglass on a Powerful Portrait — Volume 1, Chapter 12
by Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, CUNY (Emeritus)
How did popular art visualize Reconstruction’s promise of equality?
- American Progress — Volume 1, Chapter 13
by Ellen Noonan, New York University, and Martha Sandweiss, Princeton University
How did John Gast’s 1872 painting, which was widely disseminated as a commercial color print, convey a range of ideas about the frontier?
- Exodusters — Volume 1, Chapter 13
by Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, CUNY (Emeritus)
How did popular images of African Americans leaving the South in the 1870s reinforce and sometimes defy racial stereotypes?
- Sand Creek, 1864 — An American Killing Field — Volume 1, Chapter 13
by Vincent DiGirolamo, Baruch College, CUNY
How does the language used to describe the past change how we understand it, remember it, and learn from it?
- Seeing the July 1877 Uprising — Volume 1, Chapter 13
by Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, CUNY (Emeritus)
How do news images of events such as a strike or uprising shape viewers’ understanding of what happened?
- Demonizing the Poor — Volume 2, Chapter 1
by Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, CUNY (Emeritus)
How did popular images of poor people wandering the country in search of work during the 1870s depression contribute to public fear of the unemployed?
- Chinese Exclusion and Racial Gatekeeping — Volume 2, Chapter 1
by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did nineteenth-century reactions to Chinese immigrants shape U.S. immigration policies into the twenty-first century?
- The Haymarket Trial — Volume 2, Chapter 2
Naomi Fischer, PhD Candidate, The Graduate Center, CUNY
What determines whether political speech is protected by the First Amendment?
- Las Gorras Blancas — Volume 2, Chapter 2
by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
What does the story of Las Gorras Blancas reveal about land use and land rights in the territory annexed from Mexico?
- Local Struggles and Plessy v. Ferguson — Volume 2, Chapter 3
by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How can ordinary citizens influence Supreme Court decisions?
- Black Performers in Blackface — Volume 2, Chapter 4
by Karen Sotiropoulos, Cleveland State University
How did African American performers navigate racist cultural expectations at the turn of the twentieth century?
- Convict Leasing in the South — Volume 2, Chapter 5
by Julian Ehsan, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did politicians and private business owners profit from the imprisonment and abuse of African Americans in the South?
- Anti-Mexican Violence and the Militarization of the Southern Border — Volume 2, Chapter 6
by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How have vigilantes and government agents justified using violence to police the border between the United States and Mexico?
- The U.S. Occupation of Haiti — Volume 2, Chapter 6
by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did notions of racial superiority and paternalism shape U.S. actions and policies in Haiti?
- Powerful Pictures Make the Case for Winning Women’s Voting Rights — Volume 2, Chapter 6
by Allison Lange, Wentworth Institute of Technology
How did suffrage activists use visual images to sway public opinion in favor of votes for women?
- Chinese Restaurants During the Era of Exclusion — Volume 2, Chapter 7
by Heather Lee, New York University Shanghai
What does the history of Chinese restaurants have to do with the history of Chinese immigration and anti-Chinese racism?
- Political Cartoonists v. the New Deal — Volume 2, Chapter 8
by Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, CUNY (Emeritus)
When are political cartoons a useful way to understand public opinion during different eras of U.S. history—and when can they misrepresent popular thinking?
- The Civilian Conservation Corps and 20th Century Environmentalism — Volume 2, Chapter 8
by Nate Sleeter, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
How did a New Deal work program influence Americans’ attitudes about conserving the natural world?
- The New Deal in Puerto Rico — Volume 2, Chapter 9
by Manuel R. Rodríguez, PhD, Curator, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Division of U.S. Political and Military History
How did the New Deal shape the colonial relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico in the 1930s?
- “I Always Had Pads with Me” A G.I. Artist’s Sketchpad — Volume 2, Chapter 10
by Joshua Brown, The Graduate Center, CUNY (Emeritus)
What can we learn from a soldier’s World War II drawings?
- Black Mississippians Resist Voter Suppression — Volume 2, Chapter 10
by Ellen Noonan, New York University
How did local and national organizations use the election of 1946 to fight back against Mississippi’s systemic denial of Black voting rights?
- The Lavender Scare—Creating the Closet — Volume 2, Chapter 11
by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
What role did the U.S. government play in increasing homophobia during the Cold War?
- Redlining in Richmond — Volume 2, Chapter 11
by Julian Ehsan, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did government agencies, real estate professionals, and homeowners uphold racist housing policies in the post-World War II period?
- The American Indian Movement — Volume 2, Chapter 12
by Pennee Bender, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did the American Indian Movement resist assimilation and revitalize Indigenous culture?
- ACT UP: Silence=Death — Volume 2, Chapter 13
by Anne Valk, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How and why did AIDS activists repurpose a familiar symbol to represent their movement in the 1980s?
- Expanding Disability Rights Activism — Volume 2, Chapter 13
by Nate Sleeter, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, and Anne Valk, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did activists in the 1970s mobilize around disability rights as a civil rights issue?
- The First Gulf War and the Media — Volume 2, Chapter 14
by David Scheckel, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did the U.S. government use television to build support for the invasion of Iraq during the first Gulf War?
- New York City Taxi Drivers — Volume 2, Chapter 15
by Rohma Khan, ACLS Fellow, University of California, Davis
Why did many South Asian immigrant men in New York City become taxi drivers and labor activists during the 1980s and 1990s?
- Dismantling of the Voting Rights Act — Volume 2, Chapter 16
by Anne Valk, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) affect voting rights?
- Twitter and the Ferguson Uprising — Volume 2, Chapter 16
by Carli Snyder, American Social History Project, The Graduate Center, CUNY
How did activists, protesters, reporters, and observers use Twitter as a tool during and after the Ferguson uprising?
