The Great American History Blog

This video of a slave auction site in St. Louis, Missouri raises the question, “Should we remember history or move on?" Why do we stud...

CSS Stonewall The Confederacy almost turned the naval balance of power around when it was the first to commission an operational ironcla...

Link to: The Gilded Age and Revolution In the early 20th century, the premise of left wing radical Eugene Debs’ ideology rested upon i...

“Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble cha...

There was more to the American Civil War than just battles and generals. Millions of ordinary people were doing ordinary things. Some of th...

In 1943 Americans realized that paying their taxes was a patriotic duty to be done in support of the common good. “There is a mysterious ...

John Brown The culminating event of the 1850s was John Brown’s raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. To white Virginians, ...

Satchmo Blows Up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War by Penny M. Von Eschen Penny Von Eschen raises the question as to wheth...

The Populist Moment by Lawrence Goodwyn. Goodwyn’s 1978 book, published in the post-Vietnam/post-Watergate era, is heavily laden with Ma...

Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform, New York: Random House, 1955 Richard Hofstadter examines the great American reform movements from ...

My titles on Amazon My titles at Barnes & Noble Download Free Kindle Reading Apps: The best reading experien...

LINK TO: Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s By Sherrie Tucker The history of “all girl” bands of the 1940s highlig...

LINK TO: Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe The career of “Sister” Rosetta Tha...

Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience by Steve Waksman Did rock ‘n roll represent the “pent...

CIVIL WAR CIVILIAN LIFE: MANASSAS, VIRGINIA   Alexandria and Northern Virginia were the first areas to feel the fury of the Civil War...

There is a danger in writing history, that one will portray the past in warm golden hues of nostalgia, or worse yet, that one will super-...

The dynamics of courtship and engagement changed with the coming of war. Social activities decreased and the number of eligible men, especi...

Love, Sex and Marriage in Victorian America Over the centuries, brides continued to dress in a manner befitting their social status—...

Victorians had superstitions about being "lucky in love," even before the engagement was made. Victorian women would reject a sui...

Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California (American Crossroads) by Peter La Chapelle U...