Category : History

By Mehrsa Baradaran At the start of the Civil War, only states could charter banks. It wasn’t until the National Currency Act of 1863 and...

Cotton produced under slavery created a worldwide market that brought together the Old World and the New: the industrial textile mills of the Northern states...

Those searching for reasons the American economy is uniquely severe and unbridled have found answers in many places (religion, politics, culture). But recently, historians have...

By Tiya Miles While “Main Street” might be anywhere and everywhere, as the historian Joshua Freeman points out, “Wall Street” has only ever been one...

In the American South before the Civil War, white women couldn’t vote. They couldn’t hold office. When they married, their property technically belonged to their...

In September of 1861, the U.S. Coast Survey published a large map, approximately two feet by three feet, titled a “Map showing the distribution of...

Of the many myths told about American slavery, one of the biggest is that it was an archaic practice that only enriched a small number...

Domino Sugar’s Chalmette Refinery in Arabi, La., sits on the edge of the mighty Mississippi River, about five miles east by way of the river’s bend...

A combination of obscure legal mechanisms and racist institutions enabled—and continues to enable—developers to weasel it away. Emancipated slaves never received their promised 40 acres...