Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cabildo_Supreme_Court,_New_Orleans,_La_(NYPL_b12647398-62248).tiff

Eulalie Mandeville’s Fortune in Court Records

Court records can function as a kind of archive for those without any other paper trail in history: free people of color and the enslaved.
A collection of several book covers in the LGBTQ Canon

Is There an LGBTQ+ Canon?

An English professor considers the questions raised about selecting queer works for study and discussion when planning a course on LGBTQ+ literature.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Visit_to_Dred_Scott_-_his_family_-_incidents_of_his_life_-_decision_of_the_Supreme_Court_LCCN2002707034.tif?page=1

The US Army as a Slaveholding Institution

Until the Civil War, US Army officers relied on enslaved servants even while serving in “free states.”
Frank O'Hara

12 Poems by Frank O’Hara

Plus his manifesto on Personism and writings about O’Hara by Ted Berrigan, Joseph LeSueur, and Joe Brainard.
Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) in The North American Sylva by François André Michaux. Illustration by Henri-Joseph Redouté, 1819.

Tradition in Turmoil: Sugar Maple and Climate Change

With harvests dependent on the spring freeze-thaw cycle, the maple industry is seeking ways to mitigate damage wrought by a changing climate.
Village Festival by David Teniers the Younger

Hocktide: A Medieval Fest of Flirtation and Finances

The springtime holiday of Hocktide not only allowed villagers to cross social boundaries in the name of fun, it helped them raise funds for nonsecular needs.
United States flag pointing Washington in cheap plastic globe. Shallow depth of field, focus on flag

What Is Isolationism?

The history and politics of an often-maligned foreign policy concept.
An illustration of a UFO

Far Out: Why Don’t We Believe in UFOs?

Is it scientific impossibility or simply human ego that stops us from entertaining the idea of extraterrestrial visitation?
Pedestrian Charles Rowell, 1879

The Popularity and Politics of Pedestrianism

The sport of competitive walking touched on social concerns such as debt and poverty, fitness and fame, but it also found support in the temperance movement.
The Seventh Angel of the Apocalypse Proclaiming the Reign of the Lord, c. 1180

Angels, Gardens, and El Salvador’s Prisons

Well-researched stories from Aeon, The Conversation, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.