by Guy Raffa What is it with baseball players and whiskers? The 2013 Red Sox perfected the art of beard-bonding on the way to their third World Series championship in ten years. Boston players and their fans rallied around what Christopher Oldstone-Moore calls the “quest beard” in his history of facial hair, Of Beards and […]
Black Women in Black Power
By Ashley Farmer One has to only look at a few headlines to see that many view black women organizers as important figures in combating today’s most pressing problems. Articles urging mainstream America to “support black women” or “trust black women” such as the founders of the Black Lives Matter Movement are popular. Publications, such […]
Missing Signatures: The Archives at First Glance
On February 21, 1831, a petition containing the signatures of over 800 Connecticut residents was submitted to the United States Congress on behalf of the indigenous population in the South who were facing relocation. The petition acknowledged Native peoples as the “original proprietors of the soil” and its authors claimed that to remain silent would […]
IHS Panel: DACA: Past, Present, and Future
What will be the fate of DACA – and of the Dreamers for whom it was issued? This panel examined these topics: the history of DACA in the context of the debate on immigration reform; the constitutional and moral issues raised by the recent order for its termination; and the actions that can be pursued to […]
Why I Ban the Word “Feminism” from My Classes
by Jacqueline Jones In each of my graduate seminars, at the beginning of the semester, I caution students not to use certain words I consider problematic; these words can actually hinder our understanding of a complex past. Commonly used—or rather, overused—in everyday conversation as well as academic discourse, the banned words include “power,” “freedom,” and […]
Industrial Sexuality: Gender in a Small Town in Egypt
Our featured author this month, Hanan Hammad, received her PhD in History at UT Austin in 2009. She is now Assistant Professor of History at Texas Christian University and we are proud to introduce you to her excellent new book. By Hanan Hammad Millions of Egyptian men, women, and children first experienced industrial work, urban […]
Episode 93: Women and the Tamil Epics
Women’s March, Like Many Before It, Struggles for Unity
Originally posted on the blog of The American Prospect, January 6, 2017. By Laurie Green For those who believe Donald Trump’s election has further legitimized hatred and even violence, a “Women’s March on Washington” scheduled for January 21 offers an outlet to demonstrate mass solidarity across lines of race, religion, age, gender, national identity, and […]
Colour of Paradise: The Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder Empires, by Kris Lane (2010)
What do an enslaved African miner in colonial Colombia, a Portuguese Jewish merchant in Cartagena, a gem cutter in Amsterdam, and an Ottoman sultan have in common? Kris Lane’s Colour of Paradise ties together the histories of these diverse and geographically distant peoples by tracing the exploitation, trade, and consumption of emeralds between 1540 and the 1790s
Student Showcase – Equal in the Eyes of God: Civil Rights Activist Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
Alexis SpeerNimitz High SchoolSenior DivisionIndividual Website Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, John Lewis–these are all familiar names in the history of America’s Civil Rights Movement. But what about Joan Trumpauer Mulholland? A white woman raised in the Deep South, Mulholland became active in non-violent campaigns against racial segregation. In addition to participating in numerous sit-ins, […]