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Not Even Past

The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War by Joanne B. Freeman (2018)

by Ashley Garcia The Field of Blood is a timely publication that examines congressional violence in antebellum America. The work reorients our understanding of the road to American disunion and the political conflicts that dominated Congress in the three decades before the Civil War. Freeman has unearthed an overlooked history of congressional brawls, fights, duels, […]

“Doing” History in the Modern U.S. Survey: Teaching with and Analyzing Academic Articles

Originally posted on Process History on September 5, 2017. by Christopher Babits Near the end of the spring semester, my department asked me to teach a summer session of U.S. History since 1865. I had a short time to think about what I’d teach and how I’d teach it. For me, it was important for […]

IHS Roundtable – Loving v. Virginia After 50 Years

Movie poster for the movie Loving

On March 23, 2017, the Institute for Historical Studies sponsored a roundtable on the landmark Supreme Court decision that struck down laws banning inter-racial marriage. Director of HIS, Seth Garfield, introduced the three panelists, who included Jacqueline Jones, Chair of the UT Austin History Department and well known to readers of Not Even Past, Kevin […]

Hatton Sumners and the Retirement of Supreme Court Justices

We are especially pleased to post this essay by a long-time supporter of the UT Austin Department of History. Josiah M. Daniel III, of counsel at the international law firm Vinson & Elkins, LLP, received his J.D. from The University of Texas School of Law in 1978 and his master’s degree in History from UT in 1986.  In […]

The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture, by Pamela Haag (2016)

By Isaac McQuistion Guns and America enjoy a symbiotic relationship, the one constantly evoked when you refer to the other. A Congressional Research Service report estimated that, in 2009, the number of firearms in the United States surpassed the number of people, 310 million compared to 306.8 million. That gap has continued to widen, and […]

Longfellow’s Great Liberators: Abraham Lincoln and Dante Alighieri

By Guy Raffa “We breathe freer. The country will be saved.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s response to the reelection of Abraham Lincoln in 1864 is a timely reminder of how, while they all matter, some presidential elections matter much more than others. Five years earlier Longfellow was one of many who believed the time for peace […]

History Calling: LBJ and Thurgood Marshall on the Telephone

By Augusta Dell’Omo When President Lyndon B. Johnson called Thurgood Marshall to offer him the position of Solicitor General of the United States, Johnson reiterated his commitment to doing the job that Abraham Lincoln started by “going all the way” on civil rights, but he warned Marshall that the appointment would cause the Senate to […]

Textbooks, Texas, and Discontent: The Fight against Inadequate Educational Resources

The Main Building at the University of Texas - Austin (via Wikimedia Commons).

By Alejandra Garza and Maria Esther Hammack Controversies surrounding textbooks are nothing new, especially in Texas. For years, textbook selection in Texas has grabbed headlines and generated great discontent and debate. Textbooks adopted by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) are unusually important because they are also adopted for use in classrooms across the country. Whatever Texas adopts, students across […]

The Blemished Archive: How Documents Get Saved

By Chris Babits In a May 2016 podcast for the Journal of American History, Yael A. Sternhell said, “For the great majority of [historians], when we walk into an archive, we have this illusion that this is where historical knowledge lies. Raw primary sources. Untainted. Unblemished. Just waiting for us to pick them up and […]

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