White citizens in the South organized a “Massive Resistance” campaign against integration. A Segregated Society An 1896 Supreme Court decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, had declared “separate but equal” Jim Crow segregation legal. The Plessy ruling asserted that so long as purportedly “equal” accommodations were supplied for African Americans, the races could, legally, be separated. In[…]
De facto segregation continues today because of both contemporary behavior and the historical legacy of de jure segregation. Introduction Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, refers to the segregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation in the United States along racial lines. The[…]
Slavery was abolished over 150 years ago in the United States, but the hard work of achieving equality continues today. Slavery and the Roots of Racism By Lance Selfa Over 150 years ago, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrendered to the Union Army’s Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia, ending the[…]
Introduction From the start of European expansion into the Atlantic world, Britain fought other powers for territory in the Caribbean and many islands became part of the British Empire. The region experienced near eradication and expulsion of its indigenous populations by European powers. It was also on the receiving end of the largest enforced migration[…]
The worldwide movement against slavery (still not entirely eliminated) can be seen as a coming of age for humanity. Introduction Abolitionism (from “abolish”) was a political movement in late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that sought to end the practice of slavery and the worldwide slave trade. Its chief impetus came from Protestantism, as most abolitionists,[…]
Almost all peoples have been both slaves and slaveholders at some point in their histories. Introduction Various forms of slavery, servitude, or coerced human labor existed throughout the world before the development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the sixteenth century. As historian David Eltis explains, “almost all peoples have been both slaves and slaveholders[…]
Colonial powers through the ages have been masters of appropriating the native cultures of foreign lands, waiting a few decades or centuries before casually passing them off as their own creations. Few are better at this than European nations, with the English laying claim to tea and curry that they imported from Asia, and the[…]
The doctrine of “state action” is integral to American Constitutional law. Originally published by CALI eLangdell Press under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
In some cases, the explicit goal of these technologies is to deny opportunities to those deemed unfit. ‘Phrenology’ has an old-fashioned ring to it. It sounds like it belongs in a history book, filed somewhere between bloodletting and velocipedes. We’d like to think that judging people’s worth based on the size and shape of their[…]
While the creature’s name remained simple, its reputation soon grew extremely complex. This article, The Beast of Gévaudan (1764–1767), was originally published in The Public Domain Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. If you wish to reuse it please see: https://publicdomainreview.org/legal/ In the 1760s, nearly three hundred people were killed in a remote region of south-central[…]
Elizabeth I engage in a memorable invention of herself as a legend in her own lifetime. Introduction Aware of the power of appearances, Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603 CE) carefully controlled her image throughout her reign and through costume, hair, jewellery, and art, she presented herself as the great Virgin Queen. Like a goddess[…]
In Cicero’s Rome, the government eventually came under the control of a well-trained ruling class. Introduction As Athens declined in power, a new force emerged, the Roman Republic. The Senate was the only permanent governing body and the only body where debate was possible. In order to debate, one had to know the persuasive art[…]
Dictators were frequently appointed from the earliest period of the Republic down to the Second Punic War. Introduction A dictator was a magistrate of the Roman Republic, entrusted with the full authority of the state to deal with a military emergency or to undertake a specific duty. All other magistrates were subordinate to his imperium,[…]
Archibald Motley painted African Americans having a good time. Archibald Motley (1891–1981) was born in New Orleans and lived and painted in Chicago most of his life. But because his subject was African-American life, he’s counted by scholars among the artists of the Harlem Renaissance. Many of Motley’s favorite scenes were inspired by good times[…]
There is something of Walter Isaacson in the people he writes about. If the great values of the liberal arts are curiosity and tolerance, then Walter Isaacson is a great humanist. He shares this gift as a wonderful storyteller. One of his favorite stories is about his daughter, Betsy, with whom he has a teasing,[…]
The Civil War divided Americans into two kinds of people. David W. Blight tells an amazing story on camera in Death and the Civil War. It’s about the origins of Memorial Day, a story that Blight, one of several historians interviewed in this documentary, told in his 2001 book, Race and Reunion. The year was 1865 and[…]
The evolution of a reformer. Sometimes a book can change a life. In December 1859, a copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Speciesarrived from across the Atlantic and almost immediately began to change the lives of those who read it. The book was addressed to Asa Gray, the Harvard botanist who soon became Darwin’s most influential[…]
Doomsday, 1433. In York, after dark. A red curtain. Painted stars. Actors in hoses, wigs, and two-faced masks—some in angel wings, some with trumpets. Wooden clouds and pieces of rainbow, and an iron frame with pulleys meant to effect Christ’s movements between Heaven and Earth. a “hell mouth” billowing smoke and the smell of sulfur.[…]
Gilgamesh was a brutal tyrant who foolishly tried to defeat death. The Epic of Gilgamesh has been read in the modern world for a little longer than a century, and, in that time, this oldest of stories has become a classic college text. In my own courses on ancient literature and mythology, it is the book I[…]
Many people like to travel because it expands horizons, opens up new places, cultures, and develops people in many areas of life. And almost all tourists want to visit America at least once. In this article, we will give you some reasons why. 1. Beautiful nature In terms of the diversity of landscapes, the United[…]
The United States Constitution has two important features that are vital in the consideration of its First Amendment. Originally published by CALI eLangdell Press under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Most political information still originates in the mainstream media, which are being transformed by new forms of communication. Originally published by Saylor Academy under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
From marriage and sexuality to education and rights, looking at attitudes towards gender in 19th-century Britain. Introduction During the Victorian period men and women’s roles became more sharply defined than at any time in history. In earlier centuries it had been usual for women to work alongside husbands and brothers in the family business. Living[…]
During the nineteenth century, the dress of men differed markedly from that of the previous century. Introduction While the skill of a portrait artist is often judged by whether or not the work resembles the sitter, a portrait may also reveal something about the sitter as well as fashionable norms of the time. What does[…]
The affair is sometimes referred to as the Great Schism, but this term is typically reserved for the more enduring East–West Schism of 1054. Introduction The Western Schism, also called Papal Schism, Great Occidental Schism and Schism of 1378, was a split within the Catholic Church lasting from 1378 to 1417[1] in which two men[…]
The division between the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy, fueled by the imperial Great Interregnum, persisted until the 15th century. Introduction The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of central and northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, rivalry between these two[…]
All businesses need energy to function, and there’s nothing you can do to escape this. What you can do, however, is take proactive steps to reduce your costs. The issue is that many business owners tend to be stuck in their ways and think that they’re either already doing everything they can, or that whatever[…]
The German city-state was run by merchant families who put trade and economy above residents’ welfare. As British scholar Richard Evans researched the history of pandemics for a book more than 30 years ago, he was struck by the uniformity of how governments from different cultures and different historical periods responded. “Almost every epidemic you[…]
The wide dissemination of the disease was brought about by the poor sanitary conditions of the city. By Kseniya Barabanova In 1823, a new disease—cholera—visited the Russian Empire for the first time. It was initially discovered in the south of the Empire, in Astrakhan. In 1830, the epidemic broke out in Moscow, and it reached[…]
Empires in the Indian subcontinent shared intertwined histories with principalities to the west such as the Greeks and Romans. Introduction The word “paradise” often describes an idyllic place of unmatched beauty, but it can also refer to a mindset of harmony and bliss. Several world religions share these conceptions of paradise, but the paths for[…]