19th century

A Biography of Writer Lydia Marie Child Exemplifies a Revisitation of 19th Century Women

by Susan Cheever

A biography of the writer seeks to rectify a widespread phenomenon: women influential in their own time whose significance has been obscured in later histories. 

Learning from Historical Fiction: A Family Tale Reveals a Brief Multicultural Moment of the American West

by Alix Christie

One novelist's work adapting the story of her 19th century forebears (the last Hudson's Bay Company trader in the US, his Nez Perce wife, and the family that they raised) led her to archives, historians, and the challenge of narrating the complexities of the period when conquest supplanted a hybrid indigenous-European society between the Rockies and the Pacific. 

Fin de Siecle Vienna: Art and Culture in Schorske's Century

by Thomas Bender

Carl Schorske's work on 19th Century Vienna was a masterwork of intellectual history that incorporated interdisciplinary approaches to politics and culture to model new approaches to scholarship in the humanities. A colleague traces his intellectual development.

Climate Anxiety and the Return of Arctic Horror

by Bathsheba Demuth

As climate change driven by capitalism threatens the polar ice caps, new miniseries return to the themes of arctic exploration, where cold and ice threaten humans and commerce, rather than the other way around. 

Hungarian-American Relations in 1849 and Today: Why We Need Another Lajos Kossuth

by Tim Roberts

A Hungarian nationalist visited the United States in 1849 to plead the case for an independent, democratic state, inspiring the cause of abolition in America. Today Hungarian-American relations are running in the direction of authoritarianism. 

Spiritualism and Suspension Bridges: John Roebling and a Biographer's Sympathy for the Weird 19th Century

by Richard Haw

A biographer of Brooklyn Bridge designer John Roebling expected to write about a genius. He also ended up writing about a complete weirdo, and how one man could be both.

Covid-19 is Forcing Us to Dwell in Uncertainty. History Can Help.

by Sari Altschuler

Writings on long-ago cholera outbreaks contain lessons in navigating unknowns.

The Other Booths

by David O. Stewart

The notoriety of the Lincoln assassination has obscured the other Booths in history, but some were as well known as John Wilkes--or even better, at least until he pulled the trigger in the president’s box at Ford’s Theater, 155 years ago this week. 

The Lone Woman of Kokura

by Nyri A. Bakkalian

Who was the Lone Woman in the Kokura Castle town ruins that day in 1866? We don’t know her name, though we know where she died in Kokura.

The Myth of Middle-Class Liberalism

by David Motadel

The bourgeois are supposed to ensure open, democratic societies. In fact, they rarely have.

A Brief History of the Crock-Pot

Eighty years after it was patented, the Crock-Pot remains a comforting presence in American kitchens.

Women used to grow whiskers for bizarre 19th century trend, historian discovers

Whiskers were so popular in the 19th century that even women wanted to grow sideburns.