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History / U.S. History

Martha, a farmworker in California, says a group of white locals often harass her, yelling that immigrants take U.S. jobs. “Why don’t they work in the fields?” she asked.

A Photographic Chronicle of America’s Working Poor

Smithsonian journeyed from Maine to California to update a landmark study of American life

The attack on Pearl Harbor was the worst day in the U.S. Navy’s history and the shock of a lifetime for just about any American who had achieved the age of memory.

How (Almost) Everyone Failed to Prepare for Pearl Harbor

The high-stakes gamble and false assumptions that detonated Pearl Harbor 80 years ago

Caedmon’s lofty slogan was “A third dimension for the printed page.”

The Christmas Tale Spoken Record That Launched the Audiobook

Narrated by Dylan Thomas, the album would go on to sell 400,000 copies

A brittle letter addressed to Orrin W. Shephard of Croton, Newagyo Co., Michigan from his son Nelson.

Mystery Solved: A Michigan Woman Says She Mailed Civil War Letters to the Post Office

Smithsonian curator Nancy Pope learns how and why these letters showed up in the mail 153 years later

Indians Poisoned

A Smithsonian Scholar Revisits the Neglected History of the Chesapeake Bay’s Native Tribes

Revisiting Indian Nations of the Chesapeake

Portrait of Edward Winslow

The Plymouth Hero You Should Really Be Thankful for This Thanksgiving

Without Edward Winslow, we probably wouldn’t even be celebrating the holiday

Activists picketing at a demonstration for housing equality while uniformed American Nazi Party members counterprotest in the background with signs displaying anti-integration slogans and racist epithets.

This Photo Book Is a Reminder That the Civil Rights Movement Extended Far Beyond the Deep South

Public historian Mark Speltz’s new book is full of images that aren’t typically part of the 1960s narrative

"I am well acquainted with Gen.l W. who is a man of very few words but when he speaks it is on purpose [and] what I have often admired in him is he [has] always avoided saying anything of the actions in which he has engaged in the last war. [H]e is uncommonly modest, very industrious - prudent." Charles Willson Peale to Edmond Jennings, August 1775

The Strange Case of George Washington’s Disappearing Sash

How an early (and controversial) symbol of the American republic was lost to the annals of history

A statue of the former slave Clara Brown, who was born into slavery in 1800. She married and had four children, but the family was broken up and sold at auction.

Breaking Ground

In “Defending Freedom,” the Vanguards Who Refused to Be Suppressed Are Reunited

At the African American History Museum, this exhibition graphically conveys the trials and triumphs in the battle for Civil Rights

"America is lost!" wrote George III.

Now We’ll Finally Get to See the American Revolution Through the Eyes of King George

A treasure trove of nearly 350,000 documents, about to be released to the public, reveals new insights about how George III lost the colonies

The historic photo of Harry Truman holding up a newspaper with a headline that got the election wrong.

How to Save Your Election Day Newspaper

Here’s what you need to know to preserve your copy of history

Hank Aaron and Ernie Banks before a game at Wrigley Field, 1957

If Only Ernie Had Seen It. Here’s Why “Mr. Cub” Is Part of the 2016 World Series Win

From Smithsonian Books, a treasure of baseball history for those who can’t wait for spring training

Gary Hart campaign (photo by Ken Regan), 1984

The Swag and Swagger Behind American Presidential Campaigns

From a coloring book to a painted axe, election ephemera remind us of the hard-fought elections of long ago

The Story of How McDonald’s First Got Its Start

From the orange groves of California, two brothers sought a fortune selling burgers

Freeman Fisher Gosden and Charles Correll, c. 1935 (detail), as "Amos and Andy"

Commentary

The Long, Unfortunate History of Racial Parody in America

Art historian Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw discusses the painful performative origins

Listening to Norman Lear tell his stories is to hear the last 100 years.

Norman Lear Talks Art, Activism and the 2016 Election

For the famed showrunner, TV has always been a chance to make the political personal

Tourists and Cubans gamble at the casino in the Hotel Nacional in Havana, 1957. Meyer Lansky, who led the U.S. mob’s exploitation of Cuba in the 1950s, set up a famous meeting of crime bosses at the hotel in 1946.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Cuba

When the Mob Owned Cuba

Best-selling author T.J. English discusses the Mob’s profound influence on Cuban culture and politics in the 1950s

Founder of the Black Panther Party Bobby Seale stands next to a wall graphic of the Party's Ten-Point Program inside the Oakland Museum of California's exhibition, "All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50."

The Black Panthers Were Founded 50 Years Ago, and Their Influence Hasn’t Waned

Group founder Bobby Seale reflects on the Panthers’ iconic Ten-Point Program

The presidential mask offers Americans a particularly playful—and anonymous—entrance into political humor.

What’s Behind America’s Obsession With Presidential Masks?

From nose-picking Nixon to Trump-kissing-Clinton, Americans have long imitated their political candidates

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