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History Now Essay

The Cubist Collage Aesthetic and the Historical Narratives of Jacob Lawrence

Patricia Hills

Art

Jacob Lawrence stands as a giant in the field of American art. He was the first to devote himself to pictorializing the history of Black people in America—the heroes of struggle against slavery as well as ordinary people living within...

Appears in:

73 | African American Artists Winter 2024

History Now Essay

Laura Wheeler Waring: A Luminous Palette

Cherene Sherrard-Johnson

Art

In Laura Wheeler Waring’s Portrait of Marian Anderson (1944), you can almost hear the renowned contralto’s voice soaring in the pastel room in which she stands. There is a vitality to this painting that evokes the performer behind the...

Appears in:

73 | African American Artists Winter 2024

History Now Essay

Shaping the Public Imagination: The Sculpture of Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller

Chenoa Baker

Art

Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (b. Philadelphia, 1877–d. Massachusetts, 1968) was a clay, plaster, and bronze sculptor, born to upper middle-class parents working in the hair industry in Philadelphia. During the year, she spent time in...

Appears in:

73 | African American Artists Winter 2024

History Now Essay

Joshua Johnson: Portraitist of Federal-Era Baltimore

Daniel Fulco

Art

When African American portrait painter and formerly enslaved man Joshua Johnson (ca. 1763–ca. 1824) began his career during the 1790s, Baltimore was growing rapidly and developing into an economically prosperous, mercantile city of...

Appears in:

73 | African American Artists Winter 2024

History Now Essay

Painting Independence in Boston: Prince Demah

Jennifer Van Horn

Art

Between January and November 1773 an advertisement appeared in the Boston News-Letter. It alerted readers: “At Mr. M’Lean’s, Watch-Maker, near the Town-House, is a Negro Man whose extraordinary Genius has been assisted by one of the...

Appears in:

73 | African American Artists Winter 2024

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

In this issue of History Now, we are reminded that artists play a critical role in narrating the story of the Black experience in America. These portraitists, sculptors, painters, and collage makers provide us with a visual...

Appears in:

73 | African American Artists Winter 2024

History Now Essay

The Declaration of Independence and the Long Struggle for Equality in America: An Introduction

Louis P. Masur

Government and Civics

Whatever else the Declaration of Independence encompassed—a proclamation of political sovereignty, an indictment against the King of England, an appeal for allies—its assertion that “all men are created equal” shines as the polestar...

Appears in:

63 | The Declaration of Independence and the Long Struggle for Equality in America Summer 2022

History Now Essay

The Challenges and Opportunities for Black Women Entrepreneurs in the Global Arena

Andrea E. Smith-Hunter

Economics

The statistics on Black women-owned businesses in the United States are very impressive. A report from JP Morgan indicated that “the number of businesses owned by Black women grew 50% from 2014 to 2019, representing the highest growth...

Appears in:

72 | Black Entrepreneurship in America Fall 2024

History Now Essay

The History of Black Entrepreneurship in Chicago

Robert E. Weems, Jr.

Chicago is unique among major American cities in that its first non-Native American resident, as well as its first entrepreneur, was Black. Although much of the life of Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable (1745–1818) remains unknown, his...

Appears in:

72 | Black Entrepreneurship in America Fall 2024

History Now Essay

Madam C. J. Walker: A Life of Reinvention

Erica L. Ball

Nothing about Madam C. J. Walker’s origins would suggest that she would become the most famous Black businesswoman and philanthropist of her day. Indeed, for most of her life, the woman known as Madam C. J. Walker lived in fairly...

Appears in:

72 | Black Entrepreneurship in America Fall 2024

History Now Essay

"Prince of Darkness": Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street's First Black Millionaire

Shane White

Jeremiah G. Hamilton was a Black man whose very existence flies in the face of our understanding of the way things were in nineteenth-century New York. He made his fortune as a broker. Although a pioneer, far from being some novice...

Appears in:

72 | Black Entrepreneurship in America Fall 2024

History Now Essay

Mary Ellen Pleasant, Freedom-Fighting Entrepreneur

Lynn M. Hudson

Abolitionist and capitalist Mary Ellen Pleasant does not seem like the obvious choice for a lesson on Black entrepreneurship. Her work as a freedom fighter, boardinghouse keeper, and investor renders her atypical in histories of...

Appears in:

72 | Black Entrepreneurship in America Fall 2024

History Now Essay

James Forten, Sailmaker

Julie Winch

The White visitor headed up the stairs to the large open space above the storerooms and merchants’ offices on Philadelphia’s South Wharves and introduced himself to James Forten, the “gentleman of color” he had heard so much about....

Appears in:

72 | Black Entrepreneurship in America Fall 2024

History Now Essay

From the Editor

Carol Berkin

Jewish Americans have made contributions to American society that far exceed their percentage of our country’s population. This is a minority culture that has touched every aspect of American society, from the arts, to medicine and...

Appears in:

71 | The Jewish Legacy in American History Summer 2024

History Now Essay

"If Ever Two Were One": Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband"

Charlotte Gordon

Literature

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Anne Bradstreet is famous for being the first American poet. But she did not think of herself as either "first" or "American." She did not even think of herself as a poet. We would call her a Puritan, a term adopted by their enemies...

Appears in:

39 | American Poets, American History Spring 2014

History Now Essay

Every Citizen a Soldier: World War II Posters on the American Home Front

William L. Bird Jr. and Harry Rubenstein

Art, Government and Civics, World History

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

World War II posters helped to mobilize a nation. Inexpensive, accessible, and ever-present, the poster was an ideal agent for making victory the personal mission of every citizen. Government agencies, businesses, and private...

Appears in:

14 | World War II Winter 2007

History Now Essay

The Role of Jewish Americans in the Civil Rights Movement

Cheryl Greenberg

American Jews played an outsized role in the Civil Rights Movement, both in number and prominence. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Rabbi Joachim Prinz spoke at the 1963 March on Washington. Of...

Appears in:

71 | The Jewish Legacy in American History Summer 2024

History Now Essay

The Jewish Imprint on American Musical Theater

Elizabeth Wollman

Art

Long celebrated as one of the most quintessentially American of entertainment genres, Broadway musicals delight audiences with glitz, glitter, and polish; send them home with at least a glimmer of hope; and celebrate America’s promise...

Appears in:

71 | The Jewish Legacy in American History Summer 2024

History Now Essay

The Jewish Health Professionals of Cincinnati

Frederic Krome

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

In studies of the significance of the Cincinnati Jewish community within the wider context of American Jewish history, the development of the Reform movement, and Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise’s oversight in establishing the iconic Plum...

Appears in:

71 | The Jewish Legacy in American History Summer 2024

History Now Essay

Jewish Athletes and the Challenges of American Sports

Jeffrey S. Gurock

The world of American sports has long offered the athletically inclined Jew with grand opportunities for achievement, acceptance, and even glory within this country’s society. But the road to success on the track, in stadiums, or in...

Appears in:

71 | The Jewish Legacy in American History Summer 2024

History Now Essay

Hometown Societies in the New World: Jewish Landsmanshaftn and Americanization

Daniel Soyer

Religion and Philosophy

Jacob Sholts, a Jewish immigrant from the Russian Empire, wandered dejectedly through the streets of New York in 1904. Sholts, who had fled Russia to avoid military service during the Russo-Japanese War, could not keep a job. He felt...

Appears in:

71 | The Jewish Legacy in American History Summer 2024

History Now Essay

Alexander Hamilton and the Civic Status of Jews in the Early Republic

Andrew Porwancher

Government and Civics, Religion and Philosophy

“I fear prepossessions are strongly against us,” Alexander Hamilton confided to his beloved wife, Eliza. “But we must try to overcome them.” That day, February 5, 1800, marked the beginning of a high-stakes trial in which Hamilton...

Appears in:

71 | The Jewish Legacy in American History Summer 2024

History Now Essay

Exiles by the Streams of Babylon: Newport Jews in the Colonial Era

Michael Hoberman

Newport, Rhode Island, wears its colonial past like a badge of honor. Visitors to its historic district encounter numerous plaques, markers, and monuments as they wend the town’s narrow and cobblestoned streets. As contemporary...

Appears in:

71 | The Jewish Legacy in American History Summer 2024

History Now Essay

American Jewish Origins, 1654-1820

Hasia Diner

Religion and Philosophy

A year after his inauguration as president, George Washington visited the Newport, Rhode Island Jewish Congregation, Jeshuat Israel, in 1790. He went in response to a letter he had received from the leaders of that synagogue as well...

Appears in:

71 | The Jewish Legacy in American History Summer 2024

History Now Essay

"People Get Ready": Music and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s

Brian Ward

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Few sights or sounds conjure up the passion and purposefulness of the Southern Civil Rights Movement as powerfully as the freedom songs that provided a stirring musical accompaniment to the campaign for racial justice and equality in...

Appears in:

8 | The Civil Rights Movement Summer 2006

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