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There is perhaps no theme more central to our traditional understanding of American history than the expansion of democracy. And in that long story of democratization we habitually regard as our peculiar contribution to the world,...
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A Right Deferred: African American Voter Suppression after Reconstruction
In the United States, voting is a constitutionally protected right and an essential symbol of meaningful political participation in our nation’s electoral processes of governing. The right to vote and to have one’s vote count toward...
Alice Paul, Suffrage Militant
Alice Stokes Paul (1885−1977) was one of the leading feminists of the early twentieth century, a person who brought the women’s suffrage movement into the national spotlight. Passage of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment or the Nineteenth...
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Women's Long Journey for the Vote
The earliest and most famous expression of the discontent American women felt over their station in life was voiced by Abigail Adams in March 1776 when she urged her husband, the future president John Adams, to “Remember the Ladies, ...
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Immigrants and the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798
Americans were on edge in the spring and summer of 1798. War and revolution were raging in Europe; Ireland was rebelling against England; and France was continuing its attacks on American ships. Although the Jay Treaty, which went...
The History of US Immigration Laws: What Students Should Know
The history of US immigration laws can be boiled down to a single question: Who gets to be an American and who does not? This question encompasses who can immigrate to the country, who can stay, and who can become naturalized. We...
Expelling the Poor: The Antebellum Origins of American Deportation Policy
Dehumanizing insults to foreigners, aggressive enforcement of immigration law by overzealous officials, and tragic family separation routinely appear in immigration-related news in the United States today. At the center of the present...
Pledging Their Fortunes: The Professions of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence
Within the historical literature, the professions of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence has not received nearly the same attention paid to the framers of the US Constitution. In his Economic Interpretation of the...
The Education of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence
We call them “The Signers,” and that’s what they did. They signed the Declaration of Independence. They were fifty-six men, signing in an age that prized beautiful penmanship as a mark of a fine education and the social rank that came...
James Wilson: Scottish Immigrant, Pennsylvania Statesman, Signer of the Declaration, and Framer of the Constitution
James Wilson’s impact on the founding of the United States was significant. One of only six individuals to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, he helped create the nation and its enduring institutions....
Voices of Democracy: Jovita Idár, the Idár Family, and the Struggle against Juan Crow
In August 2023, the US Mint will release the Jovita Idár quarter, “the ninth coin in the American Women Quarters Program” authorized by Public Law 116–330. On its website, the Mint states that Idár’s “ideas and practices were ahead of...
"The Chinese Question"—Unresolved and Ongoing for Americans
In 1882, the United States Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act—the nation’s first race-based immigration law that was not effectively repealed until 1965–1968. The act exempted Chinese merchants, diplomats, scholars, and...
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America and the China Trade
On a quarter-mile strip of land in the bustling city of Canton (Guangzhou), China, trade was conducted between merchants from China and the eastern seaboard of America, beginning in 1784 and lasting until the mid-nineteenth century....
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Chinese American Politics in the Cold War Years
In October 1950, the newly established People’s Republic of China entered the Korean War on the North Korean side against the United States and other United Nations troops. Many Chinese American citizens expressed deep concern at this...
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The Repeal of Asian Exclusion
The United States excluded Chinese people beginning in the late nineteenth century and expanded its ban to all Asians in the 1917 and 1924 Immigration Acts. In addition to creating a national origins quota system best known for...
The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority
The United States harvested a bumper crop of good immigrants in 1955. About 1,000 highly educated Chinese gained citizenship, including acclaimed scientists, professionals, and entrepreneurs such as the architect I. M. Pei, the...
파도와 메아리: Waves and Echoes of Korean Migration to the United States
According to the 2020 US Census, 1.9 million Korean Americans reside in the United States. Among Asian Americans, they are the fifth-largest ethnic group and primarily reside in California, New York, Hawaii, and Texas. [1] This essay...
Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York
Barely a week after arriving in New York, the young poet wrote to his mother: “One reason I am inclined to remain here is the constant communication there is with Havana; it is where I can easily and frequently receive news of my...
Mexican Farm Labor and the Agricultural Economy of the United States
In July of 1958, a Mexican man in Empalme, Mexico, died outside a recruitment center for Mexican men who wanted to participate in a guest-worker program known as the Bracero Program. The program, designed and agreed upon by both the...
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