The Air-conditioned Century
The story of how a blast of cool, dry air changed AmericaRobert FriedmanAugust/september 1984IN THE SUMMER of 1881, as James Garfield lay dying of an assassin’s bullet in the White House, a team of...
View ArticleThe Gilded Age
For years it was seen as the worst of times: bloated, crass, witlessly extravagant. But now scholars are beginning to find some of the era’s unexpected virtues. H. Wayne MorganAugust/september 1984...
View ArticleWhat It Was Like To Be Sick In 1884
American medicine in a crucial era was at once surprisingly similar and shockingly different from what we know today. You could get aspirin at the drugstore, and anesthesia during surgery. But you...
View Article101 More Things Every College Graduate Should Know About American History
You Asked for ItJohn A. GarratyDecember 1987 Featured read more
View ArticleWindows On Another Time
A man who has spent his life helping transform old photos from agreeable curiosities into a vital historical tool explains their magical power to bring the past into the presentOliver JensenMarch...
View ArticlePost Haste
The urge to move documents as fast as possible has always been a national pre-occupation, because it has always been a necessity. Fax and Federal Express are just the latest among many innovations for...
View ArticleWhen Our Ancestors Became Us
In 1820 their daily existence was practically medieval; thirty years later many of them were living the modern lifeJohn Steele GordonDecember 1989It is a commonplace that the American Revolution...
View ArticleThe Power Of Patents
For two hundred years the United States patent system has defined what is an invention and protected, enriched, and befuddled inventors. As a tool of corporate growth in a global economy, it is now...
View Article1954
America looked good to a high school senior then, and that year looks wonderfully safe to us now, but it was a time of tumult for all that, and there were plenty of shadows along with the...
View ArticleAgents Of Change
You’ve probably never heard of them, but these ten people changed your life. Each of them is a big reason why your world today is so different from anyone’s world in 1954Phil PattonDecember 1994For...
View ArticleThe Ancient History Of The Internet
Though it appears to have sprung up overnight, the inspiration of free-spirited hackers, it in fact was born in Defense Department Cold War projects of the 1950sStephen BatesOctober 1995The Internet...
View ArticleA Better Mousetrap
In a nation of inventors it has always been the single most invented thing. At this very moment hundreds of Americans are busy obeying Emerson’s famous dictum—even though the machine he exhorted them...
View ArticleHigh, Wide, And Handsome
The single best-selling American car isn’t a car at all. It’s a pickup truck. Here’s how it rose from farm hand to fashion accessory.William JeanesNovember 1996 WHEN CLINT EASTWOOD ROLLS INTO MERYL...
View ArticleWhat Hath God Wrought
The telegraph was an even more dramatic innovation in its day than the InternetDaniel Walker HoweWinter 2010On May 24, 1844, Professor Samuel F. B. Morse, seated in the chambers of the U.S. Supreme...
View ArticleEli Whitney: Nemesis Of The South
Having given slavery a new lease on life, he then made Northern triumph inevitableArnold WhitridgeApril 1955Any American who ruminates about the origins of the Civil War—and that should mean not only...
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