Posted: July 6, 2020
By the late nineteenth century, Americans rich and poor had come to expect high-quality fresh beef with almost every meal. Beef production in the United States had gone from small-scale, localized operations to a highly centralized industry spanning the country, with cattle bred on ranches in the rural West, slaughtered in Chicago, and consumed in […]
Posted: July 6, 2020
The Civil War unleashed a torrent of claims for equality—in the chaotic years following the war, former slaves, women’s rights activists, farmhands, and factory workers all engaged in the pursuit of the meaning of equality in America. This contest resulted in experiments in collective action, as millions joined leagues and unions. In Equality: An American […]
Posted: July 6, 2020
Timed to coordinate with the suffrage centennial, Free Thinker tells the remarkable true story of the “fallen woman” who changed her name, reinvented herself, became one of the era’s most effective reformers, and ended up negotiating Congressional passage of the 19th Amendment. Written by Kimberly Hamlin Associate Professor of History and American Studies, Miami University
Posted: July 6, 2020
The Progress was a New Bedford whaler transformed into a whaling museum for Chicago’s 1893 world’s fair. Traversing waterways across North America, the whaleship enthralled crowds from Montreal to Racine. Her ultimate fate, however, was to be a failed sideshow of marine curiosities and a metaphor for a dying industry out of step with Gilded […]
Posted: July 6, 2020
In the years after the Civil War, the banks, railroads, and industrial corporations of Gilded Age America, abetted by a corrupt political system, concentrated vast wealth in the hands of the few and made poverty the fate of many. In response, a group of hard-pressed farmers and laborers from Texas organized a movement for economic […]
Posted: June 30, 2020
A monthly roundup of Gilded Age and Progressive Era news articles and blog posts from around the web. A tribute to Gilded Age and Progressive Era historian Dr. John D. Buenker The history of protest and attacks on Confederate monuments On the state’s failure to protect Black Americans in 1919 and today Why the postal […]
Posted: June 23, 2020
By Chelsea Chamberlain June 23, 2020 This is the third post in our series exploring the lived experience of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Read the first post by Coyote Shook here. Read the second post by Jeff Nichols here. Between August 14 and August 19, 1908, the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-minded Children at Elwyn […]
Posted: June 17, 2020
By Jeff Nichols June 17, 2020 This post was originally published by the Chicago Reader and is reprinted here with permission. This is the second post in our series on the 1918 influenza pandemic. Read the first post here. In 1918 in the northern suburban fringe of Chicago, an insidious illness killed twice the number […]
Posted: June 9, 2020
This is the text of the graphic essay “Flu in the Arctic” by Coyote Shook. Find the original post here and view the full PDF here. Title Panel: Flu in the Arctic: Influenza in Alaska, 1918 ~Coyote Shook~ [Black and white sketch drawing of a moose skull resting on a hill with trees, water, […]
Posted: June 9, 2020
By Coyote Shook June 9, 2020 This graphic essay leads off a new series on the SHGAPE blog exploring the lived experience of Americans during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Also be sure to check out the list of further readings below. View the full PDF of “Flu in the Arctic” here. Or read the text […]
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