IN THE WAKE OF THE MAYFLOWER The First Encounter In the Wake of the Mayflower is the story of life after the Mayflower's arrival--from The First  Encounter  through the 50 years of peace that ended with King Philip's  War. It highlights the mutually-dependent relationship between the Pilgrims and the indigenous Wampanoags, documented in  Karen Rinaldo's depiction of "The […]

THE BOSTON MASSACRE: A FAMILY HISTORY Fact. On a late winter evening in 1770, British soldiers shot and killed five local, unarmed citizens. However, from the very beginning, one fascinating truth has been obscured from this often-told story: the conflicts between the British troops and the increasingly rebellious colonists leading up to the historic event […]

THE FIRST FIRST LADIES The Informal Political Power of Early American Women During the 17th and early 18th centuries, social class was ever-so important. And, despite the entrenched tradition of patriarchy, high-ranking women could wield more power than lower-status men. Meet the first First Ladies. The wives of the governors of America's original thirteen colonies […]

From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes
This is the stuff of fairy tales: poor Russian immigrant falls madly in love with the heir to a great American Fortune.  She is Rose Pastor. He is James Graham Phelps Stokes, the crown prince of the Phelps Stokes dynasty. Member of the legendary 400 families of New York high society. Friends with the Morgans and the Vanderbilts.  And he’s totally smitten, too.

The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Pilots of World War II
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Cornelia Fort was already in the air. She had escaped Nashville’s debutante scene at the age of 22 and headed to Hawaii for a fresh start as a flight instructor. When the bombs began to fall, Fort and her student were in the middle of a lesson. They barely made it back to ground that ill-fated morning.

Benjamin Franklin was an abolitionist freethinker from the urban north. George Washington was a slaveholding general from the agrarian south. These vastly different men had a three-decade bond that helped forge the United States.

Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America
In 1869, when the final spike was driven into the Transcontinental Railroad, few were prepared for its seismic aftershocks. America's railways, once a hodgepodge of short, squabbling lines, soon exploded into a titanic industry helmed by speculators, crooks, and visionaries.

The Radical Republican History of the Civil War
In 1862, the ardent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison summarized the events tearing the United States apart: “There is a war because there was a Republican Party. There was a Republican Party because there was an Abolition Party. There was an Abolition Party because there was Slavery.” Garrison’s simple statement expresses the essential truths at the heart of LeeAnna Keith’s When It Was Grand.

The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions
By Susan Eisenhower, a DC policy strategist, security expert and Ike's granddaughter
Few people have made decisions as momentous as Eisenhower. Even fewer have had so many diverse decisions to make. From D-Day to Little Rock, from the Korean War to the Cold War crises, from the Red Scare to the Missile Gap controversies, Ike was able to give America eight years of peace and prosperity by relying on a core set of principles.