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Accounts of warfare are often strictly accounts of the heroism of men, which is understandable, as most stories of wartime heroism tend to take a narrow view and focus only on combat, a role from which women were excluded until relatively recently in history. But women have always served in times of war, including in the American Revolution. Although records of the Revolution typically focus on accounts of battlefield bravery or the patriotic statesmen who wrote the country’s founding documents.  The actions of Revolutionary-era women, though often uncelebrated, were no less heroic. Thousands of women displayed a quiet bravery by...

Long before the Civil War ravaged the United States, the country was already deeply divided over the issue of slavery. The controversy existed from the country’s inception, threaded through the wording of the Constitution, even if it was never explicitly stated. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote much of the Declaration of Independence, owned hundreds of slaves throughout his life, only a handful of whom were freed before his death. There is an obvious and painful paradox in the fact that the man who wrote “all men are created equal” was also a man whose wealth depended on the labor of enslaved humans....

In the aftermath of the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763, thousands of British soldiers were stationed throughout the American colonies. At the time, the colonists saw them as protectors, a defense against potential threats from both the French and Native Americans. However, in the ensuing years, as tensions between the British and their American colonies worsened, the British troops were increasingly seen as an occupying force. In Boston, where nearly one-tenth of the city’s population were British soldiers, relations between Bostonians and the British military were particularly fractious.On a snowy night in March of 1770, a group...

For twenty-first-century Americans, big government is nothing new. No matter how we feel about it, the government is everywhere and involved in virtually every aspect of our lives. With the federal government responsible for so many facets of our lives, it can be challenging to remember that it was once much smaller. The Constitution—now revered by most Americans—was a source of controversy when it was written. The newly formed United States’ first written constitution was the Articles of Confederation, which created a federal government with limited powers while leaving considerable powers to the states. In the eighteenth century, most people...

In March of 1911, the nation was shocked by what would prove to be one of the worst workplace disasters in United States history. The disaster was even more tragic because many of those who died were young women just on the cusp of adulthood—some were as young as 14.Employees at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company (a shirtwaist was a woman’s blouse) were like many factory workers in the early twentieth century. They worked long hours—usually, 7 AM to 8 PM, seven days a week, and their wages were absurdly low. A week’s work earned them roughly $6. In some instances,...