Today’s Democratic Party traces its history to 1828, making it the oldest existing political party in the country. The party has its origins in the First Party System, which consisted of the Federalists and Republicans. By the 1810s, the Republicans had begun calling themselves the Democratic-Republicans. Going into the 1820s…

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…

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…

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…

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…

In March of 1911, the nation was shocked by what would prove to be one of the worst workplace disasters in United States history. …

For many Americans, feminism is a movement they associate with the 1960s and 1970s, but the movement for women’s rights can be traced at least as far back as the mid-1800s. The decade of the 1840s witnessed a proliferation of reform movements, and women were instrumental in many of them…

As the subject of a recent movie and with talk of placing her image on the twenty-dollar bill, Harriet Tubman is perhaps more in the news today than at any point since her death. With so much attention focused on Tubman, let’s look at the life of this remarkable woman…

Wars are complicated, and understanding their causes can be tricky, even for those who live through them. Conflicts can seldom be attributed to one reason and are often the result of years of tensions. The American Revolution is no exception. …