Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Cotton
New England industrialists hired thousands of young farm girls to work together in early textile mills—and spawned a host of unintended consequences.
In June 1833, President Andrew Jackson, visiting the brand-new factory town of Lowell, Massachusetts, watched as 2500 female mill workers marched past the balcony of his hotel.
The highly lucrative cotton crop of 1860 emboldened the South to challenge the economic powerhouse of the North
In the mid- to late summer of 1860, billions of soft pink and white Gossypium hirsutum blooms broke out across South Carolina, Georgia, western Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, soon to morph into puffy white bolls.
Having given slavery a new lease on life, he then made Northern triumph inevitable
A century and a half of the U.S. economy, from the railroad revolution to the information revolution
Cotton, Gold, and Flesh
Paying For Union
The Age of Steel
Shakespeare—that master limner of the ways of kings—probed the frequent conflict between sovereigns and their heirs- apparent in Henry IV, Part I.
As any faithful reader of the old gossip columns knows, great wealth too easily acquired can be a very mixed blessing indeed.
On April 30, 1789, George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States on the balcony of New York’s Federal Hall, then serving as the new nation’s temporary capitol.
Featured Authors
