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April 24, 2023

The Plant Revolution and 19th Century American Literature | Unsung History

During the 19th Century, growing international trade and imperialist conquest combined with new technologies to transport and care for flora led to a burgeoning fascination with plant life. American writers, from Emily Dickinson to Frederick Douglass played with plant imagery to make sense of their world and their country and…

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April 17, 2023

The 1972 Occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs | Unsung History

While voters were casting their ballots in the 1972 presidential election, Native demonstrators had taken over the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington, DC, barricading themselves in with office furniture and preparing to fight with makeshift weapons. The occupation marked the finale of a cross-country caravan, the Trail of…

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April 10, 2023

The Southern Strategy | Unsung History

In the decades following the Civil War, African Americans reliably voted for the Republican Party, which had led the efforts to outlaw slavery and enfranchise Black voters; and white southerners reliably voted for the Democratic Party. When Black voters started to vote for Democratic candidates in larger numbers, starting with…

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April 3, 2023

Harold Washington | Unsung History

In 1983, Harold Washington took on the Chicago machine and won, with the help of a multiracial coalition, becoming the first Black mayor of Chicago. Winning the mayoral election was only the first fight, and 29 of the 50 alderpersons on City Council, led by the “the Eddies,” Aldermen Ed…

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March 27, 2023

The 1968 White House Fashion Show | Unsung History

On February 29, 1968, Lady Bird Johnson hosted the first–and last–White House Fashion Show. The fashion show, intended both to highlight the fourth largest industry in the United States and to promote domestic tourism, inadvertently became one of the many PR missteps of the Johnson administration, as it occurred in…

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March 20, 2023

Madame Restell, "The Wickedest Woman in New York" | Unsung History

In 19th Century New York, everyone knew who to go to to end an unwanted pregnancy: the French-trained, sophisticated Madame Restell, who lived in a posh mansion on 5th Avenue. In reality, Madame Restell was English immigrant Ann Trow Lohman, and she had never even been to France, but she…

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March 13, 2023

The National Women's Conference of 1977 | Unsung History

In her 2015 book, Gloria Steinem described the National Women’s Conference of 1977 as “the most important event nobody knows about.” The four-day event in Houston, Texas, which brought together 2,000 delegates and another 15,000-20,000 observers was the culmination of a commission appointed first by President Ford and then by…

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March 6, 2023

Lydia Maria Child | Unsung History

By 1833, Lydia Maria Child was a popular author, having published both fiction and nonfiction, including the wildly successful advice book The Frugal Housewife: Dedicated to those who are not ashamed of Economy. And she had been editing a beloved monthly periodical for children called Juvenile Miscellany for seven years.…

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Feb. 27, 2023

The Eastland Disaster | Unsung History

On the morning of July 24, 1915, employees of the Western Electric Company and their families excitedly boarded the SS Eastland near the Clark Street Bridge in Chicago, eager to set off for a day of fun in Michigan City, Indiana, during their annual company picnic. Tragically, the ship capsized…

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Feb. 20, 2023

The History of Polish Chicago | Unsung History

If you’ve ever lived in Chicago, you’ve probably heard at some point that Chicago has the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw. While that’s an exaggeration it’s certainly the case that the Chicagoland region has a large population of people of Polish descent and that Chicago is important historically to…

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Feb. 13, 2023

John H. Johnson & Ebony Magazine | Unsung History

When businessman John H. Johnson died in 2005, Ebony Magazine, the monthly photo-editorial magazine that he launched in 1945, reached an estimated 10 million readers. Under the direction of executive editor Lerone Bennet Jr. for several decades, Ebony helped shape Black culture and perceptions of Black history. Johnson Publishing Company…

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Feb. 11, 2023

The History of the Cook County Jail

The first Cook County Jail was a wooden stockade, built in 1833 in Chicago, which was then a town of around 250 people. Today, the Cook County Department of Corrections, which takes up 8 city blocks on the Southwest Side of Chicago, is one of the largest single-site jails in…

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Jan. 30, 2023

Unsung History - The Green Book

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Jan. 23, 2023

Unsung History - American Women Writers in Italy in the 19th Century

The second half of the nineteenth century was a momentous time in Italian history, marked by the unification of the peninsula and the formation of the Kingdom of Italy. Three American women writers had a front-seat view of this history while they lived in Italy: Caroline Crane Marsh, the wife…

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Jan. 16, 2023

Unsung History - The 1968 Student Uprising at Tuskegee Institute

Days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and after months of increasing tension on campus, the students at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama occupied a building on campus where the Trustees were meeting, demanding a number of reforms, including a role for students in college governance, the end of…

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Jan. 9, 2023

Unsung History - Shirley Chisholm

Throughout her life, Shirley Chisholm fought for coalitional change. She was the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress in 1968, the first Black woman to run for President of the United States in 1972, co-founder of both the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women’s Political Caucus,…

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Jan. 2, 2023

Unsung History - The Aerobics Craze of the 1980s

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Dec. 26, 2022

Unsung History - Stede Bonnet, the Gentleman Pirate

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Dec. 19, 2022

Unsung History - Smallpox Inoculation & the American Revolution

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Dec. 12, 2022

Unsung History - The Sea Islands Hurricane of 1893

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Dec. 5, 2022

Unsung History - The Rise of the Labor Movement & Employer Resistance in the Late 19th Century

After the Civil War, the simultaneous shift in the labor economy of the Southern United States and the second industrial revolution led to a growing interest in labor organizing. Newly formed labor organizations led a combined 23,000 strikes between 1881 and 1900. Employers noticed, and fought back, sometimes literally, employing…

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Nov. 28, 2022

Unsung History - Single Irish Women & Domestic Service in late 19th Century New York City

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Nov. 21, 2022

Unsung History - Keeping Secrets in the 1950s

Americans in the 1950s, yearning to return to normalcy after the Great Depression and World War II, got married, had lots of kids, and used their newly middle-class status to buy cookie-cutter houses in the suburbs. But not everyone conformed to the white middle class American Dream. Black Americans were…

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Nov. 14, 2022

Unsung History - Gordon Merrick

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