In the 1860s Carleton Watkins loaded a team of mules with his mammoth-plate camera and glass negatives and ventured into Yosemite Valley.
Art of the United States: 1800 – 1900
How Chicago architecture sprung up thanks to new technology at the turn of the century
Burnham and Root, Reliance Building
This plaque is the only marker of the burial ground of people who died while enslaved by the University of Alabama and its faculty.
Slave Burial Ground, University of Alabama
A conversation that took place on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, July, 2021
Monument Avenue and the Lost Cause
Dedicated in 1890; removed in 2021
Defeated, heroized, dismantled: Richmond’s Robert E. Lee ...
Discover how this painting came to be recognized as one of America’s greatest paintings with Timothy Rub, Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The Gross Clinic with Timothy Rub
The University of Alabama, Civil War, and slavery; examining the role of architecture as historical marker
Little Round House
Home wrote that the sharpshooter's role was "as near to murder as anything I can think of."
The U.S. Civil War, sharpshooters and Winslow ...
A critic accused Whistler of “flinging paint at the public” when he saw this painting, so Whistler sued him.
Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The ...
Although their secretive nature precludes an accurate count of their numbers, historians estimate that about a million people belonged to nativist societies in the 1850s.
Nativism, immigration, and the Know-Nothing party
Understanding political cartoons in the wake of the Civil War.
Nast & Reconstruction, understanding a political cartoon
The natural world and political metaphor, Church's Cotopaxi
Science, religion, and politics, Church’s Cotopaxi
Tulips, roses, carnations, irises, and hydrangea form this sort of dense garden that weaves in and out of the paisley shapes.
Shawl from Deneirouse and Boisglavy
A miracle on Bleecker Street, ornament, invention, and one of the great early skyscrapers
Soaring upward, Louis Sullivan and the invention ...
At the Alamo, the representation of patriotic heroism and brave sacrifice eclipses Spain’s earlier colonial presence and the history of the site’s ruination, reconstruction, and reframing.
The Alamo (& Mission San Antonio de ...
One of the most famous landscape photographs showing the horrible aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Timothy O’Sullivan, A Harvest of Death
Contemporary artist Kehinde Wiley discusses the seduction of Sargent's portraits as luxury goods and events of class
Kehinde Wiley on John Singer Sargent
Martyr. Murderer. Prophet. Madman. All of these words have been used to describe John Brown, the fiery abolitionist.
John Brown’s “tragic prelude” to the U.S. ...
There is no memorial to the Mexican-American War in Washington, D.C.—a war in which more than 15,000 American soldiers lost their lives.
The Mexican-American War
Singer Sargent’s evocative canvas turns a sweet, ordinary scene into a symphony of shapes and colors.
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