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What It Was Like to Ride the Transcontinental Railroad

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What Was Like to Ride the Transcontinental Railroad?

Velvet cushions and gilt‑framed mirrors. Feasts of antelope, trout, berries and Champagne. In 1869, a New York Times reporter experienced the ultimate in luxury—and he did so not in the parlor of a Gilded Age magnate, but on a train headed from Omaha, Nebraska to San Francisco, California. Just a few years before, the author […]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court Justice Since 1993, Dies at 87

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a groundbreaking attorney, a lifelong advocate for gender equality, and a civil servant who served as a justice on the Supreme Court for 27 years, died September 18, 2020 due to complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer. She was 87 years old. Her death marked the end of an era for a court indelibly shaped both […]

This New Deal Summer Camp Program Aimed to Help Unemployed Women

During the Great Depression, thousands of unemployed men picked up saws and axes and headed to the woods to serve in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program that employed about 3 million men. But men in the CCC weren’t the only ones to take to the great outdoors on the New Deal’s dime. […]

Why Congress Passed the Defense Production Act in 1950

“Are YOU doing all you can?” “We can do it!” During World War II, Americans at home were reminded to do their part by splashy propaganda posters that emphasized pulling together for the national good. Industry did its part, too, thanks to wartime laws that prioritized military production. Seemingly overnight, car factories produced warplanes. Lipstick […]