History
May Day is a Rust Belt Holiday
May Day isn’t just an estimably American holiday, it’s a particularly Rust Belt holiday, forged in the cauldron of Chicago’s streets and factories, born from the experience of workers in the mills and plants of Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland.
Execution of an Innocent Man
One hundred years ago today, a Pittsburgh man was executed. He was likely innocent.
Crossroads of Desire
On Black and White Indiana During the Great Migration
St. Louis Brick by Brick
To understand the history of St. Louis’s bricks is to unearth systems of power, economy, dispossession, decline, and manifest destiny; the storybook decorative brickwork we see today becomes a tale as complex—and as sinister—as American history itself.
Langston Hughes’ Radical Ohio Youth
To Hughes, America has never achieved its potential. Never reached the supposed promises enumerated in the nation’s founding documents.
Hatchet-Throwing in Forgotten Places
I get sentimental about places, especially forgotten ones like Monarch Park. They’re a bit of a bummer, a bit sobering, a bit sad. But I think it’s a good kind of sadness.
How to Become an American
Excerpted from How to Become an American: A History of Immigration, Assimilation, and Loneliness, by Daniel Wolff, published December 2022 by University of South Carolina Press.
Organization and Immunity
Hundreds of angry miners crowded around the machine, several attacking it with hammers and axes. Finally, fifteen sticks of dynamite were placed under the motor, and a firing wire and exploders attached. A few minutes later there was a terrific blast and the shovel was reduced to a tangled mass of wreckage.
Rediscovering the Lost Midwest
Once the cobwebs are cleared off old journals, long-forgotten records consulted, and the veil of stereotypes pierced, a remarkable world is discovered.
Moses of Cairo (Illinois)
The idea that non-white immigrants are, generally speaking, new to the Midwest could not be further from the truth.
Rust Belt history
Get the latest stories from around the region sent straight to your inbox.
Get the latest stories from around the region sent straight to your inbox.
Support independent, context-driven regional writing.