Ramblings Posts

When John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay talked about “Internal Improvements” and the “American System” in the 1820s, they were imagining an America that did not really exist yet, and was very difficult for most to conceptualize. The country had enormo…

From an A-Cup to a D Cup and in Gold! 'Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts: the book of their deeds, their words and their art.” John Ruskin “St Mark’s Rest: A History of Venice” (1885) One of the more outrageous “improv…

Heritage, not Hate In our series on “America First” we got to see how far nativists would go with their xenophobia in the 1920s and 1930s. Using fashionable but unscientific study of eugenics American nativists assessed Jews, Catholics, Asians, Afr…