SHGAPE Blog

Minding the GAPE – March 2025

April 1, 2025

Minding the GAPE – March 2025

By Laura Crossley

Golden Age or new Gilded Age, the Statue of Liberty, a historian’s family history, pedestrianism and politics, documenting Black dance history, the Teddy Bear’s failed possum rival, and much more.

Minding the GAPE – February 2025

March 3, 2025

Minding the GAPE – February 2025

By Laura Crossley

The life of Black feminist activist Dr. Anna Julia Cooper, a covert government agency in the Progressive Era, coercive tariffs under McKinley, marriage records of the Freedmen’s Bureau, the origins of Black financial institutions, and much more.

Wobbly Justice: Guilt by Association in Progressive-Era Seattle

February 24, 2025

Wobbly Justice: Guilt by Association in Progressive-Era Seattle

By Andrew Varsanyi

On June 22, 1918, an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) named Walker Smith was arrested at his home in Seattle. Two Scottish sisters, Janet and Margaret Roy, were arrested with him, and unlike Smith and the many others he consorted with, they were not American citizens. As foreigners, the sisters’ experience in the American legal system, the newspaper coverage devoted to them, and their attempts to thwart the immigration laws that targeted them provide an example of how American immigration law and practice sought to ideologically sort and control new arrivals to the United States.

A Progressive Statesman Confronts Modern Art

February 18, 2025

A Progressive Statesman Confronts Modern Art

By Dr. Bruce W. Dearstyne

The Progressive Era (ca. 1900-1920) was a time of great change in American life. Urbanization and industrialization increased, immigration grew, progressive reformers introduced new forms of government regulation, and new types of literature and art entered the scene. The changes delighted some Americans but confounded and upset others. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was a change-maker but also someone who struggled to understand and accept some of the changes of the era. Modern art, which debuted in the new century, was one of those changes.