Spun-glass fabrics, Robert La Follette, convict labor in Florida’s swamps, dying before germ theory, the “pansy craze,” the legacy of the Scopes “Monkey Trial” 100 years later, and much more.
CFP: SHGAPE Conference
The Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era is delighted to host its first stand-alone conference, June 4-6, 2026, at Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois. We welcome anyone interested in US history from Reconstruction through the 1920s, including scholars from a range of fields, public historians, archivists, and teachers, to come, meet, and exchange ideas.
Minding the GAPE – June 2025
Juneteenth historic sites, “female husbands,” a ghost fleet in the Potomac, the “convict clause” and the Panama Canal, the 19th-century origins of criminalizing abortion, a brief history of miasma theory, “human zoos,” and much more.
Minding the GAPE – May 2025
“Wellness farms” and the eugenic history of confining young people with disability, how the U.S.-Canada border was shaped, parallels between the SAVE Act and the 1907 Expatriation Act, the real history behind the film “Sinners,” the historical significance of Pope Leo XIV’s name choice, and much more.
Minding the GAPE – April 2025
Tariffs and the income tax in historical perspective, the origins of the White House Easter Egg Roll, HBCU marching bands, epidemics and disability, primary sources from mass persuasion campaigns, why we regulate raw milk, and much more.
Minding the GAPE – March 2025
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
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
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
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.
2025 Prize and Grant Winners
The Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era is pleased to announce our 2025 prize and grant winners, including the Vincent P. DeSantis Prize and the H. Wayne Morgan Prize.
Minding the GAPE – January 2025
The Panama Canal, Grant’s Ku Klux Klan pardons, birthright citizenship and U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, Greenland and Arctic imperialism, the origins of the anti-vaccine movement, teaching resources for Black History Month, and much more.
“Faces of the First Red Scare”: Documenting Red Scare Deportees
Below is an interview with Dr. Kenyon Zimmer, a historian of transnational radicalism. Recently, as I was editing a piece for our blog, I stumbled across his personal website where he has published a comprehensive digital archive of Red Scare deportees. I thought our readers could benefit from this resource, both for their own research and for the classroom. It is also a wonderful example of a digital history project, and Zimmer gives us insight into the surprising responses he’s had to it.