Plaque of Marbury v. Madison at SCOTUS Building

Marbury v. Madison: Annotated

Justice John Marshall’s ruling on Marbury v. Madison gave the courts the right to declare acts and laws of the legislative and executive branches unconstitutional.
Precious Newberry, a United States Postal Service mail handler, works to unload her mail truck at the Processing and Distribution Center after collecting mail on the busiest mailing day of the year for the U.S. Postal Service on December 14, 2015 in Miami, Florida.

How Mail Delivery Has Shaped America

The United States Postal Service is under federal scrutiny. It’s not the first time.
Thurgood Marshall, 1976

Thurgood Marshall

In a speech marking the bicentennial of the US Constitution, Marshall argued that its framers intentionally inscribed slavery into the American economy.
Postal worker sorting letters and newspapers 1901

The Post Office and Privacy

We can thank the postal service for establishing the foundations of the American tradition of communications confidentiality
J. Robert Oppenheimer

The Annotated Oppenheimer

Celebrated and damned as the “father of the atomic bomb,” theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer lived a complicated scientific and political life.
closeup of the hancduffed hands of a person patterned as the gay pride flag

Teaching LGBTQ+ History: Queer Women’s Experiences in Prison

This instructional guide is the first in a series of curricular content related to the Reveal Digital American Prison Newspaper collection on JSTOR.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 while Martin Luther King and others look on

The Voting Rights Act 1965: Annotated

The passing of the Voting Rights Act in August 1965 prohibited the use of Jim Crow laws and discriminatory tests to disenfranchise Black voters.
Close up of illustration of prisoners from La Roca

St. Patrick’s Day in Prison

Offhand references to St. Patrick’s Day showcase broader humor, humanity, and history in the American Prison Newspapers collection.
White bucks shoes

White Shoes, WASPs and Law Firms

Law firms founded on Protestant identity necessitated the creation of firms that would hire those shut out by WASP gatekeeping.
Derrick Bell by David Shankbone (2007)

What Is Critical Race Theory?

Critical race theory has become a focus of conservative legislation, often with little understanding of its meaning and history.