Features

Digital historian and medievalist Kalani Craig joins the Department of History

 There’s a quote from Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address in 1861 that the East Central Illinois Alliance of Braver Angels likes to remember as it works to bridge partisan divides: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies...

Meet Austin Justice (BA,'20, history), an assistant editor for the Papers of Abraham Lincoln (PAL) at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum. The PAL project is dedicated to publishing every document written by or addressed to Abraham Lincoln. In addition to his role at PAL, Justice...

 How do we preserve and interpret the historical record in a digital age? Traditionally, archivists collect and preserve historical sources, historians interpret them through books or documentary editions, and publishers distribute them. Today, historical sources that once would have been only...

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign history professor Robert Morrissey traveled to a Paris museum in November to see four ...

In the 1950s, the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco) partnered with the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) to conduct medical research on the eye disease trachoma. Aramco spent over $2 million on the project with the goal of developing a vaccine. In her new book,...

The Midwest played a central role in the growth of Black freedom movements in the 20th century. It was a key site for incubating and expanding the ideas of political activist Marcus Garvey, not only in the U.S., but globally, said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of ...

After 36 years of teaching at the University of Illinois, our colleague Kai-wing Chow retired in May 2024. Chow is a highly esteemed historian of China with an international reputation. His areas of expertise include Chinese...

The largest and longest-lasting society formed by people who escaped slavery and their descendants endured for a century in northeastern Brazil, and it continues to be a potent political symbol of Black pride today. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ...

Imagine it’s 1913 and you’re in a tiny basement restaurant called Polly’s in Greenwich Village, New York. Change is in the air and intellectuals, artists, and activists gather to debate the issues of the day: women’s suffrage, labor unions, socialism, birth control, and anarchism. The nightly crowd...