We have an image of puritans as cold, severe, hyper-strict and religious people, and while that’s not entirely false, it’s also not entirely true. From the very beginning, early Americans were thinking about sex. The courts were burdened with hundreds of cases in which people broke the laws regarding sexual morality, Read more…
In 19th century New York City, sex was for sale and it wasn’t hard to find it. Commodified sex was everywhere and available for any price. The years between roughly 1850 to about 1910 were the years that commercialized sex and vice in New York City were the most visible, the most prolific, and Read more…
The Marquis de Sade is a notorious figure in the history of the French Revolution. Some see him as a twisted, debauched lunatic who preyed on the bodies of women and children. Others see him as a literary genius who was a revolutionary spirit ahead of his time. We invite Read more…
Sarah and Averill discuss the court case at the center of some of the most intense protests the University at Buffalo as even seen, all in the midst of the anti-war movement in the 1960s: The Buffalo Nine.
The little-known episode of the War of 1812 – when the British troops burned Buffalo, NY to the ground.
How did communities like Springfield, the “buckle” of the Bible Belt, deal with the AIDS crisis?
Why NAFTA is important. Also, where jeans come from. Elizabeth and Averill talk Maquiladoras, NAFTA, and manufacturing in Mexico and the US.
The Bracero Program began in 1942, and was an agreement between the United States and Mexico, which started the legalization and control of Mexican migrant workers along America’s southern border area. The US was recovering from the social and economic damages caused by the Great Depression, while also sending many Read more…
When we think of immigration we tend to think of people crossing over nation-state borders, from one country to another. These borders seem somehow solid in our collective mind, yet they normally only exist within treaties, maps, and in perceived ideas of community. But in many ways, borders are arbitrary Read more…
Dr. Carson was wrong in his characterization of the American slave experience. On this episode of the History Buffs Podcast, Drs. Earls and Handley-Cousins discuss the force and violence of population transfers in both the Atlantic Slave Trade and the U.S. Indian Removal Act.