Friday, June 19, 2026

Mechanical Inventiveness Improves the Covered Wagon — The German Settlers in the Conestoga Valley

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When twenty-first century readers come across the phrase, “German Engineering,” they often think of Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, or BMW. But mor...
Wednesday, June 17, 2026

Immigrant Groups Bring Their Characteristic Skills to the Frontier: The Germans and the Scotch-Irish

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Starting with the Spanish presence in Florida (1513) and the English settlement at Jamestown (1607), the cultures of the various waves of im...
Tuesday, March 24, 2026

Generosity on an Industrial Scale: Andrew Carnegie’s Charitable Giving

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Long before Bill Gates and Elon Musk, there was a Scotsman, born in the county of Fife in 1835. His parents were poor and they emigrated to ...
Friday, March 6, 2026

The Administrative State vs. Constitutional Freedom

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One of several continuous threads which run through the history of the United States from 1789 onward is the question of how to preserve the...
Thursday, September 11, 2025

The United States Declares War in April 1917: Why?

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The United States declared war on Germany in April 1917. President Woodrow Wilson had campaigned for his reelection by promising that he wou...
Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Changes in American Attitudes Toward Alcohol and Their Unintended Consequences

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Over centuries, American social thought about alcohol has developed significantly. To understand earlier phases of this process, it is first...
Friday, December 27, 2024

A Bumpy Start: The U.S. Economy Immediately after the Treaty of Paris

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The American Revolutionary War ended for practical purposes in 1781 with the near-cessation of hostilities, but it ended officially in 1783 ...