U.S. History
What Did Cowboys Actually Eat on the Trail?
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Article
We’ve all seen the version of cowboys that Hollywood likes to show us, but the Western film genre has always been rife with myths. In reality, cowboys were rarely the dashing gunslingers of legend; instead, they were poorly paid laborers engaged in difficult and dirty work, whether it was helping out with the daily chores on someone else’s ranch or embarking upon grueling, monthslong cattle drives. From the 1860s to the 1890s, these great cattle drives helped define the American West. And for the cowhands hired to drive tens of thousands of cattle across hundreds ...Read More
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U.S. HistoryArticle96What $1 Bought You in 1940
In 1940, the average worker in the United States earned $1,368 a year — roughly $25 a week. And while that figure did rise during the course of the decade,…
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U.S. HistoryArticle40The Gift the Inventor of Mother’s Day Wanted You To Give
Anna Jarvis invented Mother's Day to honor her mother, then spent decades trying to abolish it. Here's the kind of gift she believed moms truly deserved.
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U.S. HistoryFact41The Statue of Liberty’s pedestal is taller than the statue itself.
Lady Liberty stands a total of 305 feet tall, but the statue itself accounts for less than half of that — at 154 feet, the pedestal is actually slightly taller…
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U.S. HistoryArticle315 Myths About the American Frontier
If your mental picture of the American frontier comes from the movies of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, you’re in very good company. Pop culture has spent more than a…
