Nineteenth Century America
How the Wickedest City in the American West Created Frontier Justice In Spite of Itself
Tom Clavin opens Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and the Wickedest Town in the American West with Masterston stepping off the train in Dodge City, expecting trouble. The scene is tense; Clavin deliberately evokes the images of lawlessness, and violence associated with the city’s name. (Not to mention similar images attached to Masterston himself.)…
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What Makes a Mosque, Part Five: America’s Oldest Mosque
If you listen to the news, you’d think that Islamic immigrants to the United States are something new. They’re not. Beginning in the 1880s and ending only when the United States closed the door on non-European immigrants in 1924, Muslims from Ottoman-controlled Syria joined the rush to emigrate to America. Like their European counterparts, most…
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From the Archives. Déjà Ve All Over Again: Closing the Boarders
If you’ve been hanging out here in the Margins for a while, you probably have a pretty good idea about where I stand on political issues in general even though I try not to shove my opinions in your face because this is a history blog, not a political blog. One thing I feel strongly…
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