Ben Railton
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Articles by Ben Railton
Considering History: Elections Give Us the Opportunity to Protect and Extend Our Founding Ideals
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. If you watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! every evening as my wife and I do, or likely if you watch any TV at any time of day, you’ve no doubt been bombarded by political campaign ads over the last few months, with the frequency only intensifying as Election Day approaches on November 3rd.
Considering History: Three 1926 Championships and the Role of Baseball in American History
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. The 2026 Major League Baseball playoffs started last week, but regular-season NFL games and pre-season NBA stories occupy the top spots on ESPN’s website as I write this.
Considering History: This Constitution Day, Let’s Celebrate State Constitutions
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. On September 17th, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia signed the final draft of the U.S. Constitution, beginning the ratification process that would make this founding document the law of the land. On this year’s Constitution Day, there are many elements of that document we should be concerned about regarding our laws, policies, and norms.
Considering History: We Still Need to Learn from These Education Reformers
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. Next week I begin a new semester of teaching, and with it my 22nd year at Fitchburg State University. I love and am very lucky to have this gig, but of course it has its challenges, many having to do with AI programs and use.
Considering History: A Birthday Week Tribute to the Best of Charlottesville
I’ve written a good bit in this column about my hometown of Charlottesville: from its histories of racist memorials and segregation to the contested changes in its neighborhoods and university to last year’s tribute to my late father.
Considering History: Does Remembering Injustice Erase America’s True Story…or Help Us Better Understand It?
On July 4th, the Trump administration’s 18 months of critiques of the Smithsonian Institution culminated in a controversial document: the White House Domestic Policy Council’s 162-page report entitled “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage.” The report presents, as a key piece of evidence for its argument, the Many Voices, One Nation exhibit’s accompanying text “Negotiating Inclusion,”...
Considering History: Soccer and Baseball are Both Our National Pastimes
Much has been made of the significant and symbolic successes of the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) at the ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The Savannah Bananas are building on one of baseball’s oldest traditions, barnstorming
One of the more striking sports stories of the last few years has been the dramatic rise in popularity of the Savannah Bananas. Founded as a collegiate summer league team in 2016, the Bananas began playing exhibition games in 2018, when they debuted their signature “Banana Ball,” a fast-paced, acrobatic, comedic, participatory style of baseball.
Considering History: Henry Gerber and the Society for Human Rights
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. As we commemorate and celebrate Pride month here in 2026, it’s not at all hyperbolic to argue that LGBTQ+ people are under attack in ways we haven’t seen in decades.
Considering History: Memorial Day Lessons from My Grandfather’s World War II Letters
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. Neither of my late grandfathers talked much about their experiences serving in the U.S. Army during World War II.
Considering History: The Soldiers of the Aloha Team Took Baseball by Storm
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. The start of May brings with it a couple of month-long historic commemorations: Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which began in the late 1970s as a weeklong celebration and became a full month of official commemoration in the early 1990s; and National Military Appreciation Month, which was added to the federal calendar in 1999.
Considering History: Jackie Robinson, Japanese Americans, and the Best of American Sports and Community
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. On April 15th, as it has every season since 2004, Major League Baseball celebrated Jackie Robinson Day.
Considering History: Reframing Cesar Chavez Day to Focus on the Collective Farm Worker Movement
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. Since 2011, when President Obama issued a proclamation declaring it a federal commemorative holiday, March 31st has been celebrated in many communities as Cesar Chavez Day.
Considering History: Denis Kearney, Mary Doyle Curran, and the Worst and Best of Irish America
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. Like Cinco de Mayo, the Chinese Lunar New Year, and a number of other holidays with international origins, St. Patrick’s Day has become significantly more prominent in the United States than it is in the nation on which it ostensibly focuses.
Considering History: The Groundbreaking Women of the 1932 U.S. Olympic Team
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present.
Considering History: Bad Bunny, José Martí, and a Hemispheric America
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. This year’s Super Bowl game was not a particularly memorable one, but the halftime show most definitely was.
Considering History: Minnesota’s Black History and America’s Defining Diversity
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. As it did throughout the summer of 2020, Minnesota once again finds itself at the center of American social and political debate here in early 2026.
Considering History: Public Broadcasting’s Origins Remind Us of Its Vital Role Today
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. In the year since Inauguration Day, January 20, 2025, a number of longstanding and venerable American institutions have faced serious federal spending cuts and/or have had their missions significantly altered or called into question, including the Smithsonian, numerous colleges and universities, the Center for Disease Control, and many more.
Considering History: Common Sense, Loyalists, and the Fight for American Ideals
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. On January 10, 1776, the English-born printer, journalist, and Revolutionary advocate Thomas Paine published the first version of his incendiary and important pamphlet, Common Sense.
Considering History: 10 Events That Shaped the First Quarter of the 21st Century
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. Impossible as it might be to believe, the math doesn’t lie, and the math tell us that with the end of 2025 we have completed one quarter of the 21st century. We’ve faced more than our share of historic events across the past 25 years, and while each has felt unprecedented, they all nonetheless echo and extend prior American histories.
Considering History: The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Spirit of Hanukkah, and American Ideals
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. Sunday at sundown kicked off the first night of this year’s celebration of Hanukkah, the eight-day Festival of Lights that commemorates the dedication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and provides a great deal of wintry warmth for Jewish families and communities around the world.
Considering History: When the Federal Government Came for Christmas Films
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. In December 2022, I dedicated a Considering History column to the forgotten meanings behind classic holiday songs. Despite its silly seasonal starting points, that column had a significant point to make: that even our most seemingly innocuous pop culture has a great deal to tell us about American history and identity, and the many topics I’ve written about in this column.
Considering History: The Heroic, Tragic, Very American Ballad of Ira Hayes
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. This week, as we both celebrate Veterans Day and continue to commemorate Native American Heritage Month, I can think of no figure who more clearly offers an inclusive vision of American history and identity than does Ira Hayes. This heroic young Native American Marine became synonymous with World War II victories and propaganda before meeting a tragic end.
Considering History: Protest Art and Art as Protest in American History
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. It’s hard to describe our current moment as a golden age for much of anything in America, but we are indeed amidst a renaissance of protest art. Portland’s inflatable resistance frogs have morphed into a consistent presence of life-size artistic costumes at protests, including at the massive #NoKings rallies on October 18th.
Considering History: The MOVE Bombing and “the War from Within”
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. During his September 30 address to a gathering of generals and other military officers at Quantico, President Donald Trump argued for an expansion of his controversial use of the military and other federal forces in American cities. “They’re very unsafe places,” he said of cities like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and more, “and we’re going to straighten them out one by one.
Considering History: We’re Living in, and Need to Live Up to, Bruce Springsteen’s America
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. On September 23, Bruce Springsteen, my favorite American artist and one of the most thoughtful models for studying America, turns 76.
Considering History: 20 Years After Katrina – a Harbinger of the Best and Worst of America | The Saturday Evening Post
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present It’s been 20 years since Hurricane Katrina made its destructive landfall, striking across the Gulf Coast and reserving its most terrible force for the great city of New Orleans. That tragic anniversary offers an opportunity for a variety of reflections and commemorations, mournings and celebrations, warnings and inspirations.
Considering History: Tracing the Story of America from New Orleans to Detroit
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. This past week, we dropped off our younger son Kyle to start his first year at the University of Michigan. Before heading home, and through the proud but bittersweet Dad Tears, I had the chance to explore the neighboring city of Detroit for the first time.
Considering History: The U.S.S. Indianapolis, Jaws, and the Human Horrors of War
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. On August 6th, 1945, the U.S. Air Force B-29 bomber the Enola Gay dropped the atomic bomb known as “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Alongside its counterpart bomb “Fat Man,” dropped on Nagasaki three days later, the Hiroshima bombing led directly to the end of the war, but it also did a great deal more than that.
Considering History: Ben Franklin, the U.S. Postal System, and Founding American Ideals
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. By late July 1775, the military conflict between American colonials and English troops that would come to be known as the American Revolution was fully underway.
Considering History: The Scopes Monkey Trial and the History of Attacks on Educators
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. Easily overlooked amidst the plethora of prominent Supreme Court decisions in recent weeks was a June 27th decision that could have significant effects on American educators. In Mahmoud v.
Considering History: How Individual Ideas and Policies Built America’s Most Exclusionary Era
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has proposed or enacted a wide range of anti-immigrant policies and plans. A State Department cable identified 36 new countries (the majority in Africa and the Caribbean) that might be subject to an expanded travel ban.
Considering History: Taking Pride in LGBTQ+ Americans in Our Armed Forces
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. Earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the secretary of the Navy to change the name of the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment oiler ship named after the former San Francisco mayor and LGBTQ+ rights activist.
Considering History: How Being a Dad Has Connected Me to New Aspects of the American Story
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. This coming week, my younger son Kyle graduates from high school. As he heads off to college in the fall, joining his older brother Aidan who just finished his own first year of college, I will of course never stop being their father (just as my late dad will always be mine in influential and inspiring ways).
Considering History: How Being a Dad Has Connected Me to New Aspects of the American Story
Ben Railton’s sons (Photo courtesy of Ben Railton) This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. This coming week, my younger son Kyle graduates from high school. As he heads off to college in the fall, joining his older brother Aidan who just finished his own first year of college, I will of course never stop being their father (just as my late dad will always be mine in influential and inspiring ways).
Considering History: A Proposal for Some New National Holidays
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present.
Considering History: A Proposal for Some New National Holidays
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present.
Considering History: Concord, Protest, and Patriotism
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. April 19th marked a truly historic American anniversary: the 250th of the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord that in many ways inaugurated the Revolutionary War and the creation of the United States. There were numerous events in both towns and other locations in honor of that anniversary, of course.
Considering History: The Stooges, the Marx Brothers, and Comedy in Tough Times
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. Lately, it’s been virtually impossible to distinguish real news headlines from those found on satirical sites like The Onion. Humor and comedy certainly don’t hit the same when we’ve suffered painful losses.
Considering History: A Tribute to Steve Railton and the Best of American Education
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. On the morning of Sunday, March 2nd, my father, Stephen Railton, passed away, surrounded by loved ones in the Charlottesville home where he and my mom had lived for 45 years.
Considering History: The New Deal and the Crucial Contributions of Federal Workers
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. Across the first six weeks of the second Trump administration, one overarching goal has become crystal clear: wide and deep cuts to federal government departments and programs, with a particular emphasis on firing, forcing into resignation, or otherwise eliminating federal employees.
Considering History: Langston Hughes and the Patriotism of Black History Month
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present.
Considering History: Remembering the 1965 Immigration Act
This past week, my sons lost their maternal grandmother, and the world lost one of the most wonderful and inspiring people I’ve ever known.
Considering History: Some Revolutionary Anniversaries to Celebrate in 2025
This year, 250 years after the start of the American Revolution, commemorations of the War of Independence will ramp up in earnest. Most historians trace the Revolutionary War’s origins to the April 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord, and so their anniversaries — along with other 1775 events such as the Battle of Bunker Hill and the invasion of Canada — will no doubt prompt a great deal of public remembrance and conversation.
Considering History: Health Care Is a Founding American Ideal
A number of prominent news stories this week have brought health insurance back to the center of the conversation. Two distinct but parallel documents went viral: Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s plan to put time limits on the amount of anesthesia they would cover (a plan they reversed after receiving extensive backlash); and a (potentially fabricated but deeply revealing) doctor’s letter to United Healthcare about their failure to cover children’s chemotherapy medications.
Considering History: Lumberjack Wars, Fenian Raids, and Trade Troubles — The Fraught History of U.S.-Canada Relations | The Saturday Evening Post
President-elect Donald Trump recently announced that one of his day-one executive actions would be to impose 25 percent tariffs on goods from China, Mexico, and Canada. Trump’s views on China and Mexico as threats to the United States have been part of his political platform since his first campaign launch in June 2015, but his inclusion of Canada in this tariff measure (as an attempt to police the border between the two nations) marks a striking addition to the roster.
Considering History: The Critical Patriotism of Vietnam Veterans
In my last Considering History column, I highlighted the duality between mythic and critical patriotism, making the case for critical patriotism’s goals of pointing out the nation’s shortcomings in an effort to push us closer to a more perfect union. Any individual or community can model such critical patriotism, from an NFL quarterback kneeling in silent protest to a White House whistleblower highlighting a troubling phone call.
Considering History: What We Talk About When We Talk About America
In recent weeks, historians, public scholars, and other interested folks on social media have been discussing the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the United States, prompted in part by a thoughtful Atlantic Monthly article from Beverly Gage on America’s identity crisis.
Considering History: Take Us Home, Country Roads: West Virginia and American History
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. This past Sunday evening, five Republican state legislators in West Virginia sent a striking resolution on the 2024 presidential election to the West Virginia House Judiciary Committee.
Considering History: Anti-Immigrant Myths Have Been Strikingly Consistent — and Consistently Wrong | The Saturday Evening Post
This series by American studies professor Ben Railton explores the connections between America’s past and present. As the 2024 presidential campaign moves into its final six weeks, anti-immigrant rhetoric has become a particularly prominent feature. Donald Trump has relied on such rhetoric since he launched his first campaign in 2015.
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