American History Tellers

In the 1870s, the age of artificial light was still in its infancy. Gas lamps cast a dim glow on city streets, and early arc lights were just beginning to appear in a handful of public spaces. But rel...

In the spring of 1884, a little-known Serbian immigrant named Nikola Tesla arrived in America with little more than a letter of introduction to the most famous inventor in the world – Thomas Edison. T...

By 1888, the race to power America's cities had become a battle between the rival visions of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. But when the powerful industrialist George Westinghouse threw his weight be...

At the turn of the 20th century, a booming cotton trade had made the Gulf Coast city of Galveston, Texas an economic powerhouse. Located just a few feet above sea level on a narrow barrier island, it ...

As a catastrophic hurricane approached Galveston, Texas on the morning of September 8, 1900, residents continued to go about their daily lives, with little warning of what was to come. Children played...

On September 9, 1900, the residents of Galveston, Texas woke up to find their island in ruins. Entire neighborhoods had vanished overnight. Telegraph, telephone, and electrical lines were destroyed, a...

The devastation of the 1900 Galveston hurricane left thousands dead and a city in ruins — but it also set in motion a remarkable story of recovery and reinvention. As survivors buried their dead and r...

In February 1826, 17-year-old Edgar Allan Poe was a promising student at the University of Virginia. But within a few months, gambling debts forced him to abandon his studies. It was just one of many ...

In 1840, eight-year-old Louisa May Alcott moved to the small town of Concord, Massachusetts with her family. There, she spent her days wandering through the woods, putting on plays with her sisters, a...

In the late 1850s, a young man named Samuel Clemens started out piloting steamboats on the Mississippi River. Within a few years, he embarked on a writing career, adopting the pen name that became fam...