George Silverman’s Explanation
A short story
160 Years of Atlantic Stories
A year-by-year catalogue of some of the magazine's most momentous work.
An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage
“Statesmen, beware what you do. The destiny of unborn and unnumbered generations is in your hands.”
The Freedman’s Story
An escaped slave tells his story—including his account of his violent showdown with slave-catchers in Pennsylvania.
The Place of Abraham Lincoln in History
“We think we pay the best tribute to his memory and the most fitting respect to his name, if we ask after the relation in which he stands to the history of his country and his fellow-man.”
Among the Mormons
A nineteenth-century writer meets Brigham Young and explores the “City of Saints.”
The Brothers
Set in a wartime hospital, and narrated by a Civil War nurse, Louisa May Alcott’s 1863 short story is a tale of siblings—one Black, one white.
Battle Hymn of the Republic
The lyrics to Julia Ward Howe’s patriotic classic premiered in the February 1862 issue of The Atlantic.
The Pickens-and-Stealin's Rebellion
“We must convince men that treason against the ballot-box is as dangerous as treason against a throne.”
The Election in November
The Atlantic’s editor endorsed Abraham Lincoln for the presidency in the 1860 election, predicting that it would prove to be “a turning-point in our history.”
Ought Women to Learn the Alphabet?
“We venture to assert, then, that woman’s social inferiority, in the past, has been, to a great extent, a legitimate thing.”