On this day 150 years ago an article was published in the New York Times giving the figures for the amount of police arrests in the past twelve months. Though crime had decreased throughout the year, it still was higher than anyone wished or expected to see. The statistics didn’t necessarily reflect the amount of [...]

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“The scale had so far tilted that by 1920 or so, when John Leon Gerome Ferris painted his famous depiction of the surrender at Appomattox, “Let Us Have Peace, 1865” — which is in the show — he put Lee, regal and imposing, bathed in light, in the center of the picture, while a shadowy, supplicant Grant, in muddy boots, approaches from the left. If you didn’t know better, you would think Lee had won.”

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