Why we need your help

Dear Readers,

By now you’ll have realised that ThePast is not a click-bait site. We publish high-quality, long-form, articles about narrative history that can take up to two weeks of full-time effort to research, write, edit, rewrite, and revise.

We believe that the creatives who do that work should get paid fairly for it. So the freelance graduate historians who write our stories receive a third of our gross revenue.

We’re too small to make much off advertising, and we’re not currently getting any government, institutional, or corporate funding. That leaves you, our readers.

We hope that you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read so far and are willing to make a token contribution to help us write more stories. If so, we have several options:

Single stories: Unlike most paywall-protected websites, we don’t insist that you take out a subscription. If you’re just interested in one particular story, or you simply aren’t ready to make a commitment yet, you can read up to 5,000 words for less than a pound. That’s roughly what you’d pay for a similar story in a print magazine, and a lot less than the latte you’re drinking as you read.

Packages: If you’ve found several stories you want to read, but don’t know when you’ll have time to do so, your best bet may be our £10 package, which gives you a 10% discount on the single-article price.

Membership: We are currently offering unlimited-access memberships for £5 a month, half the usual price. You can read everything we’ve published to date, plus all the new articles which appear each month.

Discount codes: If you heard about us through a tweet or other social media, there should be a five-digit code at the end of the post. Enter that number on the paywall and it will reduce the price still further. You may reuse codes as often as you like.

Your contribution will assist us in our mission to bring stories from ThePast to a wider audience.

Thank you for helping.

Paul and Stewart

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