The text discusses the history of lynching in the United States, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A map created by Michael Weaver, a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University, shows the number of articles that mentioned lynching in newspapers between 1880 and 1940. The map reveals that lynching was widely covered in the press, with many city papers publishing stories about it daily or weekly during the 1890s and 1900s. The data also shows that larger cities had a steady stream of articles mentioning lynching, while smaller towns and rural areas were often overlooked. Additionally, the map highlights the dynamics of major lynching events, which could sweep the nation and reach far into the hinterlands. The project aims to answer the question of why lynching became a national scandal, rather than a local practice of "justice", by analyzing the press coverage of the time.