Black and white photo of a Chicago street at nighttime, 1920s

Why Did Gay Rights Take So Long?

A quiet movement that began in the 1920s didn’t disappear—it just went underground.
Photo collage in green and pink patterns, with a photo of Barbara Ann Richards in the center.

In the 1940s, a Trans Pioneer Fought California for Legal Recognition. This Is How She Won.

Barbara Ann Richards designed—and then demanded—the life she deserved.
They pronouns in multi-colored boxes

Where Gender-Neutral Pronouns Come From

We tend to think of "they," "Mx.," and "hir" as recent inventions. But English speakers have been looking for better ways to talk about gender for a long time.
Photograph of Don Ward and Robert in the early seventies

The Untold Story of Queer Foster Families

In the 1970s, social workers in several states placed queer teenagers with queer foster parents, in discrete acts of quiet radicalism.
Person with a microphone next to newsprint

Peak Newsletter? That Was 80 Years Ago

In the 1940s, journalists fled traditional news outlets to write directly for subscribers. What happened next may be a warning.

If You Think Quarantine Life Is Weird Today, Try Living It in 1918

From atomizer crazes to stranded actor troupes to school by phone, daily life during the flu pandemic was a trip.

The Government Taste Testers Who Reshaped America’s Diet

In the 1930s, a forgotten federal bureau experimented with ways to make soy and other products more popular in the U.S.

A Bureaucratic Prologue to Same-Sex Marriage

The weddings made possible by local government and broad legal language.
Abraham Lincoln and John C. Calhoun

The Great Lengths Taken to Make Abraham Lincoln Look Good in Portraits

One famous image of the president features a body that isn't his.