A woman volunteering with the Salvation Army serving doughnuts to American servicemen.

We Have the Salvation Army to Thank for the Hipster Doughnut

Even during the worst of war, the ring-shaped confections offered a bite of joy and a much-needed morale boost to weary soldiers during World War I.
Gremlins climbing on a World War II warplane.

How Gremlins Went From Fairy Stories to Warplanes to Hollywood Legend

Meet these slippery, mischievous reflections of our anxieties about technology.
Part of a Xerox poster with the words "punk with copymachine" in front of a face

Xerox and Roll: The Corporate Machine and the Making of Punk

On the 85th anniversary of the first xerographic print, a collection of punk flyers from Cornell University provides an object lesson on anti-art.
Greek style illustration of Edith Hamilton and mythical figures.

The Latin School Teacher Who Made Classics Popular

A new biography of Edith Hamilton tells the story of how and why ancient literature became widely read in the United States.
Lou Reed in front of a photography setup.

The Canonization of Lou Reed

In a new biography, the Velvet Underground front man embodies a New York that exists only in memory.
Farmer sits on porch while behind him child stares through window and dust storm envelopes farm.

Working-Class Artists Thrived in the New Deal Era

During the New Deal, mass left movements and government funding spawned a boomlet in working-class art. For once, art wasn’t just the province of the rich.
Lou Reed, January 1, 1970.

Lou Reed Didn't Want to Be King

Will Hermes's new biography, "Lou Reed: The King of New York," tries—and fails—to pin the rocker down.
Lenore Kandel’

The Forgotten Poet at the Center of San Francisco’s Longest Obscenity Trial

Amid Reagan’s late-sixties crackdown on the California counterculture, a jury was tasked with deciding whether Lenore Kandel’s psychedelic sex poems had “redeeming social importance.”
Collage of American Indian film characters.

Native Americans on the Silver Screen, From Wild West Shows to 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

How American Indians in Hollywood have gone from stereotypes to starring roles.
Montana poster from the Works Projects Administration.

How WPA State Guides Fused the Essential and the Eccentric

Touring the American soul.
Colorful collage of Rocky Horror characters

Rocky Horror Has Surprising Roots in Victorian Seances

‘Time Warp’ all the way back to the 1800s.
Bruce Springsteen performing live onstage during the Born In the U.S.A. tour.

Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A. Captured Two Sides of Reagan’s America

Springsteen's albums offer a tragic-romantic view of the working class in Reagan-era America.

Why Generational Thinking Isn't Bull

Reflections on Pavement, Nirvana, the very meaning of history, and the end of neoliberalism.
Pete Rose and Bud Harrelson fighting during a baseball game.

Pete Rose Remembers the Biggest Postseason Brawl in Baseball History

“You know how many second basemen or shortstops I knocked on their ass in my career?”
Lou Reed with sunglasses on. A glare reflects off of the sunglasses.

The Least-Known Rock God

A new biography of the Velvet Underground founder, Lou Reed, considers the stark duality of the man and his music.
Jewish characters in television and film

The Long History of Jewface

Bradley Cooper’s prosthetic nose is the latest example of the struggles around Jewish representation on the stage and screen.
Display of banned books or censored books at Books Inc independent bookstore.
partner

Book Bans Aren't the Only Threat to Literature in Classrooms

Literature is key to a healthy democracy, but schools are leaving books behind.
Self-Portrait, by Samuel Joseph Brown Jr., a painting of a Black man looking at a portrait of himself.

A Right to Paint Us Whole

W.E.B. Du Bois’ message to African American artists.
Musical notation and a drawing of a barbed wire fence.

The Musical Legacy of a Mississippi Prison Farm

The new album “Some Mississippi Sunday Morning” collects gospel songs recorded inside a notorious penitentiary.
Performers at the 1963 Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Ron Patterson, a co-founder of the event, appears in orange at the far right.

The Surprisingly Radical Roots of the Renaissance Fair

The first of these festivals debuted in the early 1960s, serving as a prime example of the United States' burgeoning counterculture.
Chuck Berry performing with a guitar.

The Transgressor

RJ Smith’s biography of Chuck Berry examines his subject’s instinct for crossing the line musically, racially, and morally.
Woman leading a group of twelve other women in floor exercises.

Fit Nation

A conversation about "the gains and pains of America’s exercise obsession."
View of Brooklyn from Trinity Church, 1853.
original

Mettlesome, Mad, Extravagant City

In the streets of New York, we try to imagine the city as Walt Whitman, and other artists of his time, experienced it.
Album cover for “Tim,” the "Let It Bleed" edition, by The Replacements.

The Replacements Are Still a Puzzle

The reissue of “Tim” shows both the prescience and the unrealized promise of the beloved band.
Prisoners at Parchman Farm march to work on cotton fields

‘It’s a Charged Place’: Parchman Farm, the Mississippi Prison with a Remarkable Musical History

Inmates at this bucolic but brutal prison have long been singing the blues to sustain themselves, and a new compilation of gospel songs continues the legacy.
A photograph of Pharaoh Sanders.

Feel-Ins, Know-Ins, Be-Ins

The most hypnotic piece of music released so far in 2023 was recorded forty-seven years ago in a barely adequate studio in Rockland County, New York.
Sly Stone performing at a concert.

The Undoing of a Great American Band

Sly and the Family Stone suggested new possibilities in music and life—until it all fell apart.
A still from the 1960 film Spartacus of two Roman gladiators fighting.

How Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus Broke the Hollywood Blacklists

The 1960 film was penned by two blacklisted Communist writers. Its arrival in theaters was a middle finger to the McCarthyist witch hunt in Hollywood.
Asian women opera performers dressed as entertainers holding fans

A Reimagination of 'Madama Butterfly' Isn't Radical, Says Artist Phil Chan

The famed opera has been criticized for its racist portrayals of Asian-Americans.
"Spy vs. Spy" pointy-headed characters facing each other

Rethinking Spy vs. Spy: A Hand From One Page, A Bomb From Another

Like the spies themselves, the image we have of something is often what gets us in trouble.