Culture

A windowless telecommunications hub, 33 Thomas Street in New York City embodies an architecture of surveillance and paranoia, an ideal set for conspiracy thrillers.

It was a year that showcased the audacious talent in Hollywood experimenting with darker themes and new film techniques.

Considering the suppressed legacy of Claude McKay’s two “lost” novels, “Amiable with Big Teeth” and “Romance in Marseille.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe said that Josiah Henson’s life had inspired her most famous character. But Henson longed to be recognized by his own name.

Why is surfing still stuck in the 1960s when women have always done it?

How the failed search for a silent film uncovered a lost musician of the Harlem Renaissance.

During World War II, proto–music videos called “soundies” blared pop patriotism from visual jukeboxes across American bars.

The forgotten figure symbolized the hopes—and myths—of the early United States.

A short history of hand-colored photos during the Civil War era.

From European streets to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Jews have been deeply involved in the history of coffee and the café scene.

On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs.

In Hip hop’s “golden era,” the period from 1987 to 1994, rappers used their platforms to bring attention to issues plaguing poor and working-class Black communities.

How August Wilson became one of the country’s most influential playwrights.

How a style steeped in American elitism took over the world.

“The Lost Colony” had dramatized American mythology in the Outer Banks since 1937 with White actors as Indians. Now, Native performers are rewriting the story.

The actor and martial arts star also wanted to be regarded as a poet-philosopher.

The Universal Hip Hop Museum is poised to bring an economic and cultural infusion to the borough where the genre was born and bred.

Smith collected rare books, paper airplanes, Pennsylvania Dutch tools—and harvested the folk music recordings that changed a generation.

A wrestler, a Sunday school teacher, and a mystery man walk into a studio.

Veterans of the 1848 German revolution immigrated to America with three passions burning in their hearts: barbells, beer, and socialism.

The Sugarhill Gang song remains one of rap's most beloved. But it took serendipity, a book of rhymes, and an agreement to settle a lawsuit for it to survive.

James McBride’s new novel tells a story of solidarity between Black and Jewish communities.

A Smithsonian curator John Troutman and a blues musician discuss a new folk album, "Playing for the Man at the Door," from late chronicler Mack McCormick's collection.

Sara Marcus’s recent book argues that from the Reconstruction to the AIDS era, a distinct aesthetic formed around defeat in the realm of politics.

A look at "Biography Of A Phantom", Robert McCormick's book about blues legend Robert Johnson.

It’s not a flavor; it’s a vibe.

On John Sturges’s “Bad Day at Black Rock” and Japanese America.

Watching 'Oppenheimer' with the author of a definitive account of the Manhattan Project.

“It was made under the worst of conditions,” the filmmaker reveals in a new book. “People versus the eternal sea. The sea won the battle.”

What were Americans' immediate responses to "A Christmas Carol," and how did Dickens' reading tours and eventual death reshape its meaning?