Glowing icon of an app among cobwebs. Designed by Alex Castro.

Inside The Fight to Save Video Game History

Video game history is lost faster than we can preserve it.
Caesar, William McKinley, and Trump sporting three different comb-overs throughout history.

The Rise, Flop and Fall of the Comb-Over

Balding has been the constant scourge of man since the beginning of time, and for millennia, our best solution was the comb-over.
Emilio Delgado in 2021.

Emilio Delgado, ‘Luis’ for 44 Years on ‘Sesame Street,’ Dies at 81

On "Sesame Street," Delgado was able to build a character who challenged stereotypes. Luis was a business owner, a neighbor, and later a husband and father.
Victor Duhem, Woo Dunn and two other men (1910), posed in a portrait studio as if they were driving a car.

The Photos Left Behind From the Chinese Exclusion Era

The California Historical Society contrasts how Chinese people were portrayed in the press with the dignified studio portraits taken in Chinatown.
Members of the Coloured Hockey League pose with hockey sticks and trophies.

The All-Black League That Invented Hockey As We Know It

The Coloured Hockey League doesn’t get a prominent place in most tellings of hockey’s story, but its legacy is undeniable.
James Brown on stage singing, with people standing in shadow behind him.

Hanif Abdurraqib Breaks Down History’s Famous Beefs

On who gets caught in the crosshairs when it comes to “beef."
Split frame image of Norman Mailer in black and white, as a photograph and a negative.

My Norman Mailer Problem—and Ours

Digging down into the roots of white America’s infatuation with Black.
US patent drawing of elevator bell signal.

Elevator Sounds

What are elevator passengers listening to?
Henry James; illustration by James McMullan

Visions of Waste

"The American Scene" is Henry James’s indictment of what Americans had made of their land.
Jack Kerouac, 1956

Jack Kerouac’s Journey

For "On the Road"’s author, it was a struggle to write, then a struggle to live with its fame. “My work is found, my life is lost,” he wrote.
Man Ray's photograph "Noire et Blanche," featuring a woman whose closed eyes and pointy features resemble those of an ebony sculpture she holds.

Man On A Mission

A review of ”Man Ray: The Artist and His Shadows” by Arthur Lubow.
Patricia Hearst in front of SLA flag, 1974; CSU Archives/Everett Collection/Alamy Stock Photo.

American Captivity

The captivity narrative as creation myth.
Illustration of a mid-life crisis by Ruth Basagoitia. A man looking into the mirror imagining a cooler version of himself.

Climacteric!

Taking seriously the midlife crisis.
Colorful graphic showing famous Black Americans

What’s In a Black Name? 400 Years of Context.

From Phillis Wheatley to Lil Uzi Vert, Black names and their evolution tell the story of America.
Odetta sitting on a park bench playing a guitar.

How Odetta Revolutionized Folk Music

She animated the horror and emotional intensity in American labor songs by projecting them like a European opera singer.

The Black Record Label That Introduced the Beatles to America

Over its 13-year run, Vee Jay built a roster that left a lasting impact on every genre of music.
Ernest Hemingway and his wife Mary Welsh.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

Close your eyes and imagine you’re married to Ernest Hemingway. Now, imagine it twice as bad, and you’ll be approaching the life story of Mary Welsh Hemingway.
From center: Saundra Williams, the first crowned Miss Black America (1969). At left, 2nd runner-up Linda Johnson; on the right is Theresa Claytor, who was the first runner-up.
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The History of Beauty Pageants Reveals the Limits of Black Representation

Black contestants — and winners — have not translated into changed beauty standards or structural transformation.
Watercolor portrait of Bronson Alcott, a 19th century American philosopher and educator.

New England Ecstasies

The transcendentalists thought all human inspiration was divine, all nature a miracle.
A picture of an eerie dark house.

This House Is Still Haunted: An Essay In Seven Gables

A spectre is haunting houses—the spectre of possession.
Zora Neale Hurston browsing books at a book fair, looking at a book called "American Stuff."

The Zora Neale Hurston We Don’t Talk About

In the new nonfiction collection “You Don’t Know Us Negroes,” what emerges is a writer who mastered a Black idiom but seldom championed race pride.
A "High Water" sign mirrored in front of a black and white portrait of two Black men standing in front of a boat on the water

Songs for a South Underwater

After the 1927 Great Flood, Black musicians from the Delta produced an outpour of songs testifying to the destruction. The same is true today.
Whitney Houston singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl

The NFL, the National Anthem, and the Super Bowl

A brief history of their tangled saga of patriotism and dissent.
Illustration of two ghostly women

The Haunted World of Edith Wharton

Whether exploring the dread of everyday life or the horrors of the occult, her ghost tales documented a nation haunted by isolation, class, and despair.
Outdoor funeral service area

Piecing Together the Green Burial Movement

Green burials — the long-ago practice of laying loved ones to rest in biodegradable wooden caskets or shrouds, without embalming — are gaining in popularity.
Rose Dougan at the Wright School of aviation in 1915

Flying Rose Dougan: On the Trail of Native American Art

Uncovering the life of Rose Dougan, a real Renaissance woman, and her pioneering role in preserving Native American art.
Dancers performing the Cakewalk.

Reconsidering Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer'

The king of ragtime published his hit tune 120 years ago. Pianist Lara Downes believes the piece helped shape the future of American music.
Pink tinted photograph of women on the beach lifting barbells

Nevertheless, She Lifted

A new feminist history of women and exercise glosses over the darker side of fitness culture.
Vintage drawing of a Victorian-era drugstore

Was Edgar Allan Poe a Habitual Opium User?

While Poe was likely using opium, the efforts to keep him quiet suggest that he was also drinking.
Close up of Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night
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The Slap That Changed American Film-Making

When Sidney Poitier slapped a white murder suspect on screen, it changed how the stories of Black Americans were portrayed on film.