Culture

On the occasion of Halloween, an exploration of previous generations' fascination with ghosts, spirits, and witches.

A primary source set and teaching guide created by educators.

Why Americans living in uncertain times bought so many sensational images of shipwrecks and fires.

Americans’ enthusiasm for reheating last night’s dinner has faded as the nation has prospered.

Deadly fogs, moralistic diatribes, debunked medical theory in what is considered to be the first modern tale of urban apocalypse.

Segregation, separatism, and the history of black barbershops.

Where coloring books came from says something about what they are today.

New information on Henry Box Brown, an enslaved man who would turn escape into an art form.

A brief discussion of the fierce 19th century debates over beards, and how booming American cities created the perfect climate for all that facial hair to grow.

A discussion of the patriotic attempt to spurn European fashion and spin cloth at home in the time leading up to the Revolutionary War.

Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, the legend’s showpiece symbolizes the city's resilience.

A lifelong fan reflects on how sexual exploitation is part of rock's DNA.

The menu of Emancipation Day.

Coleman’s approach to improvisation shook twentieth-century jazz. It was a revolutionary idea that sounded like a folk song.

After World War II, canned foods became more and more common, along with a smorgasbord of pre-prepared, processed foods such as SpaghettiOs.

In a more accepting world, homosexual men can leave their campy, cruising past, but the price of equality shouldn't be conformity.

Like most cultural shifts in language, the rise of white, upper-middle class women who call themselves ‘mama’ seemed to happen slowly, and then all at once.

The origins of the Hallmark holiday are rooted in a much greater cause.

Almost a century before mixing martial arts became popularized, the 26th President was boxing, wrestling, and training judo in the White House.

Why is it called YA anyway? And who decided what was YA and what wasn’t?

There are many theories about the origin of 420, but five guys named Waldo started it all.

April 15 may be Tax Day, but for some, it’s the 14th of April that’s notorious.

His photo of Kim Phuc was a transformative moment in a horrible conflict.

Smokeable pot's proliferation in North America involves the Mexican Revolution, the transatlantic slave trade, and Prohibition.

How the fight to ban "The Birth of a Nation" shaped the nascent civil rights movement.

An interview with Mary Pilon about her new book, ‘The Monopolists,’ which uncovers the real story about how Monopoly became the game it is today.

If you think that the banjo can teach us nothing about American history, Southern culture and modern race relations, then you certainly don't know the banjo.

Crypts, entombments, physical morbidity: these nightmares are prominent in Poe’s tales, a fictional world in which the word that recurs most crucially is horror.

Tracing the evolution of Christmas from a drunken carnival to the peaceful, family-oriented, consumeristic ritual we celebrate today.

The Library of Congress has the only complete version of the original 1948 release.