Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk
The Cross-Bronx Expressway, April 1971. Photo by Dan McCoy/Environmental Protection Agency/National Archives

How the New York of Robert Moses Shaped my Father’s Health

My dad grew up in Robert Moses’s New York City. His story is a testament to how urban planning shapes countless lives.
Bayard Rustin speaking at an event.

Eclipsed in His Era, Bayard Rustin Gets to Shine in Ours

The civil-rights mastermind was sidelined by his own movement. Now he’s back in the spotlight. What can we learn from his strategies of resistance?
Shemp Howard and Tiny Brauer in "Fling in the Ring"

The House Next Door to the Stooges

A visit to the old neighborhood.
Cover of the book "24/7 Politics," featuring photos of Nixon and Carter.

The Battlefields of Cable

How cable TV transformed politics—and how politics transformed cable TV.
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.
Drawn picture of the tidal channel known as Hell Gate, in New York, circa 1775

Is There Sunken Treasure Beneath the Treacherous Currents of Hell Gate?

In the heart of New York City, a centuries-long hunt for Revolutionary War–era gold.
Civilian gravestone in Arlington National Cemetery

From ‘Contraband’ to ‘Citizen’: Visiting Arlington’s Section 27

More than 3,800 formerly enslaved people are buried in the military cemetery.
Barack Obama presents Sylvia Mendez with the Medal of Freedom in 2010.

How an 8-Year-Old Hispanic Girl Paved the Way for Desegregation

Sylvia Mendez’s role in setting the stage for Brown v. Board of Education has been forgotten and overlooked.
Post card depicting coal miners in PA

When Did Americans Start Using Fossil Fuel?

The nineteenth-century establishment of mid-Atlantic coal mines and canals gave America its first taste of abundant fossil fuel energy.
Nurses attend to patients in rows of hospital beds.

In 19th-Century Philadelphia, Female Medical Students Lobbied Hard for Mutual Aid

In a century-long tradition, students at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania came together in solidarity to combat illness among their members.
Banksy's Spy Booth depicting 3 spies listening in to a phone booth.

How the Drug War Convinced America to Wiretap the Digital Revolution

How the FBI's doomed attempt to stop criminal activity conducted via mobile phones shaped the regime of ubiquitous backdoor surveillance under which we live today.
The low water level at Woodhead reservoir.

The “Tragedy of the Commons” Is a Dubious, Right-Wing Concept

The environmental crisis isn’t the result of the “tragedy of the commons.” It’s the result of the commons’ theft and privatization for profit.
Monuments to the victims of traffic deaths

When Cities Made Monuments to Traffic Deaths

A century ago, cars killed pedestrians and cyclists in record numbers. As traffic deaths rise again, it’s time to remember how US cities once responded to this safety crisis.
Milton Friedman.

Milton Friedman Was Wrong

The famed economist’s “shareholder theory” provides corporations with too much room to violate consumers’ rights and trust.
UAW President Shawn Fain greeting striking Ford workers.

The Ghost of Reuther Past

The new UAW faces new challenges, but bears some distinct resemblances to the old.
Jonathan Engel
partner

As SCOTUS Examines School Prayer, Families Behind a Landmark Ruling Speak Out

The Supreme Court opened the door to challenges on school prayer, 60 years after a landmark ruling in Engel v. Vitale.
Walt Rostow testifying in the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C., February 1962.

The Real Washington Consensus

Modernization theory and the delusions of American strategy.
Dell O'Dell performing a magic act for live tv with children watching.

Dell O'Dell's Trailblazing Magic Show Cast a Spell on Early Television Audiences

Rare footage of the woman magician's act captures her magnetic stage presence and range of tricks.
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.
Collage of Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet, waving, and smoking, and a picture of his home in Queens.

Louis Armstrong Gets the Last Word on Louis Armstrong

For decades, Americans have argued over the icon’s legacy. But his archives show that he had his own plans.
American Indians hold rifles during the standoff at Wounded Knee in 1973.

A Return to the Wounded Knee Occupation, 50 Years Later

The new era of social consciousness and racial activism in the 1970s would play a pivotal role in the events leading up to the 71-day occupation.
Book cover of "The Acrobat," featuring a jumbled facial picture of Cary Grant.

Acid’s First Convert, Cary Grant: On Edward J. Delaney’s “The Acrobat"

A novel illuminates a moment of psychedelic history that has often been overlooked: the emergence of LSD psychotherapy just before the moral panic took hold.
A man wearing sunglasses holding a sign

Kool Herc and the History (and Mystery) of Hip-Hop's First Day

Even as the world celebrates hip-hop turning 50, the debate over rap's birth date spins on.
Photo of a young Donald Trump greeting Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, 2000

Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura’s Shocking Election 25 Years Ago Previewed Trump’s

The former pro wrestler says his surprise election as Minnesota governor paved the way for Donald Trump. Now he looks back “shamefully” on their past ties.
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.
Meeting of the Maguire Men outside a coal mine

Making Sense of the Molly Maguires Today

Who were the Molly Maguires, what did they do, and why did they do it?
A woman poses with a kitten next to a wooden barrel labeled "Queen of the Mist"

American Daredevils

The nineteenth-century commitment to thrilling an audience embodied an emerging synergy of public performance, collective experience, and individual agency.
The Yuchi people dressed for hunting

What a Historical Analysis of Gunpowder Can Teach Us About Gun Culture in the United States

An understanding of the history of gunpowder might be able to tell us how and why guns have become so widely accessible in the present-day United States.
An Audubon shearwater, named for John James Audubon, one of America's most famous birders and an enslaver

Dozens of Bird Names Honoring Enslavers and Racists Will be Changed

The American Ornithological Society says it will alter all human names of North American birds, starting with up to 80 species.
William Gropper's map of American folklore.

A Popular '40s Map of American Folklore Was Destroyed by Fears of Communism

The government saw Red when looking at William Gropper's painting of the United States.
The Garden Cafeteria, New York City.

Jews and Joe

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

Mother Cabrini, the First American Saint of the Catholic Church

Remembering Mother Cabrini's humanitarian work for Italian immigrants.
A photograph of Louisa May Alcott.

Nonfiction That Rivals Little Women: The Forgotten Essays of Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott is best known for Little Women, but she earned her first taste of celebrity as an essayist.
Max von Sydow and Jason Miller in ‘The Exorcist.’

‘The Exorcist’ & Catholicism

What explains the traditionalist Catholic infatuation with ‘The Exorcist’?
Edgar Allan Poe

On Edgar Allan Poe

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.
Artist's rendering of Cahokia

Ancient Poop Reveals What Happened after the Fall of Cahokia

People hunted and raised small farms near the ruins of the ancient city.
Buffalo jump

Native Americans Managed the Prairie for Better Bison Hunts

Hunter-gatherer societies may have a bigger ecological impact than we thought.
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.
Drawing of Patrice Lumumba with Congolese people in the background.

The Real Story Behind Patrice Lumumba’s Assassination

A new book sorts through the fate of the leader of the fight for Congolese independence.
Window in the Sun Temple at Mesa Verde.

Is Colorado Home to an Ancient Astronomical Observatory? The Question Is Testing Archaeological Limits.

Did Ancestral Puebloans watch the skies from Mesa Verde's Sun Temple? Solving its mysteries requires overcoming archaeology’s troubled past.
Jack-o-lantern and calendar day October 31.

The Politics of Trunk or Treat

Nostalgia, idealism, and the policing of childhood.
Scientists carrying a log by using straps around their heads.

1,000 Years Ago, Ancient Puebloans Built a Mysteriously Vast City. We May Finally Know How.

High up on the Colorado Plateau, in what is today the state of New Mexico, sit the remains of what was once a city of epic proportions.
Petroglyphs at Chaco Canyon.

This New Mexico Petroglyph Might Reveal an Ancient Solar Eclipse

In 1097, a Pueblo artist may have etched a rare celestial event into the rock for all of posterity
Cartoon of ghosts surrounded by environmentally destructive technology.

The Palo Alto System

A new history dispenses with the sentimental lore and examines how Palo Alto has long been the seedbed for exploitation, chaos, and ecological degradation.
Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, hands bound, sits in the bed of an army truck under guard of Congolese soldiers on Dec. 2, 1960, one day after his arrest by troops loyal to Col. Joseph Mobutu.

Open the Congo Files and Face Up to What the CIA Did

When Congo gained independence during the Cold War, secret U.S. actions undermined its young democracy. It’s time to make up for that.
Employees working at desks in post office

Guaranteed Income? 14th Grade? Before AI, Tech Fears Drove Bold Ideas.

Three-quarters of a century before artificial intelligence concerns, rapid advances in automation prompted panic about mass unemployment—and radical solutions.
Book cover of Malcolm Harris's "Palo Alto."

The "Here" of Magical Thinking

A new book offers a critical history of Silicon Valley's blend of California idealism and exploitation.
Sparkles in light coming through windows of an empty room.

Signs of Ghosts

What do we do when there are whole cities full of ghosts, each one with their own unique story to tell, each one with something left undone?
Two rosin potatoes sitting on newspaper.

The Elusive Roots of Rosin Potatoes

A talk with family, turpentine workers, historians, chefs, foresters, and beer brewers to get to the root of the rosin potato's origins.
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.
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