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Billie Holiday singing in a recording studio.

Decades After Billie Holiday’s Death, ‘Strange Fruit’ is Still a Searing Testament to Injustice

Christian and Jewish themes influenced the world of art around one of jazz’s greatest singers.
by Tracy Fessenden via The Conversation on July 15, 2024
Oil painting by Samuel F. B. Morse titled "The Muse: Susan Walker Morse."

Jilted: Samuel F. B. Morse at Art’s End

The rejection that ended Morse's art career eventually led to the invention of the telegraph.
by Paul Staiti via Panorama on June 18, 2024
Poster for the WPA theatrical production of "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis

Stealing the Show

Why conservatives killed America’s federally funded theater.
by Charlie Tyson via The Yale Review on June 10, 2024
A collage of the covers of famous EPs.

The Little-Known Legacy of the EP

“An Ideal for Living” explores the fascinating backstory of a mini music format.
by Steven Heller via Print on June 4, 2024
A painting of a lively sermon in a Black church.

Respectability Be Damned: How the Harlem Renaissance Paved the Way for Art by Black Nonbelievers

How James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, and others embraced a new Black humanism.
by Anthony B. Pinn via Literary Hub on May 24, 2024
Ella Watson in American Gothic, photographed by Gordon Parks.

She Was No ‘Mammy’

Gordon Parks’s most famous photograph, "American Gothic," was of a cleaning woman in Washington, D.C. She has a story to tell.
by Salamishah Tillet via The Atlantic on May 8, 2024
Marlon Brando on the set of 'One-Eyed Jacks,' 1961.

Brando Unmatched

The legendary actor left a mark in both film history and an industry fraught with self-regard.
by Giancarlo Sopo via The Dispatch on April 27, 2024

Photographing a Lost New York

When I moved to Lower Manhattan in 1967, I decided to make a picture of every building in the neighbourhood before the city knocked it down.
by Danny Lyon via New York Review of Books on April 25, 2024
Still from Say Anything (1989) with a man holding a boom box above his head.

When Do We Stop Finding New Music? A Statistical Analysis

When does our taste in music stagnate?
by Daniel Parris via Stat Significant on April 10, 2024
Aaron Douglas, detail from painting Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction, 1934.

The Cosmopolitan Modernism of the Harlem Renaissance

The world-spanning art of the Harlem Renaissance.
by Rachel Himes via The Nation on April 9, 2024
The album cover of "Cowboy Carter" released by Beyonce in 2024

Cowboy Carter and the Black Roots of Country Music

Beyoncé is following in the footsteps of many Black musicians before her.
by The Birthplace of Country Music Museum via Teen Vogue on March 29, 2024
‘Fifty Shades of White’ by Jaune Quick-To-See Smith.

Remembering the Future

Climate change, colonization, and the Navajo Nation.
by Hazel V. Carby via London Review of Books on March 27, 2024
Sketch of women traveling with the Continental Army.

How a Curator at the Museum of the American Revolution Solved a Nearly 250-Year-Old Art Mystery

An eye-witness depiction of the Continental Army passing through Philadelphia hung in a New York apartment for decades.
by Rosa Cartagena via Philadelphia Inquirer on March 26, 2024
Continental Currency $20 banknote with marbled edge (May 10, 1775).

Marbled Money

Marbled paper was a way to make banknotes and checks unique—a critical characteristic for a nascent American Republic.
by Katrina Gulliver, Jake Benson, John Craig via JSTOR Daily on March 14, 2024
Vinyl disc of "Love, Love, Love" by Ted Jarrett

The Black Songwriter Who Took Nashville by Storm

Before Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” won song of the year at the CMAs, hit maker Ted Jarrett’s music topped the country charts.
by Robert M. Marovich via Zócalo Public Square on January 31, 2024
Leonard Bernstein smoking a cigarette

The Bernstein Enigma

In narrowly focusing on Leonard Bernstein’s tortured personal life, "Maestro" fails to explore his tortured artistic life.
by Philip Clark via New York Review of Books on January 17, 2024
A kickline of five Asian American dancers at the Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco.

Americanism, Exoticism, and the “Chop Suey” Circuit

Asian American artists who performed for primarily white audiences in the 1930s and ’40s both challenged and solidified racial boundaries in the United States.
by Ashawnta Jackson, SanSan Kwan via JSTOR Daily on January 12, 2024
Nicki Minaj and the autobiography of Malcolm X written by Alex Haley.

It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop

We cannot understand the last fifty years of U.S. history—certainly not the first thing about Black history—without studying the emergence and evolution of rap.
by Austin McCoy via The Baffler on January 9, 2024
Santa catches the trolly to Bloomingdales.

In the 1800s, a Group of NYC Artists and Writers Created the Modern-Day Santa Claus

See how Washington Irving, Clement Clarke Moore and Thomas Nast made Santa the merriest man in Manhattan.
by Lucie Levine via 6sqft on December 8, 2023
Illustration of multiple people drawing the same cover of a book

Big Publishing Killed the Author

How corporations wrested creative control from writers and editors—to produce less interesting books.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on November 15, 2023
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.
by Ethan Iverson via The Nation on October 30, 2023
Tupac shirtless in the shower, wearing gold chain and covered in soap suds

Why Tupac Never Died

It’s because the rapper’s life and work were a cascade of contradictions that we’re still trying to figure him out today.
by Hua Hsu via The New Yorker on October 23, 2023
A man sits at a bar countertop. His face is turned away from the camera.

1973: A Golden Year for Film That Rewrote the Rules of Cinema

It was a year that showcased the audacious talent in Hollywood experimenting with darker themes and new film techniques.
by Lesley Harbidge via The Conversation on September 12, 2023
The covers of "Romance in Marseille" and "Amiable with Big Teeth" by Claude McCay over a blue blackground splattered with paint.

Zeal, Wit, and Fury: The Queer Black Modernism of Claude McKay

Considering the suppressed legacy of Claude McKay’s two “lost” novels, “Amiable with Big Teeth” and “Romance in Marseille.”
by Gary Edward Holcomb via Los Angeles Review of Books on September 11, 2023
Strikers outside Walt Disney Studios in 1941.

Disney Animators Strike During WWII Changed the Company — and Hollywood

The 1941 strike, following the spectacular success of “Snow White,” stunned Walt Disney and rattled his now-storied company.
by Francine Uenuma via Retropolis on September 4, 2023
Harry Smith.

‘Cosmic Scholar’ Review: Harry Smith’s Strange Frequencies

Smith collected rare books, paper airplanes, Pennsylvania Dutch tools—and harvested the folk music recordings that changed a generation.
by Timothy Farrington via The Wall Street Journal on August 11, 2023
African Americans sitting on their front porch looking at a National Guardsman holding a rifle.

A Haunting Portrait of Newark’s Bloody Summer of Unrest

The photojournalist Bud Lee captured the riots of 1967 and the human cost of the brutal police crackdown.
by M. Z. Adnan via The New Yorker on July 29, 2023
A drawing of the outside of colorful windows at night.

Upper West Side Cult

In 1950, the Sullivinian Institute was created to push the boundaries of psychoanalysis. By 1980, its therapists and patients had become a small paramilitary.
by James Lasdun via London Review of Books on July 27, 2023
The male-dominated field of pop songwriting.

Women are Superstars on Stage, but Still Rarely Get to Write Songs

Songwriting credits since 1958, broken down by gender.
by Chris Dalla Riva, Ashley Cai via The Pudding on July 20, 2023
Portrait of a girl wearing a red coral necklace.

The Labor of Polyps and Persons

The meaning of coral jewelry in nineteenth-century America.
by Michele Currie Navakas via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 12, 2023
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