childhood — Bunk History

Viewing 61–90 of 180 results. Go to first page

Game board with squares about life events.

Board Games Were Indoctrination Tools for Christ, Then Capitalism

The very weird tale of how American board games used to teach you how to get to heaven, and later, how to make bank.

by Robert Rath via Waypoint on November 30, 2017

Chidren playing in a playground.

Children and Childhood

How changing gender norms and conceptions of childhood shaped modern child custody laws.

by Michael Grossberg via Child Custody Project on October 31, 2017

How A Psychologist’s Work on Race Identity Helped Overturn School Segregation

Mamie Phipps Clark came up with the oft-cited “doll test” and provided expert testimony in Brown v. Board of Education.

by Leila McNeill via Smithsonian on October 26, 2017

“I Wanted to Tell the Story of How I Had Become a Racist”

An interview with historian Charles B. Dew.

by Charles B. Dew, Robin Lindley via HNN on September 10, 2017

Painting of children with sticks and hoops. By Ethel Spowers, 1936.

Kidding Around

Stories of American children at work and play.

From Boy Geniuses to Mad Scientists

How Americans got so weird about science.

by Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly on August 4, 2017

Donald Trump Jr.

Is it Okay to Call Donald Trump Jr. a Boy?

The blurred line between boyhood and manhood.

by Claire Bond Potter via Made By History on July 24, 2017

A Short History of the Tomboy

With roots in race and gender discord, has the “tomboy” label worn out its welcome?

by Elizabeth King via The Atlantic on January 5, 2017

Cartoon drawing of Francis Pharcellus Church.

The Journalist Who Understood The True Meaning Of Christmas

“Yes, Virginia” is the most reprinted newspaper piece in American history, and this guy wrote it.

by Ilana Gordon via OMGFacts on December 16, 2016

Photograph of a children's choir singing within the outlines of the United States.

How “Fifty Nifty United States” Became One of the Greatest Mnemonic Devices of All Time

How you, your friends, and Lin-Manuel Miranda all learned this catchy, state-naming tune.

by L. V. Anderson via Slate on November 30, 2015

The Racial Symbolism of the Topsy-Turvy Doll

The uncertain meaning behind a half-black, half-white, two-headed toy.

by Julian K. Jarboe via The Atlantic on November 20, 2015

A Brief History of the Great American Coloring Book

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

by Phil Edwards via Vox on September 2, 2015

Santa with sack of toys atop chimney

Naughty & Nice: A History of the Holiday Season

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

via BackStory on December 26, 2014

Jimi Hendrix performing at Woodstock.

The Beautiful Sounds of Jimi Hendrix

“Hendrix used a range of technological innovations...to expand the sound of the guitar, to make it ‘talk’ in ways that it never had.”

by Adam Shatz via New York Review of Books on January 9, 2014

Black Is Beautiful: Why Black Dolls Matter

"Why do you have black dolls?"

by Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly on February 21, 2013

Illustrated cover of the "Secret Garden"

100 Years of The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett's biographer considers her life and how personal tragedy underpinned the creation of her most famous work.

by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina via The Public Domain Review on March 8, 2011

Who Owns Anne Frank?

The diary has been distorted by even her greatest champions. Would history have been better served if it had been destroyed?

by Cynthia Ozick via The New Yorker on September 28, 1997

Brent Bozell and William F. Buckley, reading a book about Joseph McCarthy.

All In the Family

How William F. Buckley Jr. turned his father’s private convictions and prejudices into a major political movement.

by Paul Baumann via Commonweal on June 26, 2025

Cover of "The Mansion of Happiness," America's first board game, showing two girls and a mansion.

Bring on the Board Games

The increasing secularism of the nineteenth century helped make board games a commercial and ideological success in the United States.

by Betsy Golden Kellem via JSTOR Daily on May 28, 2025

Cartoon drawing of a child hiding behind a man.

How Robert Crumb Channeled Mid-Century Teenage Angst Into Art

Dan Nadel on the formative awkward adolescence of an iconic American cartoonist.

by Dan Nadel via Literary Hub on April 15, 2025

A New Discovery Sheds Light on Malcolm X’s Journey to Islam

The civil rights leader’s lone poem, written from prison, reveals his love of language — and his quest for truth.

by Patrick Parr via New Lines on February 21, 2025

Painting of the archangel Michael, holding shield, defeating Satan and other angels.

Extremist Pop Culture and the American Evangelical Right

Jack Chick and the origins of the 1980s “Satanic Panic."

by Sean Goodman via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on December 16, 2024

Infectious Diseases Killed Victorian Children at Alarming Rates. Novels Show the Fragility of Health

Between 40% and 50% of children didn’t live past 5 in the US during the 19th century. Authors documented the common but no less gutting grief of losing a child.

by Andrea Kaston Tange via The Conversation on December 11, 2024

Image by Hans Glaser depicting a blood rain that supposedly occurred near Dinkelsbühl in Germany’s Franconia region in 1554.

Strange Gods: Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned

Rains of blood and frogs, mysterious disappearances, objects in the sky: these were the anomalies that fascinated Charles Fort in his Book of the Damned.

by Joshua Blu Buhs via The Public Domain Review on November 26, 2024

Stacks of snacks, including donuts, cookies, crackers, candy, and pretzels.

How Snacks Took Over American Life

The rhythms of our days may never be the same.

by Ellen Cushing via The Atlantic on September 6, 2024

A Christian cross in an open field, with a sunset in the background.

Jesus Freaks: On the Free Spirited Evangelicals of the 1970s and 80s

Chronicling the emergence of a unique blend of counterculture and Christianity.

by Eliza Griswold via Literary Hub on August 8, 2024

A drawing of a playground slide painted like a road.

What Adults Lost When Kids Stopped Playing in the Street

In many ways, a world built for cars has made life so much harder for grown-ups.

by Stephanie H. Murray via The Atlantic on July 29, 2024

A young girl in black and white look at her reflection, in color, in a mirror.

How Judy Blume’s "Deenie" Helped Destigmatize Masturbation

On self-pleasure and sex education in children's literature.

by Rachelle Bergstein via Literary Hub on July 16, 2024

A drawing of a crowd of people standing around the Wakasa stone in a crate.

The Recollector

How the Wakasa stone, a memorial to a Japanese man murdered in a Utah internment camp, became the flash point of a bitter modern dispute.

by Pablo Calvi via The Believer on July 11, 2024

Harriet Tubman.

The Radical Faith of Harriet Tubman

A new book conveys in dramatic detail what America’s Moses did to help abolish slavery. Another addresses the love of God and country that helped her do so.

by Casey N. Cep via The New Yorker on June 24, 2024

Harriet Tubman.

How a Young Harriet Tubman Found Solace in Syncretic Religion

Childhood trauma led Minty Ross (Harriet Tubman) to seek divine intervention.

by Tiya Miles via Literary Hub on June 18, 2024

brought to you by

© Bunk History