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A witch's hat and crooked stick, with the words "rags to witches"

Has Witch City Lost Its Way?

They’re hip, business-savvy, and know how to cast a spell: How a new generation of witches and warlocks selling $300 wands conquered Salem.
by Kathryn Miles via Boston Magazine on October 22, 2021
A 1920s undergarment shop, in black and white.

Bringing Down the Bra

Since the 19th century, women have abandoned restrictive undergarments while pursuing social and political freedom.
by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox via Zócalo Public Square on October 14, 2021
Black and white photo of the 1940 Chevrolet half-ton.

The Rugged History of the Pickup Truck

At first, it was all about hauling things we needed. Then the vehicle itself became the thing we wanted.
by Jeff MacGregor via Smithsonian on August 17, 2021
Woman's glowing face

“A Revolutionary Beauty Secret!”

On the rise and fall of radium in the beauty industry.
by Lucy Jane Santos via Literary Hub on July 8, 2021
A collage featuring pictures from the 1918 Flu Pandemic and the 1920s, including people wearing masks and nurses on one side and flappers on the other.

What Caused the Roaring Twenties? Not the End of a Pandemic (Probably)

As the U.S. anticipates a vaccinated summer, historians say measuring the impact of the 1918 influenza on the uproarious decade that followed is tricky.
by Lila Thulin via Smithsonian on May 3, 2021
A pile of trash at a landfill behind a member of the Army Corps of Engineers.

The History of New York, Told Through Its Trash

In 1948, the landfill at Fresh Kills was marketed to Staten Island as a stopgap measure. No one guessed that it would remain open for more than half a century.
by Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein via The New Yorker on April 24, 2021

Paper Products. Powder Rooms. What Past Pandemics Left Behind Forever.

Disease reshapes our lives in surprising ways.
by Rebecca Onion via Slate on March 23, 2021
Mark McGwire baseball card

Neoliberalism with a Stick of Gum: The Meaning of the 1980s Baseball Card Boom

Before beanie babies and Pogs, small rectangles of cardboard were the errant investments of a stratifying American society.
by Jason Tebbe via Tropics of Meta on March 12, 2021
Potato Head family
partner

Toys Are Ditching Genders for the Same Reason They First Took Them On

Why the Potato Heads are the latest toys becoming more inclusive.
by Paul Ringel via Made By History on March 2, 2021
Man with hamburger

Diners, Dudes, and Diets

How gender and power collide in food media and culture.
by Emily J. H. Contois via Nursing Clio on November 17, 2020
A screenshot from the movie "You've Got Mail."

The Romance of American Clintonism

The politically complacent ’90s produced a surprisingly large number of mainstream American rom-coms about fighting the Man.
by Meagan Day via Jacobin on October 21, 2020

From Home to Market: A History of White Women’s Power in the US

The heart-tug tactics of 1950s ads steered white American women away from activism into domesticity. They’re still there.
by Ellen Wayland-Smith via Aeon on September 17, 2020
Two people clinking their bottles of beer together.

Let Us Drink in Public

Open container laws criminalize working-class people and make public life less fun. We need to legalize public drinking.
by Miles Kampf-Lassin via Jacobin on August 4, 2020
A printed advertisement for "The Bookman" depicting a fish reacting to "The Bookman" on a hook.

The Power of Flawed Lists

How "The Bookman" invented the best seller.
by Elizabeth Della Zazzera via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 27, 2020

When Did Cheap Meat Become an “Essential” American Value?

Keeping meat production moving during the pandemic is dangerous. But history shows that there’s little Americans won’t sacrifice for a cheap steak.
by Rebecca Onion, Joshua Specht via Slate on May 14, 2020
A white man in a white suit sipping coffee while dark-skinned workers pick coffee beans in the heat.

The War on Coffee

The history of caffeine and capitalism can get surprisingly heated.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on April 20, 2020

If You Think Quarantine Life Is Weird Today, Try Living It in 1918

From atomizer crazes to stranded actor troupes to school by phone, daily life during the flu pandemic was a trip.
by Michael Waters via Slate on April 17, 2020

The History of the Hawaiian Shirt

From kitsch to cool, ride the waves of undulating popularity of a tropical fashion statement.
by Teddy Brokaw via Smithsonian on April 16, 2020

“Victory Gardens” Are Back in Vogue. But What Are We Fighting This Time?

“Growing your own vegetables is great; beating Nazis is great. I think we’re all nostalgic for a time when anything was that simple.”
by Anastasia Day, Rebecca Onion via Slate on April 11, 2020

When Restaurants Close, Americans Lose Much More Than a Meal

Restaurants have always been about more than feeding city residents. During the 1918 flu pandemic, they were kept open as sites of social solidarity.
by Rebecca L. Spang via The Conversation on March 20, 2020
partner

How Training Bras Constructed American Girlhood

In the twentieth century, advertisements for a new type of garment for preteen girls sought to define the femininity they sold.
by Christine Ro via JSTOR Daily on March 18, 2020

An Oral History of the Members Only Jacket

On the fixture of white yuppiedom and icon of post-ironic millennial hipsterdom.
by Andrew Fiouzi via MEL on March 7, 2020
Picket line march of auto workers.

Detroit Autoworkers’ Elusive Postwar Boom

The men who made the cars could not afford to buy them.
by Daniel Clark via The Metropole on January 30, 2020

‘Impeachment Polka’: How a Composer in 1868 Sought to Capitalize on America’s Political Obsession

A pianist performs a piece of music forgotten for 150 years.
by Philip Bump via Washington Post on January 16, 2020

When the Government Decided the Spread on Your Toast Should Be Pink

The ‘margarine wars’ explain the 19th-century struggle to regulate food.
by Ai Hisano via Zócalo Public Square on January 15, 2020
Cartoon of people at a crossroad, with one direction pointing to "prosperity" and the other to "depression"

Selling Keynesianism

Today, we can learn a lot from the popularizing efforts that led to that consensus that Keynesianism leads to and long-lasting economic success.
by Robert Manduca via Boston Review on December 6, 2019
Red calamanco wedding buckle shoes, circa 1765.

The Woolen Shoes That Made Revolutionary-Era Women Feel Patriotic

Calamanco footwear was sturdy, egalitarian, and made in the U.S.A.
by Kimberly S. Alexander via What It Means to Be American on November 7, 2019
partner

Thanksgiving Has Been Reinvented Many Times

From colonial times to the nineteenth century, Thanksgiving was very different from the holiday we know now.
by Elizabeth Pleck, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on November 1, 2019

Pornotopia

In the mid-20th century, Playboy wasn't just an erotic magazine. It was an architectural movement as well.
by Paul B. Preciado via Public Books on October 11, 2019

How War Made the Cigarette

A new book explores the tangled politics behind a global addiction.
by Scott Wasserman Stern via The New Republic on September 25, 2019
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