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The Misconception About Baby Boomers and the Sixties

Other than being alive during the 1960s, the baby boomers had almost nothing to do with the era's social and political upheaval.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 18, 2019

The Boycott’s Abolitionist Roots

How a group of 19th-century Quakers cut their economic ties to slavery.
by Willy Blackmore via The Nation on August 14, 2019

A Brief History of Seltzer Booms in America

For over 100 years, the bubbly beverage has gone in and out of vogue as a wellness tonic.
by Maya Kroth via Medium on August 12, 2019

The Price of Meat

America’s obsession with beef was born of conquest and exploitation.
by Samuel Moyn via The New Republic on May 7, 2019

How 'Good Design' Failed Us

What's the role of functionality in design?
by Nikil Saval via The New Yorker on April 3, 2019

Uniforming the Nation

Standard clothing sizes don’t exist.
by Jordana Rosenfeld via Popula on April 3, 2019

Shaman's Revenge?

The birth, death and afterlife of our romance with tobacco.
by Mike Jay via mikejay.net on January 1, 2019

Did the Golden Age of Department Stores Bring Us Together?

What is now an object of nostalgia was once a symbol of soulless corporate creep.
by Stephen Eide via The American Conservative on December 21, 2018
Finely decorated women's restroom lounge

The Glamorous, Sexist History of the Women’s Restroom Lounge

Separate areas with sofas, vanities, and even writing tables used to put the “rest” in women’s restrooms. Why were these spaces built, and why did they vanish?
by Elizabeth Yuko via CityLab on December 3, 2018

How A Corporation Convinced American Jews To Reach For Crisco

A Proctor & Gamble ad-man on the Lower East Side recognized a big marketing opportunity when he saw one.
by Deena Prichep via NPR on December 2, 2018
Trix cereal logo with bunny mascot

The White Rabbit and His Colorful Tricks

Breakfast cereal, dietary purity, and race.
by Catherine Keyser via Cabinet on November 16, 2018

The Most Dangerous Job: The Murder of America's First Bird Warden

His job was to protect the birds. But nobody was there to protect him.
by Lucas Reilly via Mental Floss on October 30, 2018
Poster for Barnum and Bailey circus.

The American Circus in All Its Glory

A new documentary tells the history of the big top.
by Joseph Bottum, Justin L. Blessinger via Humanities on October 19, 2018

The Archivists of Extinction

Architectural history in an era of capitalist ruin.
by Kate Wagner via The Baffler on October 19, 2018

Sears’s ‘Radical’ Past

How mail-order catalogues subverted the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow.
by Antonia Noori Farzan via Washington Post on October 16, 2018

How Tea Helped Women Sell Suffrage

Private-labeled teas helped fund success during the suffragist movement. Today’s activists might learn from their model.
by Janelle Peters via The Atlantic on September 30, 2018

American Beauties

How plastic bags came to rule our lives, and why we can’t quit them.
by Rebecca Altman via Topic on August 1, 2018

The World’s Most Peculiar Company

How does Hammacher Schlemmer, famous for such eccentric products as the Navigable Water Park, continue to survive in the age of Amazon?
by Nick Greene via Chicago Magazine on August 1, 2018

The Lost World of the Middlebrow Tastemaker

Journalist Elizabeth Gordon had unsparing opinions about the inadequacy of both mainstream and elite notions of design.
by Anthony Paletta via The American Conservative on June 8, 2018
Brochure for Gemini robot.

The Forgotten '80s Home Robots Trend

Alexa’s interface is treated as revolutionary, but you might be surprised to learn of its predecessors from the mid-1980s.
by John Ohno via Tedium on May 24, 2018

A Brief History of America’s Obsession With Sneakers

Invented for athletics, sneakers eventually became status symbols and an integral part of street style.
by Kate Keller via Smithsonian on May 18, 2018

Ford Says Farewell

America’s most iconic automaker plans to drive almost all of their passenger sedans into the sunset by 2020.
by Telly Davidson via The American Conservative on May 16, 2018
An ad published in the first issue of 'Consumer Reports' (1936).
partner

Can Consumer Groups Be Radical?

A historian looked at the consumer movements of the 1930s to find out.
by Lawrence B. Glickman, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on May 16, 2018

The Death and Life of the Instant-Print Camera

The iPhone era has ushered in a new fondness for analog photography that has turned clunky cameras into necessary accessories.
by Molly McHugh via The Ringer on May 15, 2018
A man demonstrating television to another.

This Futuristic Color TV Set Concept From 1922 Was Way Ahead of Its Time

Back in the earliest days of imagining what TV looked like, the appliance was a magic technology.
by Matt Novak via Paleofuture on May 4, 2018

It Didn’t Start with Facebook: Surveillance and the Commercial Media

The era of audience exploitation began in earnest thanks in large part to the experiments of Dr. Frank Stanton in the 1930s.
by Michael J. Socolow via We're History on May 1, 2018

The Heart of the Matter: A History of Valentine Cards

A digital exhibit from the collections of the Strong National Museum of Play.
by Strong National Museum Of Play via Google Arts and Culture on April 11, 2018

Canned Food History

A conversation with Anna Zeide about her book, “Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry.”
by Anna Zeide, Emily J. H. Contois via Nursing Clio on March 20, 2018

Exit Through the Gift Shop

How do museum gift shops at Civil War sites shape historical memory?
by Nick Sacco via Muster on March 13, 2018

The Hamburger: An American Lyric

How hamburgers became a staple of the American diet.
by Carol J. Adams via The Paris Review on February 12, 2018
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