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A group of Philippine “Head-Hunters” on display at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

These Horrifying ‘Human Zoos’ Delighted American Audiences at the Turn of the 20th Century

‘Specimens’ were acquired from Africa, Asia, and the Americas by deceptive human traffickers.
Still from Dirty Dancing.

In the Dark All Katz Are Grey: Notes on Jewish Nostalgia

Searching for where I belong, I find myself cobbling together a mongrel Judaism—half-remembered and contradictory and all mine.
Poster for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show reenactment of Custer's last stand.

The Indians Win

Why have Americans been obsessed with this one loss rather than dozens of victories?

All 89 Best Picture Oscar Winners Ranked

From the meh (A Beautiful Mind) to the stunningly beautiful (Moonlight), and the classic (All About Eve) to the god-awful (Birdman).
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.

How to Measure Ghosts: Arthur C. Nielsen and the Invention of Big Data

How audience measurement became central to the creative and commercial development of television.
Roy Takeno, editor, and group reading paper in front of office, Manzanar Relocation Center, California

Behind Barbed Wire

Japanese-American internment camp newspapers.

Old West Theme Parks Paint a False Picture of Pioneer California

As the nation debates monuments and public memory, it’s important to understand how other cultural sites help people learn (false) history.
Howard Coffin hosts President Calvin Coolidge on Sapelo Island, Georgia.

Black Gullah Culture Fascinated Americans Just As President Coolidge Visited

The culture on Sapelo Island, Georgia was unique.
Screenshot from "The Oregon Trail" computer game

The Forgotten History of 'The Oregon Trail,' As Told By Its Creators

You must always caulk the wagon. Never ford the river.
Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield

The Story of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, America's First Black Pop Star

The 19th century singer forced critics and audiences to reconcile their ears with their racism.
Book cover with the title "Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues" superimposed on a photo of a man lying down with his cheek on the ground.

Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues

"The blues was born on a riverboat between Louisville and New Albany, along those docks, in the 1890s. I mean, the blues was born nowhere, of course. Or it was born many places."
Pinball machine with a clown face.

A Menace to Society: The War on Pinball in America

Pinball hasn’t always been an all-American game of fun: for decades it was an object of widespread moral outrage.
An illustration of Weyer’s Cave from 1858.

The 19th Century ‘Show Caves’ That Became America’s First Tourist Traps

Novelists concocted elaborate fake histories for mysterious caves in Virginia.
Jim Crow-era postcard with illustration of a black boy in the jaws of an alligator

How America Bought and Sold Racism, and Why It Still Matters

Today, very few white Americans openly celebrate the horrors of black enslavement—most refuse to recognize the brutal nature of the institution or activ...

Will the Real Henry “Box” Brown Please Stand Up?

New information on Henry Box Brown, an enslaved man who would turn escape into an art form.

Present Tense, Future Perfect: Protest and Progress at the 1964 World's Fair

The stall-in threatened to interrupt a certain imaginary of progress, democracy, and freedom with the reality of racial injustice.
Chandra Dharma Sena Gooneratne wearing a turban.

How Turbans Helped Some Blacks Go Incognito In The Jim Crow Era

At the time, ideas of race in America were quite literally black and white. But a few meters of cloth changed the way some people of color were treated.
A collage of a still from "All in the Family" on a stylized television with another television in the background.

Fandom's Great Divide

The schism isn't between TV viewers who love a show and those who hate it—it’s between those who love it in very different ways.
Poster for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
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Where the Buffalo Roam

How Buffalo Bill’s Wild West brought scenes from the American West to audiences around the globe.
"Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky," a painting by Benjamin West (ca. 1816).

Electricity and Allegiance

Benjamin Franklin introduced the magical picture, an experiment that played on the king's beloved image and his deadly force.
Silhouettes of people dancing at a techno music festival with colorful laser lights.

Machine Soul

A history of techno.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, far left, interviewing Black filmmakers Mario Van Peebles, Neema Barnette, John Singleton, Reginald Hudlin, and Warrington Hudlin (left to right).
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Soul of Black Identity: New Jack Cinema

A conversation with some of the hottest filmmakers on the scene: They're young, they're Black, but they're making green.

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