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A medieval drawing of a stork.
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Exit, Pursued by a Stork

When the 1930 Hays Code banned pregnancy in film, birds took over the business of birth.
by Victoria Sturtevant via HNN on December 17, 2024
Elizabeth Pryor

Why It's So Hard to Talk about the N-word

A professor explains the trauma of encountering "an idea disguised as a word."
by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor via TED on December 1, 2019

The Racist Politics of the English Language

How we went from “racist” to “racially tinged.”
by Lawrence B. Glickman via Boston Review on November 20, 2018
Barbed wire, and participants on the 2014 community pilgrimage to Tule Lake.

Why the Language We Use to Describe Japanese American Incarceration During World War II Matters

A descendant of concentration camp survivors argues that using the right vocabulary can help clarify the stakes when confronting wartime trauma
by Tamiko Nimura via Smithsonian on December 28, 2023
Yoshitaka Watanabe family photo: from left Yoshitaka Watanabe, Toshiko, Masao, Kimiko, Tabo, Shigeo, Shizue Watanabe.

No, My Japanese American Parents Were Not 'Interned' During WWII. They Were Incarcerated.

The Los Angeles Times will no longer use "internment" to describe the mass incarceration of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry during World War II.
by Teresa Watanabe via Los Angeles Times on March 16, 2023
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Changing Hearts and Minds Won’t Stop Police Violence

The way Americans have long discussed racism is a huge part of the problem.
by Matt Delmont via Made By History on June 5, 2020
Left: Place de la Concorde. Number 6 in the series Curiosités Parisiennes, early 20th century. Postcard; offset lithography. Courtesy Leonard A. Lauder. Right: Monolite Mussolini Dux, via Wikimedia Commons

The 20th-Century Obelisk, From Imperialist Icon to Phallic Symbol

Amid all the imperial aspiration, wooly-minded New Age mythologizing, and pure unadulterated commerce, the obelisk stands tall.
by Anthony Grafton, Brian A. Curran, Pamela O. Long, Benjamin Weiss via The MIT Press Reader on December 16, 2019

When Did People Start Calling Things “Racially Charged”?

About 50 years ago.
by Daniel Engber via Slate on May 30, 2018
Title card for "Legacies of Eugenics" series, with a drawing of a form board for teaching shapes.

Trumpian “Common Sense” and the History of IQ Tests

On the troubling history of IQ tests and special education.
by Pepper Stetler via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 8, 2025
Screenshot of soldiers and an explosion.

Noam Chomsky on How America Sanitizes the Horror of Its Wars

On the origins of America's hegemonic foreign policy.
by Noam Chomsky via Literary Hub on October 16, 2024
Misery and Fortune of Women (1930).

The Lost Abortion Plot

Power and choice in the 1930s novel.
by Julia Cooke via The Point on June 11, 2024
Surgeon General C. Everett Koop holds a news conference on May 4, 1988, on AIDS.

As AIDS Epidemic Raged, a Rogue Reagan Official Taught America the Truth

The Reagan administration thought Surgeon General C. Everett Koop would put his faith above public health. Instead, Koop sent all Americans a mailer on AIDS.
by Alexandra M. Lord via Retropolis on June 4, 2023
Box of Mifepristone tablets
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Tennessee Republicans Turn to Mail Regulation to Restrict Abortion

This isn’t the first time the U.S. Postal Service has played a role in curbing women’s reproductive rights.
by Jane Marcellus via Made By History on May 25, 2022
A Ukranian peasant family poses with sacks of grain.

'The New York Times' Can't Shake the Cloud Over a 90-Year-Old Pulitzer Prize

In 1932, Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer for stories defending Soviet policies that led to the deaths of millions of Ukrainians.
by David Folkenflik via NPR on May 8, 2022

Macho Macho Men

Bodybuilding is routinely presented as the very apex of male heterosexuality—but its history is a bit gayer than you might think.
by Benjamin Weil via The Baffler on November 23, 2021
Black and white photo of a man walking three tiny poodles on a sidewalk

A Vast Latrine for Dogs

A brief history of trying to save city streets from pet waste.
by Chris Pearson via Lapham’s Quarterly on September 24, 2021
Image of street corner in the Bronx, New York

Boroughed Time

Confronting a long tradition of projecting fantasies onto the South Bronx.
by Sasha Frere-Jones via Bookforum on September 3, 2020
Abortion advertisement in the National Police Gazette, 1847.

“Female Monthly Pills” and the Coded Language of Abortion Before Roe

Our future might look much like our past, with pills as a major part of abortion access—and an obsessive target for abortion opponents.
by Melissa Gira Grant via The New Republic on January 22, 2020

When The President Laughs At Genocide

In the period of a few weeks, President Trump mocked both the Trail of Tears and the Wounded Knee Massacre.
by Michael E. Carter via Tropics of Meta on February 10, 2019
Two nurses standing beside a soldiers bed during World War 1.

The Surprising Origins of Kotex Pads

Before the first disposable sanitary napkin hit the mass market, periods were thought of in a much different way.
by Kat Eschner via Smithsonian on November 9, 2018
Soldiers in Continental Army
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Rumming with the Devil

A perusal of Benjamin Franklin’s "Drinker’s Dictionary," and a chat about how the drink of choice in revolutionary America switched from cider to rum.
via BackStory on January 1, 2016
A frayed and torn American flag flying on a flag pole.

Farewell, the American Century

Rewriting the past by adding in what's been left out.
by Andrew J. Bacevich, Tom Engelhardt via Tom Dispatch on April 28, 2009

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