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Little Government in the Big Woods

Melissa Gilbert's lost bid for Congress and the forgotten political history of 'Little House on the Prairie.'
by Mary Pilon via Longreads on July 1, 2016
Aerial view of identical-looking houses in suburbs

Welcome to Disturbia

Why midcentury Americans believed the suburbs were making them sick.
by Amanda Kolson Hurley via Curbed on May 25, 2016
Rows of typewriters in front of computers

How Literature Became Word Perfect

Before the word processor, perfect copy was the domain of the typist—not the literary genius.
by Josephine Livingstone via The New Republic on May 2, 2016
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.
by Alicia Puglionesi via Atlas Obscura on March 2, 2016
Edgar Allan Poe

On Edgar Allan Poe

Crypts, entombments, physical morbidity: these nightmares are prominent in Poe’s tales, a fictional world in which the word that recurs most crucially is horror.
by Marilynne Robinson via New York Review of Books on January 5, 2015
Typewriter with keys that have the letters "IA" on each of them.

How Iowa Flattened Literature

With help from the CIA, Paul Engle’s writing students battled Communism and eggheaded abstraction. The damage to writing still lingers.
by Eric Bennett via The Chronicle of Higher Education on February 10, 2014
Gen. Lew Wallace, circa 1861.

The Incredible Life of Lew Wallace, Civil War General and Author of Ben-Hur

The incredible story of how a disgraced Civil War general became one of the best-selling novelists in American history.
by John Swansburg via Slate on March 26, 2013
Harriet Beecher Stowe imagining her characters.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the Art of Persuasion

Stowe’s novel shifted public opinion about slavery so dramatically that it has often been credited with fuelling the war that destroyed the institution.
by Annette Gordon-Reed via The New Yorker on June 6, 2011
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
Billboards advertising the new Superman film in Times Square.

Superman Was Always a Social Justice Warrior

A closer look at the character’s history shows that the latest movie is true to his past.
by Ryan Biller via New Lines on July 25, 2025
The four Harper Brothers, founders of the namesake publishing giant.
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The 200 Year History of American Virtue Capitalism

Despite the recent backlash against DEI, there is a longstanding tradition of virtue capitalism in the United States.
by Joseph P. Slaughter via Made By History on July 23, 2025
F. Scott Fitzgerald

‘The Great Gatsby’ at One Hundred

The neglected Catholic overtones of an American classic.
by Paul Baumann via Commonweal on July 15, 2025
Toni Morrison holding a manuscript.

She Was the Greatest Author of Her Generation. She Should Be Remembered for More Than Her Writing.

Toni Morrison was an editor for 12 years, even as she wrote her own masterpieces. I spoke to her authors about being edited by an icon.
by Dana A. Williams via Slate on June 17, 2025
A cartoon depicts two bandaged men suspended on the scales of justice raising their fists at each other.

Jack London’s Fantastic Revenge

In his short story “The Benefit of the Doubt,” Jack London turned truth into fiction, and then some.
by Andrew Rihn via The Saturday Evening Post on May 19, 2025
Science fiction landscape.

75 Years Ago, "The Martian Chronicles" Legitimized Science Fiction

On Ray Bradbury’s underappreciated classic.
by Sam Weller via Literary Hub on April 28, 2025
Chinese migrants wrapped in blankets on a beach, from the cover of "Camp of the Saints."
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Mutant Capitalism

How the dystopian visions of the nativist right are in keeping with a long tradition of neoliberal ideology.
by Quinn Slobodian via HNN on April 15, 2025
William and Henry James.

William and Henry James

Examining the tumultuous bond between the two brothers.
by Peter Brooks via The Paris Review on April 1, 2025
A portrait of Edgar Allen Poe.

The Most Overrated Writer in America

Do people really like Edgar Allen Poe?
by Naomi Kanakia via Woman of Letters on March 18, 2025
Painting by Earle Richardson titled "Employment of Negroes in Agriculture," 1934.

Uncle Tom's Cabin is the Great American Novel

Most countries take their popular novelists more seriously than America has. The term “Great American Novel” was literally invented to describe this book
by Naomi Kanakia via Woman of Letters on March 11, 2025
Three covers of the New Yorker, with The New Yorker's logo, a highbrow man in a tophat and monocle, super-imposed over them.

The New Yorker and the American Voice

Tales of the city and beyond.
by Ed Simon via The Hedgehog Review on February 19, 2025
Von Trapp family from "The Sound of Music," (1965).

How the Family From Everyone’s Favorite Musical Actually Came to America

And why so many people remember the tale so differently.
by Rebecca Brenner Graham via Slate on January 26, 2025
Chinese workers standing in the streets.

The Long Shadow of the Chinese Exclusion Act

The true cost of the immigration policy can be measured in the generations of Chinese Americans who were never born.
by Jane C. Hu via The New Yorker on January 23, 2025
Leonardo Dicaprio in "Titanic."

Which Celebrities Popularized (or Tarnished) Baby Names? A Statistical Analysis

Which public figures impacted baby naming trends?
by Daniel Parris via Stat Significant on January 8, 2025
Depictions of possible causes of apocalypse through war, disaster, and climate change.

Apocalypse, Constantly

Humans love to imagine their own demise.
by Adam Kirsch via The Atlantic on December 31, 2024
A portrait of Ignatius Donnelly.

The Peculiar Case of Ignatius Donnelly

The politician presents a riddle for historians. He was a beloved populist but also a crackpot conspiracist. Were his politics tainted by his strange beliefs?
by Andrew Katzenstein via The Nation on December 12, 2024
The cover of "Martian Time-Slip," featuring a man tending to a farm on Mars.

“Multiple Worlds Vying to Exist”: Philip K. Dick and Palestine

A critique of colonialism from Martian science fiction.
by Jonathan Lethem via The Paris Review on November 14, 2024
Cover of American Scary by Jeremy Dauber.

The Historical Seeds of Horror in "American Scary"

Jeremy Dauber's new book explores the themes and origins of the American horror genre.
by Gianni Washington via Chicago Review of Books on October 7, 2024
Advertisement promoting cocaine toothache drops, 1889.

An Undulating Thrill

Once lauded as a wonder of the age, cocaine soon became the object of profound anxieties. What happened?
by Douglas Small via Aeon on October 4, 2024
Doodles, flourishes and scribbles drawn by George Washington.

Doodle Nation: Notes on Distracted Drawing

Humans have doodled for as long as they have written and drawn, but psychoanalysis began to imagine the doodle as a key to understanding the unconscious mind.
by Polly Dickson via The Paris Review on July 17, 2024
Edward Allan Poe.

In Search of the Rarest Book in American Literature: Edgar Allan Poe’s Tamerlane

If ever a book ought not to be judged by its cover, Edgar Allan Poe’s debut collection, "Tamerlane and Other Poems," is that book.
by Bradford Morrow via Literary Hub on June 25, 2024
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