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Black and white photograph of two women and three children standing or kneeling and surrounded by potatoes.

Which Foods Aren’t Disgusting? On Carla Cevasco’s Violent Appetites

“The connection between a hot temper and an empty stomach,” explained through a history of colonial interactions with indigenous peoples.

Appetite for Destruction

Indigenous Americans knew how to avoid starvation. Colonists were too hungry to notice.

COVID-19 Didn’t Break the Food System. Hunger Was Already Here.

Like everything else in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, American food has become almost unrecognizable overnight.
An 18th-century kitchen in Morristown, New Jersey.

Histories of Hunger in the American Revolution

White soldiers, escaped slaves, and American Indians all dealt with food scarcity but often reacted to it differently.

“We Lost Our Appetite for Food”: Why Eighteenth-Century Hangriness Might Not Be a Thing

Hunger hasn't always always caused anger and violence - in American history, hunger was more likely to be suppressed.
A group of school boys displaced by World War II bombardments pose with CARE (Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) packages from the United States in Haren, Belgium in 1947.

How Truman Sold Americans on Going Hungry

In 1947, the United States sacrificed for the sake of a starving Europe.
School lunch comprised of a hamburger, brussel sprouts, cantaloupe, potatoes, and milk.
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The Failed Promise of Free, Universal School Lunch

Masks and social distancing are largely gone, but just as consequentially, a less visible pandemic intervention is ending: universally free school meals.
Black and white photo of children eating a meal together

Have Crisis, Feed Kids

How a series of emergencies resulted in the school lunch programs we have today.
Zoomed in 1949 map of Atlanta.

A Brief History of the Atlanta City Prison Farm

Slave labor, overcrowding, and unmarked graves — the buried history of Atlanta City Prison Farm from the 1950s to 1990s shows it’s no place of honor.
A shack on Eastland's plantation, as it appeared in the 1964 film

He Risked His Life Filming A Mississippi Senator's Plantation In 1964

Fannie Lou Hamer is among the sharecroppers interviewed in this unauthorized documentary about the plantation of Dixiecrat James Eastland.
Cups of coffee on a tray photographed from above to look like pills on a foil sheet.

Capitalism’s Favorite Drug

The dark history of how coffee took over the world.
Painting depicting Jamestown Fort under construction.

Learning from Jamestown

The violent catastrophe of the Virginia colonists is the best founding parable of American history.
A painting entitled "The First Thanksgiving, 1621" by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (ca. 1932).

A Brief History of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a holiday about food – but it is more specifically a holiday about food’s absence.
Printing food stamps.
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Why American Policy is Leaving Millions Hungry

Instead of trying to eliminate hunger, we continue to talk about personal responsibility.

Hysterical Cravings

How “pickles and ice cream” became the iconic “crazy” snack for pregnant women.
Boy walking across a dirt road in Biloxi.

How Poverty and Racism Persist in Mississippi

Author Jesmyn Ward on the racism “built into the bones” of the state where she grew up and is choosing to raise her children.

The Book That Incited a Worldwide Fear of Overpopulation

'The Population Bomb' made dire predictions—and triggered a wave of repression around the world.
Gail "Hal" Halvorsen interacts with children in West Berlin
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How a Cold War Airlift Saved Berlin With Food, Medicine and Chocolate

A Soviet blockade around Berlin cut the city off from the West. But in 1948 U.S. and British pilots began to fly food, fuel and medicine to the Allied sectors.
A homeless man eating a meal in a park.

Good Deeds Unpunished

American law should protect the right of individuals to engage in charitable acts.
Members of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Feminism's Forgotten Free-Trade Past

Jane Addams and the interwar women’s peace movement: feminist contributions to international relations.
Up close picture of a baby bottle.

What Parents Did Before Baby Formula

The shortage is a calamity—not a victory for breastfeeding.
Empty shelves in a grocery store, specifically an aisle for infant formula products.
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Lessons From World War II Can Help us Navigate the Baby Formula Shortage

Children from poor families or with special formula needs are most at risk.
President Franklin Roosevelt
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A Stronger Welfare State Is the Key to Saving Democracy From Extremism

Democrats’ policies aim to address societal problems to make fascism and socialism less attractive.
Digital art with "Help Wanted Sign", square with word "Tuna" and bottle

Solidarity Now

An experiment in oral history of the present.
Crowd of protestors, mostly men, outside of a building

A Summer of Protest, Unemployment and Presidential Politics – Welcome to 1932

The parallels between the summer of '32 and what is happening now are striking.

Infection Hot Spot

Watching disease spread and kill on slave ships.
Various foods, such as milk, peanuts, potatoes, bread, and bananas, on a beige background.

A Brief History of the Calorie

The measure of thermal energy expended by exercise was adapted from the study of explosives and engines.

When California Went to War Over Eggs

As the Gold Rush brought more settlers to San Francisco, battles erupted over the egg yolks of a remote seabird colony.

A Hundred Years After the Armistice

If you think the First World War began senselessly, consider how it ended.

Inherited Trauma Shapes Your Health

A new study on Civil War prisoners suggests that our parents’—and even grandparents’—experiences might affect our DNA.

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