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Kamala Harris on stage at a campaign rally

The Polling Imperilment

Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago. So why do they consume our political lives?
by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on September 25, 2024
Three ring binder filled with a baseball card collection.

Batting by the Numbers

The evolution of baseball’s perfect lineup.
by Neil Paine, Michelle Pera-McGhee via The Pudding on September 24, 2024
Assyrian relief depicting person holding bread.

On Recipes: Changing Formats, Changing Use

Wayfinding through history and design of the cookbook.
by Julia Skinner via Mold on August 29, 2024
Interior of a Kitchen, by Eliphalet Fraser Andrews.
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Mastering the Art of Reading an Old Recipe

For every moment of historical significance, there is a figure — often hidden — who fed the figures we do remember.
by Avery Blankenship via HNN on July 9, 2024
Tourists at the Trinity site in New Mexico.

Trinity Fallout

The U.S. government’s failure to recognize nuclear Downwinders in New Mexico is part of a broader failure to reckon with the legacies of the Manhattan Project.
by Nora Wendl via Places Journal on June 18, 2024
1905 Sanborn insurance map of San Francisco, damaged by the fires after the 1906 earthquake.

From Fire Hazards to Family Trees: The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

Created for US insurance firms during devastating fires across the 19th and 20th centuries, the Sanborn maps blaze with detail the aspects of American cities.
by Tobiah Black via The Public Domain Review on June 12, 2024
Digital image of Lindsay Lohan, saying "Lindsay all grown up."

Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon

This tale of two girlhoods, Shirley Temple’s and Lindsay Lohan’s, sheds light on what “woman” means in the world of eroticized youth.
by Katherine Fusco via Dilettante Army on April 16, 2024
A photograph of a tree's rings.

The Fellowship of the Tree Rings: A ClioVis Project

The disparate and intriguing connections found in environmental history, one tree ring at a time.
by Aidan Dresang via Not Even Past on February 20, 2024
A Silicon Valley office building.

Better, Faster, Stronger

Two recent books illuminate the dark foundations of Silicon Valley.
by Ben Tarnoff via New York Review of Books on August 31, 2023
Collage of BuzzFeed logo and people using electronic devices.

They Did It for the Clicks

How digital media pursued viral traffic at all costs and unleashed chaos.
by Aaron Timms via The New Republic on April 18, 2023
Illustration by Cristina Spano, picturing rulers and colorful shapes and designs coming out of the neck of a collared shirt

The Origins of Creativity

The concept was devised in postwar America, in response to the cultural and commercial demands of the era. Now we’re stuck with it.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on April 17, 2023
Class photo of white men medical students on the steps of a building.

Race and Early American Medical Schools: Review of "Masters of Health"

Medical schools in the antebellum U.S. were critical in the formation of a medical community that shared ideas about racial science.
by Natalie Shibley via Nursing Clio on February 14, 2023
Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX at a House hearing in 2021.
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‘Effective Altruism’ Isn’t As Newfangled As It Seems

Times have changed since the days of Carnegie and Rockefeller, but much in philanthropy has remained the same.
by John R. Thelin, Richard W. Trollinger via Made By History on February 6, 2023
Oxford University.

Elite Universities Gave Us Effective Altruism, the Dumbest Idea of the Century

The result has been reactionary, often racist intellectual defenses of inequality.
by Linsey McGoey via Jacobin on January 19, 2023
John Von Neumann and computer charts.

The World John von Neumann Built

Game theory, computers, the atom bomb—these are just a few of things von Neumann played a role in developing, changing the 20th century for better and worse.
by David Nirenberg via The Nation on November 28, 2022
Redlined street map of the Baltimore area.

The Mapping of Race in America

Visualizing the legacy of slavery and redlining, 1860 to the present.
by Anika Fenn Gilman, Catherine Discenza, John Hessler via Library of Congress on July 28, 2022
Illustration of Benjamin Franklin overlaid on textbook excerpt

Ben Franklin Put an Abortion Recipe in His Math Textbook

To colonial Americans, termination was as normal as the ABCs and 123s.
by Molly Farrell via Slate on May 5, 2022
Woodcut illustration from 1934 economics textbook depicting people walking from tenement houses past an advertising billboard and straight to a loan office.

Bad Economics

How microeconomic reasoning took over the very institutions of American governance.
by Simon Torracinta via Boston Review on March 9, 2022
Collage illustration showing many faces behind a zig-zagging line graph.

Without Context, COVID Tallies Are Misleading

Counting both uninfected and infected people helps us better understand a pandemic.
by Jim Downs via Los Angeles Times on December 19, 2021
Anthropometric data sheet of Alphonse Bertillon with his picture straight on and in profile

Face Surveillance Was Always Flawed

On the origins, use, and abuse of mugshots.
by Amanda Levendowski via Public Books on November 20, 2021
A hand moving the weight on a scale
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What's in a Number? Some Research Shows That a Lower B.M.I. Isn't Always Better.

Biased ideas about a link between body size and health have led many people to dismiss unexpected scientific findings.
via Retro Report on November 17, 2021
A recreation of Viking grass covered structures at L’Anse aux Meadows

New Dating Method Shows Vikings Occupied Newfoundland in 1021 C.E.

Tree ring evidence of an ancient solar storm enables scientists to pinpoint the exact year of Norse settlement.
by Brian Handwerk via Smithsonian on October 20, 2021
Packages of beef cuts
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What Scaremongering About Inflation Gets Wrong

Inflation isn't inexorably a bad thing. In fact, it used to be considered good.
by Rebecca L. Spang via Made By History on May 25, 2021
NYPD officers in front of an American flag.

There’s Truth in Numbers in Policing – Until There Isn’t

To hold the police accountable for misconduct, data related to police violence must not only become more accessible, it must also become more reliable.
by Carl Suddler via Brookings on June 26, 2020

The Evolution of the American Census

What changes each decade, what stays the same, and what do the questions say about American culture and society?
by Alec Barrett via The Pudding on March 30, 2020
Fishing boats an debris deposited in an Alaska village by the earthquake.

At the Very Beginning of the Great Alaska Earthquake

People’s stories described a sluggish process of discovery: you had to discover the earthquake, even though it had already been shaking you for what felt like a very long time.
by Jon Mooallem via Literary Hub on March 24, 2020
Credit cards

How Credit Reporting Agencies Got Their Power

In an economy based on doing business with strangers, monitoring people's trustworthiness quickly became very profitable.
by Josh Lauer, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on September 19, 2017

Oil Barrels Aren't Real Anymore

Once a cask that held crude, the oil barrel is now mostly an economic concept.
by Brian Jacobson via The Atlantic on September 8, 2017

So Long, Shaker Pint: The Rise and Fall of America's Awful Beer Glass

How the entire U.S. came to drink out of a vessel never meant for human lips.
by Laura Bliss via CityLab on September 24, 2014

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