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“Big Elliott” Wright at the Big Apple Night Club.

Set the Country to Stamping

The origins of the Big Apple dance.

by Robert Greene II via Oxford American on November 19, 2019

Trump through a television camera.

How TV Paved America’s Road to Trump

“A brand mascot that jumped off the cereal box”: a TV critic explains the multimedia character Trump created.

by Sean Illing, James Poniewozik via Vox on November 7, 2019

Popeye's chicken sandwich meal.

Why Popeyes Markets Its Chicken Sandwich to African Americans

Popeyes has long cultivated a black customer base — which has positive and negative ramifications.

by Marcia Chatelain via Made By History on November 2, 2019

It’s Time to Make Election Day a Holiday in Law and Spirit

We need to bring back the celebratory atmosphere that animated Election Day in the 19th century.

by Holly Jackson via Made By History on October 22, 2019

Managing Our Darkest Hatreds And Fears: Witchcraft From The Middle Ages To Brett Kavanaugh

America has a history of dealing with witches - and it has culminated in a modern movement of politically active ones.

by Diane Purkiss via Athenaeum Review on October 14, 2019

Lost World movie poster

The 1925 Dinosaur Movie That Paved the Way for King Kong

During a slow day at work, a young marble cutter named Willis O’Brien began sculpting tiny T-Rex figurines.

by Kristin Hunt via JSTOR Daily on October 10, 2019

What the LAPD Recruitment Ad on Breitbart Says About the Department’s History

Becoming an agency that wouldn't dream of advertising on Breitbart will require deep changes.

by Max Felker-Kantor via Made By History on October 9, 2019

The Debt That All Cartoonists Owe to "Peanuts"

How Charles Schulz's classic strip shaped the comic medium.

by Chris Ware via The New Yorker on September 24, 2019

The End of the Golden Era of Chess

The recent passing of Pal Benko and Shelby Lyman draws the curtain on an American period that produced some of the game’s most sparkling play.

by Peter Nicholas via The Atlantic on September 5, 2019

How Davy Crockett Became an American Legend

Was Davy Crockett a sellout? And does it matter?

by Phil Edwards, Coleman Lowndes via Vox on August 7, 2019

What Maketh a Man

How queer artist J.C. Leyendecker invented an iconography of twentieth-century American masculinity.

by Tyler Malone via Lapham’s Quarterly on June 10, 2019

A Short History of Country Music’s Multicultural Mishmash

Or everything that came before Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus walked down that “Old Town Road.”

by David Hajdu via The Nation on June 7, 2019

The Definitive Oral History of TiVo

How the original DVR paved the way for Netflix and the cord-cutter movement.

by Tom Roston via OneZero on April 2, 2019

Newspaper clipping featuring giant championship bat being presented to the Cincinnati Red Stockings.

How the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Turned Baseball into a National Sensation

Meet the team that transformed baseball from a pastime to an industry.

by Robert Wyss via The Conversation on March 27, 2019

Drawing of people dancing on a dance floor

A Data-Led Theory to Generationally Divided Dance Floors

Some age groups are more likely to recognize certain songs than others.

by Matthew Daniels, Liana Sposto via The Pudding on February 17, 2019

Still from the Golden Girls.

Deconstructing HIV and AIDS on The Golden Girls

In 1990, one of America's most beloved sitcoms took on the HIV epidemic with humor and sensitivity.

by Claire Sewell via Nursing Clio on December 4, 2018

Frederick Douglass Forum

An online forum on the life and legacy of Frederick Douglass.

by David W. Blight, Leigh Fought, Manisha Sinha, Chris Shell, Noelle Trent, Neil Roberts, Christopher Bonner via Black Perspectives on November 30, 2018

The Surprising History (and Future) of Dinosaurs

For well over a hundred years, paleontology has done double duty as mass entertainment.

by Chantel Tattoli via The Paris Review on September 28, 2018

Illustration of Howard Thurston, gazing into a skull while surrounded by supernatural creatures

Howard Thurston, the Magician Who Disappeared

Overshadowed by more famous contemporaries, the visionary behind “The Wonder Show of the Universe” left a far-reaching legacy.

by Eliza McGraw via Smithsonian on August 9, 2018

"Black Panther" comic book cover.

Black Panther and the Black Panthers

Much is at stake in understanding the history and relationship between black superheroes and black revolutionaries.

by Amy Ongiri via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 23, 2018

A New Golden Age for the Tiki Bar

Half a century after the tropical craze of the 1960s, the modern age of escapism is taking cues from the past.

by Kara Newman via The Atlantic on June 5, 2018

A Timeline of Working-Class Sitcoms

Over the years, there have been surprisingly few of them.

by Kathryn Van Arendonk via Vulture on May 18, 2018

A man demonstrating television to another.

This Futuristic Color TV Set Concept From 1922 Was Way Ahead of Its Time

Back in the earliest days of imagining what TV looked like, the appliance was a magic technology.

by Matt Novak via Paleofuture on May 4, 2018

Hysterical Cravings

How “pickles and ice cream” became the iconic “crazy” snack for pregnant women.

by Rebecca Onion via Slate on April 18, 2018

Still of Molly Ringwald and Emilio Estevez from The Breakfast Club.

What About “The Breakfast Club”?

Revisiting the movies of my youth in the age of #MeToo.

by Molly Ringwald via The New Yorker on April 6, 2018

The Ambivalence of Appropriation

A new book by Eric Lott frames white appropriation of blackness as containing the possibility of greater racial solidarity.

by Noah Hansen via Public Books on March 29, 2018

Intricately painted Easter eggs.

Why Easter Never Became a Big Secular Holiday like Christmas

Hint: the Puritans were involved.

by Tara Isabella Burton via Vox on March 29, 2018

What Makes Jewish Comedy Jewish?

In the latter half of the twentieth century, American comedy just was Jewish comedy, tamped down to appease audiences.

by David Baddiel via The Times Literary Supplement on February 28, 2018

I Grew Up as a Black Southerner Idolizing Robert E. Lee

I didn't know the Confederate general owned slaves. I didn't even know he was part of the Confederacy.

by Issac J. Bailey via Vice on November 2, 2017

Charlie Chaplin and another mustachioed character in a film.

The Meaning of a Mustache

To shave or not to shave? At the start of the twentieth century, a trend away from facial hair reflected dramatic social and economic shifts.

by Christopher Oldstone-Moore, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on October 23, 2017

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