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Motorcycle in sideview mirror

The Invention of “Accidents”

Thousands of Americans die preventable deaths each year. Why do we consider them mishaps?
by Rhoda Feng via The New Republic on April 6, 2022
Karen Kuehl, an emergency physician, displays equipment she wears while treating covid-19 patients as she urges the Roanoke County, Va., School Board to retain a mask mandate on Jan. 27, 2022.
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The History of Seat-Belt Laws Shows Public Health Doesn’t Have To Be Partisan

Tennessee’s surprising role in the adoption of life-saving seat belt laws.
by Erica Westly via Made By History on February 10, 2022
birds eye view of an intersecting highway with a speeding car

How America Broke the Speed Limit

How we wound up with the worst of both worlds: thousands of speed-related deaths, and a system of enforcement that is both ineffective and inescapable.
by Henry Grabar via Slate on December 15, 2021
Guardrails and a left turn on a two-lane road.

The Insidious Idea About “Safety” That Keeps Putting Us in Danger

A concept that took hold in the ’70s has haunted everything from seat belts to masks—and experts won't let it die.
by Tim Requarth via Slate on November 8, 2021
Ralph Nader

The Myth of the “Pinto Memo” is Not a Hopeful Story for Our Time

Drawing analogies between industries can be instructive. But only if we do it right.
by Lee Vinsel via Medium on October 21, 2021
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Meatpacking Work Has Become Less Safe. Now it Threatens Our Meat Supply

Protecting the food supply chain means protecting workers.
by Chris Deutsch via Made By History on May 1, 2020
Panorama of the Iroquois Theater after the fire, 1903. Photograph by Henry Albert Ericson.

Fire!

A brief history of theater fires in New York City—and the regulations that helped people escape them.
by Olivia Rutigliano via Lapham’s Quarterly on October 7, 2019
Ryan White

The True Story of an Indiana Teen Barred From School Over His AIDS Diagnosis

Ryan White changed perceptions of the disease in the United States.
by Paul M. Renfro via Teen Vogue on April 8, 2025
Frozen truck on icy road

The Frozen Trucker and the Fugitive Slave

On the TransAm Trucking case, legal reasoning, and the Fugitive Slave Act.
by Barry Goldman via 3 Quarks Daily on May 27, 2024
Spindle boys in Georgia cotton mill.
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America Has Been Having the Same Debate About Child Labor for 100 Years

A century ago, debates about the failed Child Labor Amendment turned on larger issues about work, childhood, and the role of government.
by Janet Golden via Made By History on May 23, 2024
Plastic kitchen containers in red liquid.

How 3M Discovered, Then Concealed, the Dangers of Forever Chemicals

The company found its own toxic compounds in human blood—and kept selling them.
by Sharon Lerner via The New Yorker on May 20, 2024
The front of a large truck.

We’ve Hit a Grim Milestone We Haven’t Seen Since 1981. Why Can’t We Do Anything About It?

An irresistible trend took hold 50 years ago, and we’re all paying the price.
by David Zipper via Slate on December 18, 2023
Pete Rose and Bud Harrelson fighting during a baseball game.

Pete Rose Remembers the Biggest Postseason Brawl in Baseball History

“You know how many second basemen or shortstops I knocked on their ass in my career?”
by Keith O'Brien via Intelligencer on October 8, 2023
Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians, a popular jazz orchestra from Chicago.

Rhythm Night Club Fire: Tragedy Devastated Young Black Natchez

In April 1940, Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians continued to play to calm the crowd as the Natchez Rhythm Night Club burned.
by Karen L. Cox via Mississippi Free Press on April 21, 2023
NFL bust broken at the head by Liam Eisenberg.

The Forgotten History of Head Injuries in Sports

Stephen Casper, a medical historian, argues that the danger of C.T.E. used to be widely acknowledged. How did we unlearn what we once knew?
by Ingfei Chen via The New Yorker on February 11, 2023
Bike helmets and traffic signs.

The Cult of Bike Helmets

The history—and danger—of a modern safety obsession.
by Marion Renault via Slate on January 16, 2023
People watching uranium mill waste blow in the wind.

The Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater

A catalog of cleanup efforts at the 50-plus sites where uranium was processed for nuclear weapons, where polluted water and sickness were often left behind.
by Mark Olalde, Mollie Simon, Alex Mierjeski via ProPublica on December 3, 2022
Rainbow stripe with a bag of blood superimposed over it

Gay Blood Donors: Benching our “Heroes”?

Deferrals for gay men who wish to donate blood are outdated, stigmatizing, unnecessary, and need to be removed.
by Gennady Vulakh via Nursing Clio on October 6, 2022
Three men standing along a store sign outside of a drug store, listing the available drugs and tonics for treatment.

The Tragic Case of Poisoning That Finally Got Us Safe Drugs

The elixir had antifreeze, for flavor. Nobody blinked—at first.
by Mikkael A. Sekeres via Slate on October 1, 2022
Biden speaking at a podeum, in front of a vaccines.gov logo.
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Bureaucracy Under Fire: How the Supreme Court Has Jeopardized the OSHA Vaccine Mandate

Corporate deregulation has long curtailed OSHA’s power to safeguard workers.
by Alexander Ian Parry via Made By History on January 7, 2022
A protestor wearing syringes, protesting the vaccine mandate
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Doubters’ Push for Religious Exemptions from Coronavirus Vaccination May Not Work

With all organized religions supporting vaccination, states may question the sincerity of those claiming exemptions from getting vaccinated.
by Kira Ganga Kieffer via Made By History on September 20, 2021
A comic overview of vaccine development production trials to deliveries.

The Last Time a Vaccine Saved America

Sixty-six years ago, people celebrated the polio vaccine by embracing in the streets. Our vaccine story is both more extraordinary and more complicated.
by Howard Markel via The New Yorker on April 12, 2021
Posters reading "Is your child vaccinated? Vaccination prevents smallpox"

The Smallpox-Fighting “Virus Squads” That Stormed Tenements in the Middle of the Night

In the 1800s, they helped lay the groundwork for the anti-vaccine movement.
by Rebecca Onion, Michael Willrich via Slate on February 9, 2021
An illustration of a miner breaking off a piece of the star in the style of the "Hamilton: An American Musical" logo.

Talk Like a Red: A Labor History in Two Acts

It’s a simple process that recurs throughout history: workers see injustice, they organize each other, and they fight for change.
by Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein via The Baffler on January 5, 2021
A parking lot taking up an entire city block in Downtown Denver, Colorado.

From Chaos to Order: A Brief Cultural History of the Parking Lot

How urban planners and suburban shoppers responded when “the storage of dead vehicles on roadways” became a nuisance to street users.
by Eran Ben-Joseph via The MIT Press Reader on September 3, 2020
Frances Perkins on a ship, wearing a winter coat and gloves.

Frances Perkins: Architect of the New Deal

She designed Social Security and public works programs that helped bring millions out of poverty. Her work has been largely forgotten.
by Bat-Ami Zucker, Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, DeLysa Burnier via JSTOR Daily on July 8, 2020

When Did Cheap Meat Become an “Essential” American Value?

Keeping meat production moving during the pandemic is dangerous. But history shows that there’s little Americans won’t sacrifice for a cheap steak.
by Rebecca Onion, Joshua Specht via Slate on May 14, 2020
Smithfield factory distribution center.
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As Our Meat, Pork and Poultry Supply Dwindles, We Should Remember Why

While worrying about our food supply, we must also worry about workers producing it.
by Anya Jabour via Made By History on April 21, 2020

Hearts and Stomachs

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle has come to symbolize an era of muckraking and reform. But its author sought revolution, not regulation.
by Scott McLemee via The Wilson Quarterly on March 22, 2020
Picture of the Challenger Tragedy.
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Lessons From the Challenger Tragedy

Normalization of deviance is a useful concept that was developed to explain how the Challenger disaster happened.
via Retro Report on October 29, 2019
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