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Drawing depicting Buckminster Fuller in front of a dome

Buckminster Fuller’s Greatest Invention

His vision of a tech-optimized future inspired a generation. But his true talent was for burnishing his own image.
by Rebecca Onion via The New Republic on August 19, 2022
Black and white photo of people taking fish out of a train car.

Remembering When Fish Rode the Rails

For decades, salmon, catfish, and trout traveled in America's fleet of "Fish Cars."
by Jonathan Feakins via Atlas Obscura on August 2, 2022
Illustration of screens, electronics, and sound waves.

The Hidden History of Screen Readers

For decades, blind programmers have been creating the tools their community needs.
by Sheon Han via The Verge on July 14, 2022
Vannevar Bush portrait

The Atlantic Writers Project: Vannevar Bush

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.
by Ian Bogost via The Atlantic on July 11, 2022
Daguerrotype of Robert Cornelius.

Portraits of Brotherly Love

Philadelphia portrait studios in the Age of the Daguerreotype (1840-1849).
by Rachel Wetzel via Library of Congress on July 1, 2022
Photo illustration of a button causing death courtesy of MIT Press Reader.

How Americans Got Comfortable With Killing at the Push of a Button

For years, the idea seemed immoral and dangerous.
by Rachel Plotnick via Slate on June 20, 2022
Man in American themed boxers, carrying a semiautomatic rifle

How Did Guns Get So Powerful?

Decade by decade, firearms have become deadlier—and tightened their grip on our collective imagination.
by Phil Klay via The New Yorker on June 11, 2022
A family tree relating Aaron Sachs' book "Up From the Depths" with Lewis Mumford and Herman Melville.

Why Reading History for Its “Lessons” Misses the Point

On Lewis Mumford, Herman Melville, and the gentle art of looking back in time.
by Daniel Immerwahr via Slate on June 6, 2022
Drawing of ladies wearing "lightning rod hats" ca. 1778.
partner

Electrical Fashions

From the light-bulb dress to galvanic belts, electrified clothing offered a way to experience and conquer a mysterious and vigorous force.
by Amelia Soth via JSTOR Daily on May 26, 2022
An image of a sardine can with a large group of people shoved inside.

The People Who Hate People

Of all the objections NIMBYs raise to new housing and infrastructure, perhaps the most risible is that their community is already too crowded.
by Jerusalem Demsas via The Atlantic on May 24, 2022
Black and white image of Arlington radio towers

When Arlington Set the Nation's Clocks: The Arlington Radio Towers

A century ago, Arlington was home to one of the most powerful radio stations in history, which helped to usher in an era of wireless communications.
by Henry Kokkeler via Boundary Stones on May 23, 2022
Person making call in telephone booth.

The Making of the Surveillance State

The public widely opposed wiretapping until the 1970s. What changed?
by Andrew Lanham via The New Republic on April 21, 2022
Thomas Edison posing by a phonograph.

Saving the Sounds of the Early 20th Century

Some recordings in the New York Public Library’s wax cylinder collection haven’t been heard in generations—until now.
by Sarah Durn via Atlas Obscura on April 14, 2022
Men engaged in the various stages of making glass bottles in London, 1888.

Workers Have Been Fighting Automation Ever Since Capitalism Began

Automation didn’t start in the age of robots and microchips, but can be traced back to the late 19th century glass industry and its skilled glass workers.
by Alison Kowalski via Jacobin on April 8, 2022
Robot with group of people at poker table

The Automation Myth

To what degree can we blame automation for deindustrialization and class decomposition?
by Clinton Williamson via The Baffler on April 6, 2022
Women deejays at Shyvers Multiphone studio in the Seattle-Tacoma area.

The First Music Streaming Service

In the 1930s, a Seattle entrepreneur created a successful analog streaming platform—and ran it out of a drugstore.
by Ted Gioia via The Honest Broker on April 4, 2022
A still from the 1955 film 'Wiretapper.' The still depicts a man wearing headphones and touching a wire.

When New York City was a Wiretapper’s Dream

Eavesdropping flourished after WWII, aided by legal loopholes, clever hacks, and “private ears”.
by Brian Hochman via IEEE Spectrum on March 25, 2022
Book cover of Whole Earth, featuring an image of Stewart Brand backlit and walking through a door, encircled by the earth.

On Floating Upstream

Markoff’s biography of Stewart Brand notes that Brand’s ability to recognize and cleave to power explains a great deal of his career.
by W. Patrick McCray via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 22, 2022
Smiley face with game pieces as facial features against a blue background

What the History of AI Tells Us About its Future

IBM’s chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue was eclipsed by the neural-net revolution. Now, 25 years on, the machine may get the last laugh.
by Clive Thompson via MIT Technology Review on February 18, 2022
Vintage drawing of a man attempting to hypnotize a crowd of people, sitting in chairs.
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Mesmerizing Labor

The man who introduced mesmerism to the US was a slave-owner from Guadeloupe, where planters were experimenting with “magnetizing” their enslaved people.
by Emily Ogden, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on January 18, 2022
Early 20th century black-and-white photograph of workers harvesting kelp.
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Burning Kelp for War

World War I saw the availability of potash plummet, while its price doubled. The US found this critical component for multiple industries in Pacific kelp.
by Peter Neushul, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on January 13, 2022
A bronze statue of Civil War soldiers on horseback, in front of the U.S. Capitol building.

How Twitter Explains the Civil War (and Vice Versa)

The proliferation of antebellum print is analogous to our own tectonic shifts in how people communicate and what they communicate about.
by Ariel Ron via The Strong Paw Of Reason on January 6, 2022
Henry Ford on an early tractor.

American Power Pull

The farm tractor wasn’t born overnight. Perfecting it led to a three-way battle between Ford, John Deere and International Harvester.
by Michael Taube via The Wall Street Journal on December 29, 2021
Painting of an airship flying over a rural countryside.
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Whatever Happened to Airships?

In moving away from fossil fuels, some in aviation are thinking of bringing back helium-assisted flight.
by Martin L. Levitt, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on December 16, 2021
Machine in a wooden box with 40 dials: an electromechanical machine used in the 1890 U.S. census.

How the US Census Kick-Started America’s Computing Industry

As the country grew, each census required greater effort than the last. That problem led to the invention of the punched card – and the birth of an industry.
by David Lindsay Roberts via The Conversation on December 1, 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
Screen shot from Oregon Trail gameplay showing Conestoga wagons and people on a western-style main street. Text reads: "Now loading the wagon..."

Let Us Now Enjoy the Incredibly Pure Tale of the Teacher Who Invented The Oregon Trail

He didn’t make a penny.
by Robert Whitaker via Slate on November 17, 2021

Did Cars Rescue Our Cities From Horses?

Debating a modern parable about waste and technology.
by Brandon Keim via Nautilus on November 10, 2021
“Linen” postcard, depicting cars parked along a city street, in front of "Chop Suey" building, where people are standing outside.

Street Views

Photographs of empty city streets went out of fashion, but lately are coming back again. What's lost in these images of vacant streets?
by Kim Beil via Cabinet on October 14, 2021
Newspaper article titled 'Novel-reading a cause of female depravity'

Why Novels Will Destroy Your Mind

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, novels were regarded as the video games or TikTok of their age — shallow, addictive, and dangerous.
by Clive Thompson via Medium on September 9, 2021
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