television — Bunk History

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Niels Vodder display with furniture designed by Finn Juhl, Cabinetmakers Guild Exhibition, 1949.

Freedom Furniture

How did Americans come to love “mid-century modern”?

by Marianela D’Aprile via The Nation on January 23, 2024

John Montgomery Ward and Helen Dauvray.

Before Taylor and Travis, There Was Helen and John

She was an actress. He was a shortstop. What we can learn from the press parade around this 19th-century power couple.

by Scott D. Peterson via Zócalo Public Square on January 11, 2024

A turntable and records.

What’s Old is New Again (and Again): On the Cyclical Nature of Nostalgia

Retro was not the antithesis to the sub- and countercultural experiments of the 1960s, it grew directly out of them.

by Tobias Becker via Literary Hub on December 13, 2023

Cover of "Outrageous," with tomato on face of man holding microphone

Endless Culture Wars

On Kliph Nesteroff’s book, “Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars.”

by Chris Yogerst via Los Angeles Review of Books on December 1, 2023

Pastoral scene of a family in their yard.

The Strange Death of Private Life

In the early 1970s, the idea that private life meant a right to be left alone – an idea forged over centuries – began to disappear. We should mourn its absence.

by Tiffany Jenkins via Engelsberg Ideas on November 21, 2023

Donald Trump, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and Vince McMhaon at a press conference before Wrestlemania 23, 2007.

The Misunderstood History of American Wrestling

A recent biography of Vince McMahon presents him as an entertainment tycoon who changed culture and politics. The real story is as banal as it is brutal.

by Nadine Smith via The Nation on November 10, 2023

Colorful collage of Rocky Horror characters

Rocky Horror Has Surprising Roots in Victorian Seances

‘Time Warp’ all the way back to the 1800s.

by Victoria Linchong via Atlas Obscura on October 11, 2023

A portion of the author’s music collection; bootleg cassette tapes and CDs. Photo by Maya Walker.

The Pirate Preservationists

When keeping cultural archives safe means stepping outside the law.

by Jesse Walker via Reason on September 10, 2023

An uncredited performer with a member of the Delta Rhythm Boys in Give Me Some Skin (1946).

Jammin’ in the Panoram

During World War II, proto–music videos called “soundies” blared pop patriotism from visual jukeboxes across American bars.

by J. Hoberman via New York Review of Books on September 2, 2023

Releases of the Republican National Committee’s Press Relations Department, 1939

Possibilities for Propaganda

The founding and funding of conservative media on college campuses in the 1960s.

by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd via Lapham’s Quarterly on August 30, 2023

An overhead view of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

An Oral History of the March on Washington, 60 Years After MLK’s Dream

The Post interviewed March on Washington participants and voices from younger generations to tell the story of Aug. 28, 1963 and what it means now.

by Clarence Williams via Retropolis on August 25, 2023

Max Fleischer’s Superman

On the Men Who Lent Their Bodies (and Voices) to the Earliest Iterations of Superman

A wrestler, a Sunday school teacher, and a mystery man walk into a studio.

by Paul Morton via Literary Hub on August 10, 2023

Scene from "The Sugarland Express." A woman is leaning out the window of police car.

Hot Pursuit: The Brief Rise of 1970s Hixploitation Cinema

On the drive-in movie culture that captured a yearning for fast cars on dusty roads.

by Scott Von Doviak via CrimeReads on July 11, 2023

L: Current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; R: Former Florida Gov. LeRoy Collins.

The Overlooked Origins of the War on Bud Light and Other “Woke” Companies

Starbucks and Anheuser-Busch are the latest corporate targets of tactics honed by segregationists post–Brown v. Board.

by Lawrence B. Glickman via Slate on July 5, 2023

Photo of Marion "Pat" Robertson

How Pat Robertson Shepherded His Flock Into Politics

Farewell to the senator's son who pioneered a TV genre, helped create the Christian right, ran for president, and earned the grudging respect of Abbie Hoffman.

by Jesse Walker via Reason on June 9, 2023

Handheld video camera.

Smile, You're on Jury Duty!

First came 'Candid Camera.' Then 'The Truman Show.' Now, a new swath of TV speaks to 21st-century voyeurism.

by Jackie Mansky via Zócalo Public Square on April 28, 2023

Elin, a puppet character who uses a wheelchair on “Sesamstrasse,” the German version of “Sesame Street.” (Axel Heimken/AFP/Getty Images)

Should Children’s Entertainment Be Tweaked to Reflect Today’s Norms?

Children’s entertainment always embodies local values.

by Helle Strandgaard Jensen via Made By History on April 11, 2023

Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King.

The Night James Brown Saved Boston

The city might have gone up in flames after MLK's assassination, if not for the quick actions of a DJ, a city councilor, and The Hardest Working Man In Show Business.

by Dart Adams via Medium on April 5, 2023

Vince McMahon

Vince McMahon Controls Wrestling History in Order to Control All of Wrestling

How the WWE chairman warped pro wrestling all the way to WrestleMania 39.

by Abraham Josephine Riesman via Polygon on March 27, 2023

Bernard King of the New Jersey Nets driving past Elvin Hayes of the Washington Bullets, in March of 1978.

The Racial Politics of the N.B.A. Have Always Been Ugly

A new book argues that the real history of the league is one of strife between Black labor and white ownership.

by Jay Caspian Kang via The New Yorker on March 21, 2023

J. Edgar Hoover and two other men pose with guns.

The Cult of J. Edgar Hoover

A zealot through and through, he ran the FBI like a religious sect.

by Adam Hochschild via The Nation on March 7, 2023

Cast members of the television show "Sesame Street" circa 1969, pose on the set with some of the puppet characters. From left: Will Lee, Matt Robinson, Bob McGrath and Loretta Long, along with Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Grover, Ernie, Bert and Oscar the Grouch. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Mississippi Banned ‘Sesame Street’ for Showing Black and White Kids Playing

In 1970, an all-white state commission thought Mississippi was "not yet ready" to see a racially integration depicted on television. The backlash was swift.

by Kristin Hunt via Retropolis on February 5, 2023

A naked David Opal signaling a peace sign with his hands on a TV screen in front of a background of a 1970s themed living room.

What Became of the Oscar Streaker?

After Robert Opel dashed naked across the stage in 1974, he ran for President and settled into the gay leather scene.

by Michael Schulman via The New Yorker on January 30, 2023

Khalifa International Stadium near Doha, Qatar.

Qatar, the World Cup & the Echoes of History

How stadiums in Qatar connect to a bridge in Kentucky and a dam in West Virginia.

by Jason Steinhauer via History Club on December 4, 2022

JFK and Jacqueline in the convertible limousine in Dallas.

A Weekend in Dallas

Revisiting political assassinations.

by Noah Kulwin via noahkulwin.substack on November 22, 2022

Chuck Norris as Sergeant Cordell Walker in Walker: Texas Ranger.

Walkers and Lone Rangers: How Pop Culture Shaped the Texas Rangers Mythology

Texas’s elite police force has long played the hero in film and television, although the reality is far more complex.

by Sean O'Neal via Texas Monthly on November 16, 2022

Lord Beaverbrook and Winston Churchill on the HMS Prince of Wales during the Atlantic Conference, Newfoundland, Canada, August 1941.

The Limits of Press Power

To what extent did newspapers influence public opinion in the US and Britain before and during World War II?

by Geoffrey Wheatcroft via New York Review of Books on October 22, 2022

Lt. Col. Oliver North in 1987 before testifying to a committee investigating the Iran-contra scandal.

The 1980s Hearings That Explain Why Trump’s Base Still Loves Him

Bombshell revelations won’t hurt the former president with his core supporters. We have only to look at Oliver North to know why.

by Kristin Kobes Du Mez via Made By History on June 29, 2022

People in Ukrainian subway station converted into bomb shelter with makeshift beds and kitchen.

The History of the Family Bomb Shelter

Throughout history, the family bomb shelter has reflected the shifting optimism, anxieties, and cynicism of the nuclear age.

by Thomas Bishop via Zócalo Public Square on April 18, 2022

Portraits of Dean Dixon, William Grant Still, and Margaret Bonds, three African American classical musicians.

A Prophecy Unfulfilled?

What a new book and six companion videos have to say about the fate of Black classical music in America.

by Mark N. Grant via The American Scholar on April 2, 2022

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