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Protesters holding anti-War on Drugs signs with a red target printed over them

How the Drug War Dies

A few decades ago, the left and the right, politicians and the public, universally embraced the criminalization of drug use. But a new consensus has emerged.
Ketanji Brown Jackson speaking at a podium with Biden standing behind her.
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Why Supreme Court Confirmations Have Become So Bitter

The defeat of Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987 changed the way justices are confirmed today.
Photograph of Marian Brook, a fictional character in HBO's The Gilded Age

Philanthropy and the Gilded Age

As the HBO series The Gilded Age suggests, charity allowed wealthy women to play a visible role in public life. It was also a site of inter-class animosity.
Collage of William F. Buckley by Aaron Martin.

The Conservative and the Murderer

Why did William F. Buckley campaign to free Edgar Smith?
Screen shots of PBS NewsHour anchors with title cards about conflicts in Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Afghanistan.
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“Burning with a Deadly Heat”

PBS NewsHour coverage of the hot wars of the Cold War.
Odetta sitting on a park bench playing a guitar.

How Odetta Revolutionized Folk Music

She animated the horror and emotional intensity in American labor songs by projecting them like a European opera singer.
Eartha Kitt engaged in conversation with Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House

When Eartha Kitt Disrupted the Ladies Who Lunch

The documentary short “Catwoman vs. the White House” reconstructs an unexpected moment of activism during the Vietnam War.
Screen capture of Martin Luther King Jr. giving a press conference.

What Martin Luther King Jr. Said About the Filibuster: ‘A Minority of Misguided Senators’

The context in which King shared his views on the filibuster is the same one in which the Senate now finds itself: amid battles over voting rights legislation.
Comedian Charlie Hill on stage with a microphone.

‘Part of Why We Survived’

Is there something in particular about coming from a Native background that makes a person want to write and perform comedy?
Cover of an early Superman comic book.

The Vigilante World of Comic Books

A sweeping new history traces the rise of characters caught in a Manichaean struggle between good and evil.
Photograph of a dilapidated mall from the rear parking lot.

Mallstalgia

Once derided as cesspools of Reagan-era consumerist excess, the shopping mall somehow became an unlikely sort-of quasi-public space that is now disappearing.
Woman sitting on her living room sofa, 1920s; the room also includes a coffee table, a chair, lamps, paintings, and a houseplant.

Vintage Photos Show What Living Rooms Looked Like Before TV

Photos reveal how people structured their living rooms before the television became widespread.
Poster of American flag asking people to pledge allegiance and silence about the war.

World War II’s “Rumor Control” Project

How the federal government enlisted ordinary citizens to spy on each other for the war effort.
A blurry pixilated image of Jimmy Carter on a television screen.

How the Ghost of Jimmy Carter’s Presidency Haunts Everything Biden Says About Supply Shortages

The last from-the-top critique of American overconsumption generated a massive backlash.
Lucille Ball wrapping a baby doll in a diaper on "I Love Lucy" (left) and drawing of tie-waist skirt design (right)

How a Genius Fashion Invention Freed Midcentury Women Like Lucille Ball to Be Pregnant in Public

The inventor thought her pregnant sister looked like “a beach ball in an unmade bed.”
TV with black and white video game on the screen

Computer Space Launched the Video Game Industry 50 Years Ago – Here's Why Haven't Heard of it

The game that launched today’s massive video game industry was not a roaring success. The oft-told story of why turns out to be off the mark.
Elvis receiving polio vaccine

Elvis Presley Gets the Polio Vaccine on The Ed Sullivan Show, Persuading Millions to Get Vaccinated

In 1956, Elvis Presley was vaccinated backstage at The Ed Sullivan Show in order to encourage teenagers to get the polio vaccination.
Black and white photo of the 1940 Chevrolet half-ton.

The Rugged History of the Pickup Truck

At first, it was all about hauling things we needed. Then the vehicle itself became the thing we wanted.
The original cast of 3-2-1 Contact!

From Sputnik to Virtual Reality, the History of Scicomm

Instead of yesteryear’s dry and dusty lectures, science communicators are creating new and exciting ways to engage with science.
John Cage on the quiz show "Lascia o Raddoppia?"

Freedom for Sale

In the 1950s and 1960s, a new generation of American artists began to think of advertising and commercial imagery as the new avant-garde.
Map of the Appalachian mountain range

The Making of Appalachian Mississippi

“Mississippi’s white Appalachians may have owned the earth, but they could never own the past.”
An illustration featuring a man smoking a cigarette.

When the CIA Was Everywhere—Except on Screen

Hollywood was just fine avoiding all portrayals of the Central Intelligence Agency for years after the agency's founding in 1947.
"Neighborhood of Fear" book cover

Abolishing the Suburbs

On Kyle Riismandel’s “Neighborhood of Fear: The Suburban Crisis in American Culture, 1975–2001.”
A graffiti mural in Los Angeles

The Emergence Of Gangsta Rap

A review of "To Live and Defy in LA: How Gangsta Rap Changed America."
Vincent Price.

The Strange Undeath of Middlebrow

Everything that was once considered lowbrow is now triumphant.
Collage of a radio and Rush Limbaugh's mouth.

How Rush Limbaugh Broke the Old Media — and Built the New One

Whether you like Rachel Maddow, Stephen Colbert, Joe Rogan, or Sean Hannity, you're engaging the media world created by the late radio host.
An old black and white photo at a dinner event

The History of American Newspapers is More Searchable Than Ever

A stroll through the archives of Editor & Publisher shows an industry with moments of glory and shame — and evidence that not all of today's problems are new.

A TV Documentary Shows the Deep Roots of Right-Wing Conspiracy

In 1964, the John Birch Society was the most active far-right group in the United States—unless you count the Republican Party.
Black and white photo of a family sitting around the television together

A Brief History of Consumer Culture

Over the 20th century, capitalism preserved its momentum by molding the ordinary person into a consumer with an unquenchable thirst for more stuff.
A television news reporter in a segment from the 1990s on juvenile crime

Superpredator

The media myth that demonized a generation of Black youth.

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