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A locked public bathroom

Where Did All the Public Bathrooms Go?

For decades, U.S. cities have been closing or neglecting public restrooms, leaving millions with no place to go.
by Elizabeth Yuko via CityLab on November 5, 2021
Black and white photo of children eating a meal together

Have Crisis, Feed Kids

How a series of emergencies resulted in the school lunch programs we have today.
by A. R. Ruis via Nursing Clio on November 4, 2021
Protest signs from the 1963 March on Washington

A Federal Job Guarantee: The Unfinished Business of the Civil Rights Movement

The 1963 March on Washington put a government guarantee to a job at the front of the civil rights agenda. It’s long past time to complete the work.
by Ayanna Pressley, David Stein via The Nation on September 2, 2021
John Henry swinging a hammer, with the steam drill behind him.

John Henry and the Divinity of Labor

Variations in the legend of a steel-driving man tell us about differing American views of the value and purpose of work.
by Jake Maynard via Current Affairs on July 6, 2021

The Hidden Stakes of the Infrastructure Wars

The fight over the American Jobs Plan reflects a long history of competing visions of public works—and, most of all, who should benefit from rebuilding.
by David Alff via Boston Review on June 25, 2021
Johnny Cash visiting his childhood home in Dyess, Arkansas.

Down in Dyess

Johnny Cash's life in a collectivist colony during the Great Depression.
by Ben Nadler via Contingent on May 19, 2021
Jacob Lawrence.

Jacob Lawrence Went Beyond the Constraints of a Segregated Art World

Jacob Lawrence was one of twentieth-century America’s most celebrated black artists.
by Rachel Himes via Jacobin on February 4, 2021
Roosevelt Middle School sign with a red X on it.

The Holier-Than-Thou Crusade in San Francisco

The city’s move to rename schools will provide invaluable ammunition to Fox News.
by Gary Kamiya via The Atlantic on February 2, 2021

The Enduring Lessons of a New Deal Writers Project

The case for a Federal Writers' Project 2.0.
by Jon Allsop via Columbia Journalism Review on December 22, 2020
Crowd outside New York theater waiting for Macbeth production, 1936.

"The Play That Electrified Harlem"

Shakespeare's Macbeth and the Federal Theatre Project
by Paul Allen Sommerfeld via Library of Congress on September 28, 2020

Was El Monte Really Founded by White Pioneers?

A new book explores the history of the people who have been written out of the L.A. suburb's longtime origin story.
by Steve Chiotakis via KCRW on June 24, 2020

The Lessons of the Great Depression

In the 1930s, Americans responded to economic calamity by creating a richer and more equitable society. We can do it again.
by Lizabeth Cohen via The Atlantic on May 17, 2020

FDR’s New Deal Worked. We Need Another One.

Claims that the programs adopted in the 1930s lengthened the Great Depression don’t hold up.
by Noah Smith via Bloomberg on May 15, 2020
Propaganda poster from World War II showing a gloved hand holding a wrench and reading "America's answer!".

The Coronavirus War Economy Will Change the World

When societies shift their economies to a war footing, it doesn’t just help them survive a crisis—it alters them forever.
by Nicholas Mulder via Foreign Policy on March 26, 2020

It Doesn't Have to Be a War

The Trump administration appears ready to invoke the Defense Production Act to speed manufacture of essential goods like face masks.
by Tim Barker via Dissent on March 10, 2020
Statue of Liberty melting.

The Last Time Democracy Almost Died

By examining the upheaval of the nineteen-thirties, we can recognize similarities between today and democracy's last near-death experience.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on January 27, 2020

Whiteout

In favor of wrestling with the most difficult aspects of our history.
by Kevin Baker via Harper’s on November 1, 2019

Yes, Politicians Wore Blackface. It Used to be All-American ‘Fun.’

Minstrel shows were once so mainstream that even presidents watched them.
by Rhae Lynn Barnes via Washington Post on February 8, 2019
Poster for minstrelsy cake walk
partner

The Faces of Racism

A history of blackface and minstrelsy in American culture.
via BackStory on February 8, 2019
Mural painting of people on a subway.

The Muralist and Enumerator

How a census taker and an artist were participants to the grand project of displaying and explaining America to itself.
by Dan Bouk via Census Stories, USA on June 2, 2018

The Long, Tortured History of the Job Guarantee

How liberals, over decades, worked to undermine a proposal that has long enjoyed public support.
by Peter-Christian Aigner, Michael Brenes via The New Republic on May 11, 2018

The 1938 Hurricane That Revived New England's Fall Colors

An epic natural disaster restored the forest of an earlier America.
by Stephen Long via What It Means to Be American on September 21, 2017
Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland, and Mayor Hartsfield at the Cyclorama

Cyclorama: An Atlanta Monument

The history of Atlanta's first Civil War monument may reveal how to deal with them in the present.
by Daniel Judt via Southern Cultures on June 22, 2017

The Racial Segregation of American Cities Was Anything But Accidental

A housing policy expert explains how federal government policies created the suburbs and the inner city.
by Richard Rothstein, Katie Nodjimbadem via Smithsonian on May 30, 2017
Orson Welles

A Hundred Years of Orson Welles

He was said to have gone into decline, but his story is one of endurance—even of unlikely triumph.
by Alex Ross via The New Yorker on November 30, 2015
Puppeteer Burr Tillstrom poses with puppets and a small Christmas tree on the set of his television program.

Together With the Kuklapolitans

In the middle of the past century, a gentle crew of puppets united the TV watchers of America.
by Jacqui Shine via Slate on February 16, 2015

How the Military Waged a Graphic-Design War on Venereal Disease

"Fool the Axis—use Prophylaxis!"In many ways, such a coordinated public effort to alter sexual behavior was unprecedented.
by Hunter Oatman-Stanford via Collectors Weekly on February 11, 2015
Lucindy Lawrence Jurdan stands at her spinning wheel.

Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 to 1938

A collection of more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 photos of former slaves.
via Library of Congress on January 1, 2015
Men standing outside a store with a sign supporting the WPA in the window.

The Voluntarism Fantasy

Conservatives dream of returning to a world where private charity fulfilled all public needs. But that world never existed, and we're better for it.
by Mike Konczal via Democracy Journal on March 17, 2014

Reimagining Recreation

How the New Left, urban renewal, safety concerns, and child psychology affected the design of New York playgrounds.
by James Trainor via Cabinet on April 18, 2012
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