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Gertrude Stein
Arts & Culture

Is it a Crime?

An appreciation of Gertrude Stein’s pulp explorations.

In the Limelight

Scene from 'Mischievous Matt,' Bracebridge Hemyng (Jack Harkway's), new story in No. 487 Frank Leslie's Boys' and Girls' Weekly

Dime Novels and Story Papers for Kids

The rise of popular literature for children put a story, a role model, and a set of values in a young boy’s pocket.

Plant of the Month

From Flora de Filipinas by Francisco Manuel Blanco, c.1880-1883

Plant of the Month: Black-eyed Pea

Human relationships to this global crop have been shaped by both violence and resilience.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Lightning rod hats fashion of circa 1778

Electrical Fashions

From the light-bulb dress to galvanic belts, electrified clothing offered a way to experience and conquer a mysterious and vigorous force.

Suggested Readings

Self-portrait with Her Daughter by Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun

Smiles, Pollen, and James Baldwin

Well-researched stories from Aeon, Teen Vogue, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Most Recent

At La Souris, Madame Palmyre, 1949 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Politics & History

Palmyre’s Belle Époque Lesbian Bar

By providing sexualized entertainment to tourists, the bar owners of Montmartre made visible and even celebrated the quarter’s queer culture.
Chuck Berry does the splits as he plays his Gibson hollowbody electric guitar in circa 1968.
Politics & History

Race, Rock, and Breaking Barriers

The rock music industry brought more than a little racism to the radio, but a few artists pushed beyond the boundaries imposed by white audiences.
Octavia Butler
Arts & Culture

Octavia Butler’s Roots in Black History

The Parable books seem different yet familiar, their plots framed by a world shattered by racism, economic inequality, and climate change.
A woman's sari and feet
Business & Economics

Fighting for Sex Workers’ Rights in India

Labor unions for sex workers reveal how sexuality, gender, and caste intersect in a precarious and often dangerous work environment.

More Stories

In the Limelight

Scene from 'Mischievous Matt,' Bracebridge Hemyng (Jack Harkway's), new story in No. 487 Frank Leslie's Boys' and Girls' Weekly

Dime Novels and Story Papers for Kids

The rise of popular literature for children put a story, a role model, and a set of values in a young boy’s pocket.

Plant of the Month

From Flora de Filipinas by Francisco Manuel Blanco, c.1880-1883

Plant of the Month: Black-eyed Pea

Human relationships to this global crop have been shaped by both violence and resilience.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Lightning rod hats fashion of circa 1778

Electrical Fashions

From the light-bulb dress to galvanic belts, electrified clothing offered a way to experience and conquer a mysterious and vigorous force.

Suggested Readings

Self-portrait with Her Daughter by Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun

Smiles, Pollen, and James Baldwin

Well-researched stories from Aeon, Teen Vogue, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Trending

The New York American 1912 Headline for the sinking of the Titanic
Politics & History

Bodies of the Titanic: Found and Lost Again

Ideas about economic class informed decisions about which recovered bodies would be preserved for land burial and which would be returned to the icy seas.
Two arms with tattoos
Education & Society

Why Does the Bible Forbid Tattoos?

And have we been misinterpreting Leviticus?
English Herbarium
Education & Society

Herbs & Verbs: How to Do Witchcraft for Real

Like for real real.

Long Reads

Polonius behind the curtain
Arts & Culture

In Defense of Polonius

Shakespeare’s tedious old fool was also a dad just doing his best.
American Prison Newspapers 1880-2020

The Last Class, 28 Years Later

What happened to the last of the Pell Grant-funded prison higher ed graduates and their paralegal skills? Open Campus's Charlotte West and Angolite associate editor John Corley report.
Actress Bobby Bradshaw is tempted by a pearl necklace, 1925 Getty
Education & Society

Pearl Jam

In the twentieth century, the mollusk-produced gem was a must have for members of WASP gentility. In the twenty-first century, its appeal is far more inclusive.
King Arthur's knights, gathered at the Round Table to celebrate Pentecost, see a vision of the Holy Grail.
Arts & Culture

T. S. Eliot and the Holy Grail

The Nobel Laureate drew on a centuries-old legend when he put the Fisher King in The Waste Land.

Editors' Picks

Arts & Culture

Reading for LGBTQ+ Pride Month

June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month around the world, so the JSTOR Daily editors have rounded up a few of our favorite stories to mark the occasion.
Politics & History

Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech: Annotated

Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.
Politics & History

Guns in America: Foundations and Key Concepts

This non-exhaustive list of readings on the role of guns in US history and society introduces the field as a subject of scholarly inquiry.
Politics & History

“I Have A Dream”: Annotated

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s iconic speech, annotated with relevant scholarship on the literary, political, and religious roots of his words.
Politics & History

The History of Outlawing Abortion in America

Abortion was first criminalized in the U.S. in the mid-19th century. A key argument was that too many white women were ending their pregnancies.

Politics & History

At La Souris, Madame Palmyre, 1949 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Palmyre’s Belle Époque Lesbian Bar

By providing sexualized entertainment to tourists, the bar owners of Montmartre made visible and even celebrated the quarter’s queer culture.
Chuck Berry does the splits as he plays his Gibson hollowbody electric guitar in circa 1968.

Race, Rock, and Breaking Barriers

The rock music industry brought more than a little racism to the radio, but a few artists pushed beyond the boundaries imposed by white audiences.
Film still from a 1960s drag cocktail party, picnic, and pool party, c. 1968-1969

The Battle over Drag in 1960s San Francisco

The organized struggle for rights has been shaped by debates over the relationship between gender presentation and sexuality.

Open Community Collections on JSTOR

Courtesy Azusa Pacific University Special Collections via <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.32623441">JSTOR</a>

Orange Crate Art

California citrus growers drew on mass-printing techniques and advances in color lithography to create distinctive brands for their boxes.
Colour lithograph of partial lunar eclipse by Etienne Leopold Trouvelot

Trouvelot’s Total Lunar Eclipse

Immigrant artist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot used his skills to accurately represent the details—and the sublimity—of our solar system.
A poster for the 175th Anniversary of Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861)

Ukraine’s National Poet

Perhaps no other bard has captured the sentiments of Ukraine and its emigrants as fully as Taras Shevchenko.

Syllabus

The History of Reproductive Rights: A Syllabus

A selection of stories on the history of reproductive rights and abortion to foster dialogue inside and outside of the classroom.
Convicts working at Reed Camp, South Carolina, 1934

Mass Incarceration: A Syllabus

This selection of stories focuses on prison and mass incarceration in the US, which has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world.
Planet Earth from Space

Climate Change: A Syllabus

A selection of stories to foster dialogue among students both inside and outside of the classroom.

Pearls were often thought of, and treated, as more highly individuated beings than the exploited and enslaved persons who harvested them.

Pearl Jam

Annotations

Harvey Milk at Gay Pride, San Jose 1978

Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech: Annotated

Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.
Photograph: Chinese workers on the Oregon and California Railroad, circa 1888. Source: Getty

The Chinese Exclusion Act: Annotated

The passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 marked the first time the United States prohibited immigration based on ethnicity and national origin.
From the cover of New Women's Times

The Combahee River Collective Statement: Annotated

The Black feminist collective's 1977 statement has been a bedrock document for academics, organizers and theorists for 45 years.

American Prison Newspapers 1880-2020

From Sunfighter, Volume 3, Issue 2, 07-01-1975

Juneteenth: A Freedom Celebration Behind Bars

Juneteenth is commemorated by an incarcerated Black woman in a 1975 issue of Sunfighter. What does it mean to celebrate freedom when you have none?

The Last Class, 28 Years Later

What happened to the last of the Pell Grant-funded prison higher ed graduates and their paralegal skills? Open Campus's Charlotte West and Angolite associate editor John Corley report.
An illustration from Anarchist Black Dragon, Volume 1, Issue 5

The Harms of Being Subjugated and Doing the Subjugation

A formerly incarcerated psychologist looks at incarceration through the lens of learned helplessness, the Stanford Prison Experiment, synapses, and power.

Education & Society

The Last Class, 28 Years Later

What happened to the last of the Pell Grant-funded prison higher ed graduates and their paralegal skills? Open Campus's Charlotte West and Angolite associate editor John Corley report.
tribal men from gujrat state performs sighi dhamaal dance

Mumbai, Where Indian Ocean Diasporas and Cosmopolitanisms Meet

The sacred and emotional geographies of two Indian Ocean diaspora communities intertwine with elements of New Age spirituality in the megacity of Mumbai.
Actress Bobby Bradshaw is tempted by a pearl necklace, 1925 Getty

Pearl Jam

In the twentieth century, the mollusk-produced gem was a must have for members of WASP gentility. In the twenty-first century, its appeal is far more inclusive.

Science & Technology

A no parking sign stands in the increased surf brought in by Tropical Storm Alberto June 13, 2006 in Cedar Key, Florida.

Improving Communications Around Climate Change

How can scientists better explain the potential hazards of sea-level rise to historic coastal communities?
Fish swimming in underwater kelp forest

Turf Algae and Kelp Forests

Structurally complex kelp forests, pushed beyond their tipping points, are being replaced by mat-like, low-structure turf algae around the world.
A street dog in Varanasi city, India

How Street Dogs Spend their Days

Generally lazy, often friendly, the dogs of India know how to relax.

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