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Maxine Singer, Norton Zindler, Sydney Brenner and Paul Berg at the Asilomar Conference, February 1975
Natural Science

The Legacy of Asilomar

The 1975 scientific conference laid the ground rules governing the next half century (and counting) of biological research and public scrutiny of it.

Archive Adventures

Shadowbox with a wedding photograph of a bride and groom, surrounded by the bride's veil

First Comes Love

A top divorce lawyer collected strangers’ marriage certificates and other wedding-related ephemera—a testament to her perhaps surprising faith in matrimony.

JSTOR Collections

From Oriental Riviera to Global Asia: Hong Kong in Travel Posters

A collection of travel posters shared via JSTOR by Hong Kong Baptist University highlights Hong Kong’s unique place in the global imagination over the decades.

The Where We Were

The Louvre Museum in Paris

Pyramids of the Present

We associate pyramids with ancient civilizations, but contemporary humans appear to have an affinity for the peaked structures as well.

Plant of the Month

Fruit of the pong-pong tree (Cerbera odollam)

Cerbera odollam: “The Suicide Tree” That Harms and Heals

Even before The White Lotus, people feared the poisonous pong-pong tree, Cerbera odollam. But there's another way to look at the plant and its effects.

Most Recent

Unclassics: Obscure Electronic Funk and Disco, 1975–1985
Arts & Culture

Quebec Disco: Influenced by Italo Disco?

Ostensibly developing on continents apart, the sounds Quebec Disco and Italo Disco exhibited an identifiable sonic kinship.
The 18th Regiment arrives during the Homestead Strike of 1892
Politics & History

How Steelworkers Stopped a Paramilitary Movement

Despite failing to break the Homestead Strike in 1892, the Pinkerton Agency demonstrated the extralegal threat paramilitary agencies created for Americans.

More Stories

Archive Adventures

Shadowbox with a wedding photograph of a bride and groom, surrounded by the bride's veil

First Comes Love

A top divorce lawyer collected strangers’ marriage certificates and other wedding-related ephemera—a testament to her perhaps surprising faith in matrimony.

JSTOR Collections

From Oriental Riviera to Global Asia: Hong Kong in Travel Posters

A collection of travel posters shared via JSTOR by Hong Kong Baptist University highlights Hong Kong’s unique place in the global imagination over the decades.

The Where We Were

The Louvre Museum in Paris

Pyramids of the Present

We associate pyramids with ancient civilizations, but contemporary humans appear to have an affinity for the peaked structures as well.

Plant of the Month

Fruit of the pong-pong tree (Cerbera odollam)

Cerbera odollam: “The Suicide Tree” That Harms and Heals

Even before The White Lotus, people feared the poisonous pong-pong tree, Cerbera odollam. But there's another way to look at the plant and its effects.

Trending

A circle of white claymation guys around a black claymation guy
Reading Lists

Racist Humor: Exploratory Readings

An introduction to the history and theory of racist humor and the social role it plays in Western societies.
The Pantheon, Rome
Politics & History

One Thousand Years of Domelessness

For more than 900 years, between the fifth century and the Renaissance, Romans didn’t cap their buildings with domes. Why?
Maxine Singer, Norton Zindler, Sydney Brenner and Paul Berg at the Asilomar Conference, February 1975
Natural Science

The Legacy of Asilomar

The 1975 scientific conference laid the ground rules governing the next half century (and counting) of biological research and public scrutiny of it.

Long Reads

Education

All Grown Up: JSTOR Turns Thirty

What started out as an experiment in digitizing under-used scholarship blossomed into an invaluable online educational resource for students and faculty alike.
Vannevar Bush
Politics & History

Science in War, Science in Peace: The Origins of the NSF

The 1950 establishment of a federal agency devoted to space, physics, and more belied a cross-party consensus that such disciplines were vital to national interest.
From the cover of From Rupture to Refuge: The Coordinates of Contemporary Refugee Narratives by Peter Sloane
Arts & Culture

Refugee Lit Stakes Its Worthy Claim

Peter Sloane’s new study examines the narratives put forth by asylum seekers striving to reclaim their stories from mainstream media and political discourse.
Virginia Woolf
Arts & Culture

A Hundred Years of Mrs. Dalloway

An exemplar of modernism, Virginia Woolf's revolutionary novel explored ideas—psychology, sexuality, imperialism—that roiled the twentieth century.

Editors' Picks

Politics & History

Genesis of the Modern American Right

During the Great Depression, financial elites translated European fascism into an American form that joined high capital with lower middle-class populism.
Education & Society

Life Advice From the Armed Forces

These American Forces Information Service posters shared via JSTOR by The University of Alabama in Huntsville offer us the wisdom we didn’t know we needed.
Education & Society

Margaret Geoga on the Ambiguities of Ancient Texts

An interview with Margaret Geoga, an Egyptologist who examines “wisdom instructions” to see how their interpretation differs between readers and over time.
Education & Society

Tips from a Librarian on Using JSTOR for Research

Follow these first steps toward success with your new research project.
Arts & Culture

Lesya Ukrainka: Ukraine’s Beloved Writer and Activist

“Lesya Ukrainka” was a carefully considered pseudonym for a writer who left behind a legacy of poems, plays, essays and activism for the Ukrainian language.

Quirky History

Tobacco leaves on a black background

The Ever-Lengthening History of Tobacco

People have been smoking in the Pacific Northwest for more than 4,500 years.
The Canada Lumberman, 1882

French Canadians in the New England Woods

Immigrants from Quebec held a distinct position in an American labor landscape in which experts viewed different “races” as being suited to different kinds of work.
Negril, March 11, 1982

Mashup at the Intersection of Deco and Hip-Hop

Archived at Cornell University, a collection of flyers promoting dance-inspiring DJ sets in the Bronx established the visual identity of a new cultural era.

Collections on JSTOR

Negril, March 11, 1982

Mashup at the Intersection of Deco and Hip-Hop

Archived at Cornell University, a collection of flyers promoting dance-inspiring DJ sets in the Bronx established the visual identity of a new cultural era.
California gold miners, ca. 1850-1852

A Gold Rush of Witnesses

Letters, diaries, and remembrances shared on JSTOR by University of the Pacific reveal the hardships of day-to-day life during the California Gold Rush.
A portrait of Merze Tate from a scrapbook of photographs, letters and newspaper clippings

The Trailblazing Merze Tate

A celebrated historian of race and imperialism, Tate was an intrepid traveler who avidly shared her passion and meticulously documented her journeys.

Reading Lists

Crowd taking photographs on mobile phones

Citizen Journalism: A Reading List

The ubiquity of smartphones has ushered in a new era for journalism—facilitating citizen journalism and changing the very nature of reporting.
Left to right: Lady Ottoline Morrell, Mrs. Aldous Huxley, Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and Vanessa Bell, July 1915

The Bloomsbury Group: A Reading List

In 1905, a group of writers and painters gathered in a London home and began a conversation on politics, love, sex, and art that lasted decades.
From a 1957 map of the world

Transatlantic Studies: A Reading List

Using the Atlantic Ocean as a guiding metaphor, transatlanticism emphasizes the fluid nature of contrived national boundaries and identities.

Syllabus

Dakota pipeline protestors

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

More and more states are choosing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day.
"I Voted" stickers

Voting in American Politics: A Syllabus

From battles to expand the franchise to the mysteries of turnout, voting is one of the most important things to understand about US politics.
An illustration of a hand holding a set of hand cuffs

A True Crime Syllabus

How did we become so obsessed with “true crime”? This multidisciplinary syllabus shows how we view crime as a whole and how those views have changed over time.

In Lowell, boarding houses were built into the design of the city and were owned by the corporations where their tenants toiled.

Lowell’s Forgotten House Mothers

Annotations

An abolitionist poster from Massachusetts which condemns the Fugitive Slave Law and the Massachusetts politicians who voted for it, 1850

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.
Enemy aliens on way to detention camp, Gloucester, NJ, 1918

The Alien Enemies Act: Annotated

Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.
American politician Joseph McCarthy (1908 ? 1957), Republican senator from Wisconsin, testifies against the US Army during the Army-McCarthy hearings, Washington, DC, June 9, 1954. McCarthy stands before a map which charts Communist activity in the United States.

Joseph McCarthy in Wheeling, West Virginia: Annotated

Senator Joseph McCarthy built his reputation on fear-mongering, smear campaigns, and falsehoods about government employees and their associates.

Teaching Resources

Crowd taking photographs on mobile phones

Citizen Journalism: A Reading List

The ubiquity of smartphones has ushered in a new era for journalism—facilitating citizen journalism and changing the very nature of reporting.
James Baldwin

LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

June is LGBTQ Pride Month, so JSTOR Daily gathered some of our favorite stories to celebrate. All with free and accessible scholarly research.
An abolitionist poster from Massachusetts which condemns the Fugitive Slave Law and the Massachusetts politicians who voted for it, 1850

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.

Reveal Digital Collections

Frank O'Hara

12 Poems by Frank O’Hara

Plus his manifesto on Personism and writings about O’Hara by Ted Berrigan, Joseph LeSueur, and Joe Brainard.
Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.36531311

Toledo’s Most Singular Pharmacist

The Ella P. Stewart Scrapbooks offer insight into the life and legacy of a pioneering Black woman who broke color barriers and helped birth the fight for civil rights.

Feminist Bookstore News by the Numbers

Now part of Reveal Digital, Feminist Bookstore News was a vital source of information (and gossip) amid a flourishing in publishing fifty years ago.

Roundup

James Baldwin

LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

June is LGBTQ Pride Month, so JSTOR Daily gathered some of our favorite stories to celebrate. All with free and accessible scholarly research.
Print shows men and women riding bicycles and tricycles to a fair, 1819

Celebrating the Bicycle

JSTOR Daily editors pick their favorite stories for National Bike Month.
Anna May Wong

Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Our best stories about the vast histories and cultures of Americans with ancestry in Asia and the Pacific.

Natural Science

Ridge trail to Mt Lafayette in the White Mountains, New Hampshire

How Did Eastern North America Form?

With many collisions and much crumpling of rock, down the ages. The story holds lessons for how the edges of continents are built and change over time.
Hellas Chaos on Mars

Mars Time Machine

Researchers are creating advanced simulations that will provide a deeper understanding of Mars’s climatic history and help to determine whether it was once able to sustain life.
Caitlin D. Wylie

Caitlin D. Wylie on the Hidden Labor of STEM Research

An interview with Caitlin D. Wylie, a social scientist who analyzes “behind-the-science work” to understand how knowledge is produced and who produces it.

Sustainability & The Environment

A man scrambles up a gully on the Crestone Needle in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Colorado.

How Science Might Help Keep Wild Places Wild

Recreation researchers are studying how to minimize human impact on public lands while maximizing accessibility.
West County Recycles, Richmond, CA

Did “Big Oil” Sell Us on a Recycling Scam?

Our focus on recycling to save the planet may be missing the mark.
Watercolor painting of the earth by Martin Eklund

On Earth Day

Celebrate Earth Day with stories from JSTOR Daily.

Support JSTOR Daily

Help us keep publishing stories that provide scholarly context to the news.