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Passengers freshening up in the ladies' restroom at the Greyhound bus terminal, Chicago, 1943

In the Ladies’ Loo

Gender-segregated bathrooms tell a story about who is and who is not welcome in public life.

Read Before You Go

Kanuhura Island, Maldives

The Maldives: Paradise Lost?

Marketed as a luxury tourist destination, the Maldives struggles with the legacy of an authoritarian government and the existential threat of climate change.

JSTOR Collections

Goodyear blimps, Puritan and Reliance, in Florida.

Blimps in the Heavens Over Akron

A Goodyear executive dreamt of populating the sky with dirigibles. He settled for securing his company—and his blimps—a place in the public imagination.

The Where We Were

Windows and balconies, 26 Rue Soufflot, 75005 Paris

The Eternal, Essential Apartment

We may think of the apartment building as the ultimate symbol of modern urban living, but as a typology, it dates to antiquity.

Suggested Readings

San Gimigniano, Italy, 1988

Medieval Skyscrapers, Cars for Justice, and Russian Noir

Well-researched stories from Smithsonian Magazine, CrimeReads, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Most Recent

Icebergs towering over a sailing ship in Arctic waters.

The Open Polar Sea: Myth and Science at the North Pole

The idea of an open polar sea haunted the imaginations of European explorers and scientists alike in the nineteenth century.
Vanessa cardui

The Secrets of Butterfly Migration, Written in Pollen

Trillions of insects move around the globe each year. Scientists are working on new ways to map those long-distance journeys.

More Stories

Read Before You Go

Kanuhura Island, Maldives

The Maldives: Paradise Lost?

Marketed as a luxury tourist destination, the Maldives struggles with the legacy of an authoritarian government and the existential threat of climate change.

JSTOR Collections

Goodyear blimps, Puritan and Reliance, in Florida.

Blimps in the Heavens Over Akron

A Goodyear executive dreamt of populating the sky with dirigibles. He settled for securing his company—and his blimps—a place in the public imagination.

The Where We Were

Windows and balconies, 26 Rue Soufflot, 75005 Paris

The Eternal, Essential Apartment

We may think of the apartment building as the ultimate symbol of modern urban living, but as a typology, it dates to antiquity.

Suggested Readings

San Gimigniano, Italy, 1988

Medieval Skyscrapers, Cars for Justice, and Russian Noir

Well-researched stories from Smithsonian Magazine, CrimeReads, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Long Reads

Mugshot of composer Henry Cowell after being arrested on a "morals" charge. Circa 1936.

Henry Cowell’s One True Desire

To “live in the whole world of music” was all the influential, experimental composer wanted—and did, even while imprisoned at San Quentin.
Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.36635239

The Age of Wonder Meets the Age of Information

What can past eras of information overload teach students about critically consuming content in the present?
The cover of Black Milk by Elif Shafak

Fear and Fertility in Elif Shafak’s Black Milk

Shafak exposes her terror over motherhood’s potential to devour creativity—a panic she imagines sharing with a parade of literary forebears.

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.

The Emmett Till Memory Project teaches new generations about the tragedy that kickstarted the Civil Rights Movement. Preserving its digital assets is vital.

Portico’s Part in Telling the Story of Emmett Till

Doing Math with Intellectual Humility

Math class is an opportunity to teach students both how to use conjecture to arrive at knowledge and how to learn from the logic of peers.
Photo taken in the Bourbaki Congress of 1938 in Dieulefit

The Mathematical Pranksters behind Nicolas Bourbaki

Bourbaki was gnomic and mythical, impossible to pin down; his mathematics just the opposite: unified, unambiguous, free of human idiosyncrasy.
Karate chop

The Physics of Karate

A human hand has the power to split wooden planks and demolish concrete blocks. A trio of physicists investigated why this feat doesn't shatter our bones.