An illustration of a fossilized claw from Megalonyx Jeffersonii, a giant ground sloth, found in a cave in Greenbriar County, West Virginia.

Jefferson’s Fossils

What can Thomas Jefferson’s mistaken ideas about fossils tell us about science and belief in the early United States?
A Chelsea Pensioner, wearing a sprig of orange blossom [?] in his buttonhole, sipping a dish of tea. Engraving by J. Jenkins after M. W. Sharp, 1840

Consuming the Empire

Sugar, tea, and tobacco tied British daily life to empire, turning global exploitation into ordinary habits of consumption.

Wayne Thiebaud’s Sweet Take on American Art

The beloved American painter rejected attempts to categorize his work as a Pop Art as he experimented with texture, light, and nostalgia.
Man proposing to woman on one knee, presenting her with a bouquet of roses, separated by black cubes

Love Is Blind … but Are Your Hormones?

Do women’s attraction to certain faces really change across the menstrual cycle? A long-running theory meets modern data.
Dorothy Parker, ca. 1935

Dorothy Parker: Sharp-Witted Writer, Bitter Professor

Dorothy Parker’s year as a visiting professor shows how a celebrated literary voice struggled to adapt to the realities of academic teaching.
Korean Orphan Choir in the Netherlands in 1962

How Cold War “Orphans” Sang Their Way into American Hearts

Touring choirs helped cast Korean children as ideal adoptees—and Americans as benevolent saviors.
Fashion plate from an 1869 issue of The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, surrounded by an 1861 color wheel by Michel Chevreul.

The Nineteenth-Century Science of Fashion

Victorian-era color theory moved from labs and studios into women’s magazines—and into everyday decisions about dress.

When Mao’s Mango Mania Took Over China

A fleeting cult built around a mango exposes the logic, and illogic, of Mao’s personality cult.
JSTOR Daily celebrates Black History Month

Celebrating Black History Month

JSTOR Daily editors pick their favorite stories for Black History Month.

H. H. Richardson and the Making of an American Romanesque

Historical photographs help trace the emergence of Richardsonian Romanesque and its lasting influence on American architecture.