Annie Grayson; Or, Life in Washington

Nancy Lasselle’s Washington Novels

Lasselle’s 1850s novels were the first to examine the entanglements of society and politics—including lobbying—in Washington, DC.
Women cooking in a public kitchen, 19th century

Kitchenless Dreams

Escaping the drudgery of housekeeping via collective action became a feminist focus of utopian practitioners and theorists in the later nineteenth century.
Clemencia López

Clemencia López and the Philippine Struggle for Freedom

López’s gender and appearance helped her contribute to anti-imperial and suffrage movements in a way her male peers couldn’t.
Christ's Descent into Hell by Hieronymus Bosch

Fire and Brimstone

If our conception of hell was absent from Christianity at the time the religion was born, whence exactly does it hail?
Students in a music classroom

Tech in the Classroom in the 1910s

American music teacher Frances E. Clark helped the Victor Corporation bring recorded music into classrooms, overcoming educators’ distrust of the technology.
Eggs of Common guillemot (Uria aalge), delicatessen, Reykjavik, Iceland

Eggs, Chatbots, and Oklahoma!

Well-researched stories from Smithsonian Magazine, The Conversation, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Hutong in Beijing, China

China’s Historic Preservation Challenges

Beijing’s hutongs are disappearing quickly. Is there a way create safe housing, preserve historic buildings, and meet the city's financial needs?
Portrait of Nancy Clem

Money, Murder, and Mrs. Clem

Nancy Clem was a Gilded Age con artist whose swindles eventually turned deadly. Her crimes would test the era’s assumptions about class, gender, and criminality.
Two smiling young girls have online video conference at computer screen

Can Good Coworkers Save Us From Job Burnout?

Maintaining healthy and good relationships with coworkers may help mitigate the risks of workplace burnout.
Cordyceps militaris

“There’s Gold in Them Thar Fungi”: Cordyceps as Cash Crop

A fungus in the genus Cordyceps has us running scared. But some of its species are worth more than their weight in gold.