Sisters of the Holy Family, New Orleans

The Hidden History of Black Catholic Nuns

The lives and roles of African-descended women who joined predominantly white Catholic convents was deliberately hidden by congregational historians.
Women walk on a bustling city street looking at store windows

Grand Illusions

By the time L. Frank Baum introduced the world to Dorothy and the gang, he’d already made his name as a shop window dresser par excellence.
From One-Third of a Nation

The Living Newspaper Speaks

Scripted from front-page news, the Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspaper plays were part entertainment, part protest, and entirely educational.
An illustration of a bathysphere, 1934

The New Oceanography: More Remote and More Inclusive

The days of celebrity oceanographers romancing the deep are gone, and maybe that’s a good thing.
Colored Musicians Club, Buffalo, NY

Buffalo Music, the End of Smallpox, and Unnamed Species

Well-researched stories from Black Perspectives, Open Mind, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Studio portrait of American violinist Maud Powell, c. 1909

Women, Men, and Classical Music

As more women embraced music as a profession, more men became worried that the world of the orchestra was losing its masculinity.
A sprint at a U.S. Naval Academy field day, between 1890 and 1901

Professional Running: the Nineteenth Century’s Dirtiest Sport

American racers earned a reputation for deception, and Cuckoo Collins led the pack with an outsize talent for cheating.
Frankfurt, Germany

Can We Cool Warming Cities?

The new, hotter normal requires urban planners and city governments to consider heat hazards when creating climate action plans.
Two men of the French Foreign Legion, 1955

OK Recruiter: The Legion is Coming

Anxieties over the abduction of young men into the French Foreign Legion after WWII reflected West Germany’s concerns about the state of their nation.
Two horses bred at the Bitter Root Stock Farm in Montana

Racing to Respectability

The bankers and entrepreneurs of Montana Territory turned to the race track to bolster their reputations.