Hyacinthus orientalis

Plant of the Month: Hyacinth

A 2021 shortage of hyacinth bulbs brings to mind the long and storied history of its botanical and economic import.
Women sewing fabric for seats at Pullman Works, Chicago, Illinois.

Pullman Women at Work: From Gilded Age to Atomic Age

Pullman resisted hiring women and did his best to keep attention away from the company’s female employees.
Customers hold out subsidy cards as they buy fresh bread on December 15, 2016 in Cairo, Egypt.

Urban Evolution, Daily Bread, and Nuclear War

Well-researched stories from Knowable Magazine, Wired and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
The Sunday, February 1, 1920 Society page of the Pittsburg Press

The Unfolding of the Woman’s Page

As women became the focus of advertising, newspapers began to broaden their offerings targeted to those areas of interest traditionally associated with them.
Cecil B. Moore, president of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, uses a hand microphone to talk to people gathered this afternoon at the Reyburn Plaza construction site for the Municipal Services building.

Northern Civil Rights and Republican Affirmative Action

One focus of the 1960s struggle for civil rights in the North were the construction industries of Philadelphia, New York and Cleveland.
Radhakamal Mukerjee

Radhakamal Mukerjee and Indian Intellectual Independence

Sociologist Radhakamal Mukerjee helped shape a new view of sociology from an Indian perspective, contributing to the independence movement.
The 1939 first edition cover of The Grapes of Wrath

Banning The Grapes of Wrath in 1939 California

The Kern County, CA Board of Supervisors got a lesson in the Streisand Effect back in 1939, when they banned The Grapes of Wrath from their libraries and schools.
A colorized photograph of Marie Curie

Marie Curie and Polish Resistance

The two-time Nobel winner helped preserve her native Polish language, and undertook her education, at a time when these acts were potentially treasonous.
An image of Marshall Applewhite from the poster for the docuseries Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults

Behind the Curtain of the Heaven’s Gate Cult

On the 25th anniversary of UFO cult Heaven's Gate's mass suicide, a religion scholar examines its theology and doctrines in the context of the New Age Movement.
A mother arrives with her children in Poland from war-torn Ukraine.

Mothers and War

Seeing images of mothers in wartime Ukraine sent editor Morgan Godvin down a research rabbit hole.