Nomadic ethnic Tibetan women stand amongst their Yak herd at a camp on July 27, 2015 on the Tibetan Plateau in Yushu County, Qinghai, China.

Yaks in Tibet

As China tried to expand into Tibet in the late 1930s, it looked to the yak as a way to "modernize" Tibetan culture.
1 Dollar, Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank of Rahway, New Jersey, 1850

Banks’ Own Private Currencies in 19th-Century America

Before the Civil War local banks issued their own money. It was totally legit, too.
Sophia Thoreau

Sophia Thoreau to the Rescue!

Who made sure Henry David Thoreau's works came out after his death? His sister.
An octopus

A Little Light Reading

The content you need right the heck now. Have a great long weekend!
Intricate Paper cutting of a hunting scene by Dutch artist Joanna Koerten

Joanna Koerten’s Scissor-Cut Works Were Compared to Michelangelo

And then, snip by snip, she was cut out of the frame of Renaissance art history.
The House of Tomorrow, artist rendering exterior view

Solar Housing Is Actually Kind of Retro!

The domestic fuel scarcity of World War II led to innovation in home heating—especially passive solar technology.
The DSM in rainbow colors

How LGBTQ+ Activists Got “Homosexuality” out of the DSM

The first DSM, created in 1952, established a hierarchy of sexual deviancies, vaulting heterosexual behavior to an idealized place in American culture.
Alex Steinweiss

Album Cover Artwork Was Super Boring before Alex Steinweiss

Inspired by the Bauhaus and WPA posters, the midcentury designer all but invented the modern record-album cover.
A bartender in 1951

How Women Fought for the Right to Be Bartenders

As Life magazine put it, “angry barmaids are tough opponents in any hassle.”
A man with a prosthetic leg

Prosthetic Limbs, Ancient Arabic, and Moving Species

Well-researched stories from Scientific American, Hyperallergic, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.