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.
A teacher is standing next to a young student examining her findings from the pond.

How to Increase Diversity in Community Science Projects

There's often a disconnect between the ambitions of scientists engaging the public and the potential participants themselves.
Leonard Woolf

How Leonard Woolf Critiqued Bloomsbury from Within

A literary scholar argues that Leonard Woolf has been unfairly neglected—perhaps because his anti-imperialism implicated his friends.
Close up of a basketball players feet

Playing Girls’ Basketball in 1930s Chinatown

Chinese American girls played an innovative style of basketball on the playgrounds of San Francisco, and dominated the court.