Vegetables cooking in a pan on a stove

What to Do about Indoor Air Pollution

Even for those stuck at home during the pandemic, quarantine can pose dangers to health. But it's not all dire!
Photograph: Women marching c. 1975

Source: Getty

Consciousness-Raising Groups and the Women’s Movement

In the 1970s, one of the most powerful tools of feminism came from speaking out loud the nature of oppression.
Illustration by Arthur Rackham

Sick Party!

The party as site of contagion in Edgar Allan Poe, Evelyn Waugh, and Ling Ma.
An admission card to one of Anne Laura Clarke's lectures

This Forgotten Female Orator Broke Boundaries for Women

At a time when respectable women rarely spoke to the public, Anne Laura Clarke was a star lecturer.
Lodge-pole pines c. 1857

Good News for the Lodgepole Pine!

The long-lived species' survivor genes are dispersed from the Yukon to southern California, meaning that it has a good chance of weathering climate change.
Hospital with 4 cots in a room without babies

Baby Bust, Dr. Seuss, and Lost Soil

Well-researched stories from The Root, Slate, and other publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Matilda Sissieretta Jones, known as Black Patti

The Life of Matilda Sissieretta Jones

Nearly forgotten today, Jones thrilled audiences with classical music performances at the end of the nineteenth century.
Test tubes

The Invention of the Test Tube

Chemists learned to blow their own glass vessels in the nineteenth century. It definitely beat using wine glasses.
Cotton Mather

The Hellfire Preacher Who Promoted Inoculation

Three hundred years ago, Cotton Mather starred in a debate about treating smallpox that tore Boston apart.
Martha Hughes Cannon

Suffrage and Polygamy in Utah

Women began voting legally in Utah Territory in 1870, only to have that right taken away from them later.