Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“The Yellow Wallpaper” and Women’s Pain

Charlotte Gilman wrote her famous short story in response to her own experience having her pain belittled and misunderstood by a male physician.
Detroit alley with bee balm

To Battle Floods, Cities Revive Their Long-Forgotten Alleyways

Once polluted and abandoned, back alleys have sprouted into flourishing rain gardens.
Close-Up Of Lemons On Blue Background

White House Leaks, Mafia Lemons, and Future Babies

Well-researched stories from GQ, NPR, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Mary Wollstonecraft early republic

Women’s Rights in the Early Republic

The U.S.A.'s founders focused on the rights of white men to vote, own property, and govern. The idea that women should have similar rights came later.
Hannah Cullwick

The Bizarre Victorian Diaries of Cullwick and Munby

Arthur Munby was an upper-class man of letters who "collected" working class women, including his servant Hannah Cullwick, whom he married in 1873.
North Korean healthcare poster

North Korea’s Anti-American Propaganda Improved Public Health

During the Korean War, North Korea suffered widespread epidemics of typhus and smallpox. The Communist party blamed U.S. germ warfare.
megalodon shark

The Real-Life Meg

One of the many misconceptions about the ancient megalodon is that it was an extinct, larger ancestor of the great white shark.
Pogo comic

The Most Controversial Comic Strip

In the 1950s, Walt Kelly's comic strip about a cute opossum named Pogo was syndicated by over 450 newspapers. It was also frequently censored.
What is health

What’s the Definition of Health?

The WHO’s definition has been the target of criticism in the medical literature since its first appearance in 1948.
Geranium

Why Victorian Gardeners Loathed Magenta

For decades, British and American gardeners avoided magenta flowers. The color had associations with the unnatural and the poisonous.