Peterloo Massacre

Identity Politics and Popular Movements

Issues tied to gender have often been part of broad-based popular movements, like the Zetetic movement in early nineteenth-century England.
nuclear blast

The Doomsday Clock: Menacing Metaphor of the Nuclear Age

Pessimism is on the rise. Mercurial politicians, rising nationalism and isolationism, international bluster, a changing climate, mass protests, ...
Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round so Our Thoughts Can Change Direction

Francis Picabia’s Chameleonic Style

The Francis Picabia retrospective at MoMA is wowing museumgoers again with his ever-shifting, always challenging art.
A woman looking out of a window

Why Does Menopause Exist?

What is the point of menopause? Evolutionarily speaking, why do female humans go through menopause and then live for many more decades?
Saturday Evening Girls Club

The Saturday Evening Girls’ Guide to Helping Immigrants Succeed

The “Saturday Evening Girls" was a Progressive-Era club that afforded urban, Jewish and Italian girls and women a chance at coveted social mobility.
Springfield, Mass. High School

The High School of the Future (in 1917)

In 1917, a Progressive education reformer surveyed the high school landscape and looked to the future. His grand plans still haven’t come to fruition.
Hollerith Machine

WWII and the First Ethical Hacker

Rene Carmille has been called the first ethical hacker for sabotaging the computerization of data about French Jews during World War II.
Extra Credit Suggested Readings from JSTOR Daily Editors

Suggested Readings: High Deductibles, Bad Marriages, and Mr. Darcy

Extra Credit: Our pick of stories from around the web that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Dresden Germany after firebombing

How Slaughterhouse-Five Made Us See the Dresden Bombing Differently

The bombing of Dresden, Germany, which began February 13, 1945, was once viewed as a historical footnote. Until Slaughterhouse-Five was published.
Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allan Poe and the Power of a Portrait

Edgar Allan Poe knew that readers would add their visual image of the author to his work to create a personality that informed their reading.