Sidney Robertson Cowell

A Bag of Old Songs from Elsewhere

Sidney Robertson Cowell might be starting to get the attention her rich life, first-rate writing, and broad work as an ethnomusicologist deserve.
Arrival film

Is Writing a Technology or a Language? Let’s Ask Some Aliens

Are written and spoken language really two different things? 
Lightning

Watch Out for Lightning

How did 300 reindeer in Norway die from a single lightning strike? 
First United States Labor Day Parade 1882, Union Square

A Labor Day Look at the Future of Work

If computers endanger the hard-won gains of the labor movement, do we need a new way of addressing tech-driven income inequality?
Extra Credit Suggested Readings from JSTOR Daily Editors

Suggested Readings: Hair Politics, Socialist Women, and Messages in the Stars

Extra Credit: Our pick of stories from around the web that bridge the gap between news and scholarship. 
Thomas Edison with lightbulb

Thomas Edison and the War of the Currents

Thomas Edison had a big stake in the AC/DC war of the currents and would say anything to win. 
Marie Antoinette hair

The Political Power of Marie Antoinette’s Hair

With the help of a French hairdresser, Marie Antoinette embarked on what initially appeared to be a happily fated alliance between the Habsburgs and the Bourbons.
Hazelton PA postcard

Could Immigration Save Middle America?

This election season has drawn enormous attention to the anxiety that many Americans in economically-distressed rural places seem ...
Cockroach milk illustration

Got (Cockroach) Milk?

Is cockroach milk the next hot super food?
Tintype portrait

Fast, Cheap, and Totally Popular: Tintypes

Tintypes were an early, accessible, cheap form of photography, just the thing for on-the-go Americans.