Mary Ellen Wilson

Origins of Child Protection

Legend has it that the campaign to save abused children in New York was driven by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The truth is more complicated.
From the cover of the September, 1990 issue of The Angolite, a newspaper published by the inmates of Louisiana State Penitentiary

The Fatal Current: Electrocution as Progress? 

The electric chair was promoted as civilized and at the same time imbued with the technological sublime, the mystery of electrical power harnessed by humans.
Mesa Verde National Park

Why Did They Leave the Pueblos?

The Ancestral Puebloans were driven from their homes in the American Southwest by a combination of factors rather than a single cause.
An 1879 Poster for Murphy & MacDonough's all-child production of H.M.S. Pinafore featuring a group of children rowing a boat

Topsy-Turvy: Children in Adult Roles

The number of children acting like adults on stage reflects how conflicted nineteenth-century Anglo-Americans were about the definition of childhood.
Pictorial Map of the American Continent Following the Pan American Highway, c. 1930

The Highway and the Gap

The Pan-American Highway began a century ago with a vision of unfettered motor-vehicle access between Alaska and Tierra del Fuego. What happened to the dream?
J. Edgar Hoover, 1932

The FBI and the Madams

J. Edgar Hoover saw the political effectiveness of cracking down on elite brothel madams—but not their clients—in New York City.
An alchemist in his laboratory. Oil painting by a follower of David Teniers the younger.

When Did Alchemy End?

Despite royal prohibition, transmutation efforts continued underground long after the widely accepted dates for their demise.
Psychic researcher Harry Price X-raying a sealed box which once belonged to religious prophetess Joanna Southcott with his assistant, August 1938

Ghosts of Landed Gentry, But Never the Ghosts of Serfs

Psychical researcher Harry Price combined the power of academic language with a cultural identity crisis to build a reputation as a “scientific” ghost-hunter.
Benito Mussolini on a visit to inspect Italian troops in a North African battle zone, 1942

Mussolini’s Colonial Inspiration

In its plans for the conquest of Eastern Europe, the Third Reich looked to the example set in Africa by Fascist Italy.
A poster used in Japan to attract immigrants to Brazil. It reads: "Let's go to South America (Brazil highlighted) with families."

Asian South America

The migration of Asian people—from India, from China, from Japan—to South America and the Caribbean began as early as the sixteenth century.