From One-Third of a Nation

The Living Newspaper Speaks

Scripted from front-page news, the Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspaper plays were part entertainment, part protest, and entirely educational.
T.S. Eliot and Groucho Marx

All Male Cats Are Named Tom: Or, the Uneasy Symbiosis between T. S. Eliot and Groucho Marx

Class and religious differences, among other factors, thwarted the would-be friendship between two cultural titans, suggesting opposites attract, but may not adhere.
Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch

From Screaming to Singing

How one German choir changed the way we think about, practice, and perform choral music.
Dance marathon, April 20, 1923

Dance Marathons

In the early twentieth century, dance marathons were an entire industry—and a surprisingly hazardous business.
Rose Levere

The Many Afterlives of Rose Levere

Thespian, lawyer, Freemason, spiritualist, and much more, Levere tackled one frontier after another, determined to show the public just what she could do.
Denée Benton as Peggy Scott on The Gilded Age

Julia C. Collins & the Black Elite of the Gilded Age

HBO's The Gilded Age has done its homework on Black History, creating a character based upon real life wealthy Black women of the time.
Sammy Davis Jr, wearing a Beatles t-shirt, performs on stage at The Talk of The Town in London, England in 1967

Sammy Davis Jr.’s Conversion Mishegoss

Sammy Davis Jr.'s conversion to Judaism in 1960 was met with skepticism, derision, and, yes, jokes by the members of the groups he claimed and embraced.
Somebody stealing a speech bubble from another person

Policing Joke Theft

Joke theft: it's a serious matter.
Actors Dennis Morgan and Betty Furness rehearsing a kissing scene for their movie Mama Steps Out, 1937

The 1918 Flu Pandemic’s Impact on Movie Theaters

With WWI coming to end, 1918 should have been a good year for the movies. Then along came influenza.