Woman pushing shopping trolley on red background, smiling, portrait

Free Wheeling: Shopping Carts and Culture

The invention of the shopping cart changed our purchasing patterns, but the way we use it also reflects how we live life on the streets.
An advertisement for Coca Cola from 1919

Extracting Coca-Cola: An Environmental History

In its early days, Coca-Cola established key relationships in the supply chain ranging from natural resources to pharmaceuticals to achieve market dominance.
The Griffin Sisters

The Griffin Sisters Helped Build Black Vaudeville

The sisters were not only a singing duo, they were successful businesswomen and advocates for Black-owned enterprises in the entertainment world.
Ice cutters

On the Rocks

Ice harvesters once made a living from frozen lakes and ponds, and the international ice industry was a booming business. Then refrigeration came along.
Michelin Guides

Wheely Good Reviews: How Michelin Forms Foodie Ideology

The French Michelin guide is an authoritative voice in the world of fine dining, but when it arrived on the American food scene, it was met with a chilly reception.
Exchange Coffee House, Boston

The First American Hotels

In the eighteenth century, if people in British North America had to travel, they stayed at public houses that were often just repurposed private homes.
McDonald's Japan Swing Manager Miwa Suzuki presents a box of McChoco Potato on January 25, 2016 in Tokyo, Japan

Fast and Pluribus: Impacts of a Globalizing McDonald’s

The expansion of McDonald’s in the twentieth century brought the fast food chain to more than 100 countries. But how well did it integrate into its new home(s)?
An image made by the FDA about nutritional labeling, 1990

Where Do Nutrition Labels Come From?

We all ponder them when standing in the cereal aisle of the grocery store, but why do we even have nutrition labels on our foods?
A collection of objects from the civil war

Patriotism and Consumerism in the Civil War

For a burgeoning consumer society, store-bought flags and bonnets offered proof that commercialism could go hand in hand with heartfelt emotion.
A butcher processes some meat at Vincents Meat Market on April 17, 2020, in Bronx, New York City

Zombies of the Slaughterhouse

The oppressions of Homo sapiens and other species in the US livestock industry aren’t distinct from one another—they’re mutually constitutive.