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.
A Parisian evening gown

Can You Copyright a Dress?

Fashion houses in 1920s Paris used copyright laws to protect their designs. In New York, not so much.
Lyman Stewart and his family

Lyman Stewart: Fundamentalist and Oligarch

American oilman Lyman Stewart embodied the uniquely American paradoxes of what would become capitalist Christian fundamentalism and the prosperity gospel.
Betty White in the audience at the 39th AFI Life Achievement Award honoring Morgan Freeman held at Sony Pictures Studios on June 9, 2011 in Culver City, California.

How Consumers Cope With Celebrity Deaths

The sale of celebrity memorabilia increases in the weeks following their death.
An advertisement for steel

Making Steel All Shiny and New

When it seemed that steel had lost its gleam with American consumers, the industry turned to marketing to make it shine again.