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.
Empty cable cars hang over a ski slope that has had to be closed because of a lack of snow, on January 30, 2020 in Minamiuonuma, Japan.

Ski Resorts and Climate Change

The effects of climate change are already being felt by some ski resorts, but filling in the slopes with artificial snow may not be a good solution.
Tiger Woods of the United States plays his shot from the 15th tee during the final round of the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club on November 15, 2020 in Augusta, Georgia.

What Happens to Brands When Celebrity Endorsers Are ‘Canceled?’

Take the case of Tiger Woods’ whose reputation took a nosedive after his many affairs came to light in November 2009.
Sitdown strikers in the Fisher body plant factory number three. Flint, Michigan, 1937

The Flint Sit-Down Strike, From the Inside

Americans in "The Great Resignation" and "Strikevember" are the heirs of the 1936-1937 sit-down strike by auto workers in Flint, Michigan.
Walmart employee Clara Martinez stocks the shelves at a Walmart store on February 19, 2015 in Miami, Florida.

How Retail Sales Became “Unskilled” Work

There's a big difference between how salespeople in traditional department stores and big-box retailers interact with their customers.
This statue in front of US Steel's Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock, PA depicts Joe Magarac, a mythical steelworker deriving from local legend.

Joe Magarac, a Boss’s Idea of a Folk Hero?

The Paul Bunyan of the steel industry never went on strike. He was too tied up working the twenty-four-hour shifts that unions were fighting.
An advertisement for Eagle Pencil Co's fine arts lead pencils, c. 1870-1900

Why You’ll Never Get Lead Poisoning from a Pencil

Some of the greatest moments in international pencil history involve discoveries of a different mineral.