A Brief History of Skis
Researchers tested various ski designs dating back 4,000 years to understand how human movement on snow has evolved.
What Retirees Can Learn from the RV Community
A look at the RV community, where retirees support one another in the face of illness, mechanical breakdowns, or sudden financial shortfalls.
What Amateur Cookbooks Reveal About History
Remember those spiral-bound cookbooks from your church group or your mom’s favorite charity? Those amateur recipe collections are history books, too.
5 Great Recipes from JSTOR
‘Tis the season for feasting and family traditions. And around here, that means digging into JSTOR’s digital library. ...
Popcorn: From Ancient Snack to Movie Standby
Popcorn is probably one of the oldest uses of the domesticated Mexican grass called teosinte, which has been cultivated as maiz for thousands of years.
The Age of the Bed Changed the Way We Sleep
One historian reconstructs what nighttime was like in early modern Europe, and how the darkness affected people's sleep patterns.
What Hippie Commune Cookbooks Reveal About Communal Living
The cookbooks of the communes of the 1960s and 1970s share the recipes and politics of the era, and still speak to us today about what we eat and why.
The Joy of Fasting
Fasting was once a religious endeavor. The idea that skipping meals could lead to improved health emerged around the turn of the twentieth century.
Frontier America in a Collection of Tin Cans
For Jim Rock, tin cans were as important as shards of ancient pottery. Each can told a story of nineteenth and twentieth century life in America.
The War on White Bread
In 1890, women baked more than 80 percent of the nation’s bread at home, and it was brown, non-standardized stuff. When did it become white?