Percey Shelley holding some carrots

Percy Shelley: Trendsetting Vegetarian

The poet adopted a "Pythagorean" diet, which eliminated meat, and wrote that vegetarians would "no longer pine under the lethargy of ennui."
Collage of buttons

Message in a Button

A dive into the the University of Connecticut Pins and Button Collection gives a wearable history of progressive causes.
A man with a ham radio

Ham Radio and Gender Politics

During its heyday in the 1950s, ham radio was predominantly a hobby for middle-class men, based in suburban homes.
Martha Stewart, 2001

America’s Domestic Gurus Are Bad Girls

Why do the pages of shelter magazines for women seem so pristine? The answer is not what you think, according to one scholar.
The Dissolute Household by Jan Steen, ca. 1663-64

Drunk as a Lord? OK, if You’re a Lord

Where does class-based hypocrisy over substance use come from? Look to the seventeenth century.
Jack Smith, an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals and Del Gainer, a first baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals

How to Play Baseball in the 1920s

Swing for the bleachers with these awesome lantern slides from the early years of professional baseball.
Three young women in swimsuits, ca. 1920

Policing the Bodies of Women Athletes Is Nothing New

For women who play sports, there's often no way to win.
Women's fashion catalogue images from the 1930s

The Back-to-School Shopping Tradition in History

As more women went to college, department stores catered to them by setting up pop-up "college shops" every September.
OK Soda can

Sells Like Teen Spirit

OK Soda disappeared from the store shelves of the 1990s shortly after its debut. But did its wink-wink marketing to Gen X actually work?
https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.28033142

The Summer of Love Wasn’t All Peace and Hippies

Articles in the underground press capture what's missing from our romanticized memory of that fateful season.