How Blackboards Transformed American Education
Looking at the history of U.S. education, Steven D. Krause argues that that most transformative piece of technology in the classroom was the blackboard.
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.
Did Aviation Anxiety End the Era of Kid-Friendly Airports?
Despite intensifying concerns over security, airports play a vital role in teaching children about the interconnected world in which we live.
It’s a Yeti! It’s an Abominable Snowman! It’s a… Bear?
A group of scientists from Buffalo tried to definitively prove whether or not the Yeti exists, examining DNA from a variety of hair and tooth samples.
The Cooking Classes that Americanized Jewish Immigrants
At the end of the 19th century, a Wisconsin woman named Elizabeth “Lizzie” Black Kander tried to help immigrants assimilate, through the food they ate.
What Counts as Natural Athleticism?
Regulations banning performance-enhancing drugs raise as many questions as they answer.
How Native Americans Taught Both Assimilation and Resistance at Indian Schools
In the nineteenth century, many Native American children attended “Indian schools” designed to blot out Native cultures in favor of Anglo assimilation.
Gabrielle Berlinger
An interview with scholar and folklorist Gabrielle Berlinger, a professor of American Studies at the University of North Caroline Chapel Hill.
5 Great Recipes from JSTOR
‘Tis the season for feasting and family traditions. And around here, that means digging into JSTOR’s digital library. ...
The Godless Sex Radicals of the Kansas Plains
One of the biggest trends in American religious beliefs today is the rise of the “nones." In the 1880s, they might have called themselves freethinkers.