Lillian Smith, noted author and lecturer, congratulating Mrs. Mabel Keaton Staupers, winner of the 36th Springarn medal, for outstanding work in the integration of African American nurses into the American nursing profession

The Black Nurse Who Drove Integration of the U.S. Nurse Corps

In World War II, Mabel Keaton Staupers tirelessly fought for the integration of the Army and Navy Nurse Corps—and eventually won.
A graduate nurse and student nurses in isolation uniforms, early 1900s

Nurses Have Always Been Heroes

Nothing drives that home more than this amazing photo collection from the Philadelphia General Hospital School of Nursing.
Girls' Beating the Bounds' at a fence near St Albans in Hertfordshire, 1913

“Beating the Bounds”

How did people find out where their local boundaries were before there were reliable maps?
A Canada Goose

Has the U.S. Government Abandoned Birds?

Recent changes to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 leave birds vulnerable to industry, experts say.
WPA bookmobile

How Reading Got Farm Women Through the Depression

They worked over sixty hours a week but were also insatiable readers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin attend an inauguration ceremony for Putin May 7, 2000 in the Kremlin in Moscow.

Was Russia Destined to Be an Autocracy?

The most important factors that steered Russia away from democracy, says one scholar, weren't inevitable.
Plague column in Vienna, Austria

How to Memorialize a Plague

Vienna's baroque Plague Column, completed in 1693, gave thanks for the survival of a city.
A man with well-groomed hair

Why Some Men Go to Salons for Haircuts

The difference between a clipper cut at the barber shop and "pampering" at the salon has roots in gender ideology and class structure.
Shayla Lawson

Shayla Lawson: All of Us Came from the Same Root

The poet and essayist Shayla Lawson, author of This Is Major, talks about the meaning of race, Black History Month, and her love for Lizzo.
Two young children holding placard which reads "Are we men or mices? We won't pay these prices" at a demonstration in Harlem between the 116th and the 125th to protest against housing conditions and rent price, New York City, US, July 1946.

Rent Strikes Aren’t Just About Rent

A wave of rent strikes in the 1960s showed that poor residents of New York City had deep concerns about housing. The media, however, focused on big rats.