The Debtor’s Blues: Music and Forced Labor
Debt peonage is often associated with agricultural labor, but in the early twentieth century, Black musicians found themselves trapped in its exploitative cycle.
Négritude’s Enduring Legacy: Black Lives Matter
Today's anti-racist activism builds on the work of Black Francophone writers who founded the Pan-African Négritude movement in the 1930s.
Publishing Queer Berlin
Weimar Germany was an improbably safe space for newspapers and magazines by and for lesbians.
Reading Between the Lines of an “Americanization” Campaign
Manuals used to teach “American” ways of homemaking in California c. 1915–1920 offer a rare opportunity to hear the voices of Mexican immigrant women.
Fascist Architecture in Rome
In Mussolini's Rome, the built environment struck a balance between the romance of the ancient past and the rationalism of avant-garde modernism.
How Gender Got on the Menu
As women began to be welcomed into restaurants, some started catering to what they perceived as “female tastes,” largely meaning the sugary stuff
The Canary Islands: First Stop of Imperialism
Before the New World, Europeans arrived in the Canary Islands and set the model for the enslavements, genocides, and radical ecological transformations to come.
Segregation by Eminent Domain
The Fifth Amendment allows the government to buy private property for the public good. That public good was long considered the expansion of white neighborhoods.
90 Years On: The Destruction of the Institute of Sexual Science
In May 1933, Nazi-led student groups organized public burnings of "un-German" books, including those held in the library of the Institute for Sexual Science.
The Birth of the Modern American Military Hospital
The founding of Walter Reed General Hospital at the beginning of the twentieth century marked a shift in medical care for military personnel and veterans.