A chemist examining a flask of urine

Early Doctors Diagnosed Disease by Looking at Urine

When uroscopy became trendy, it caused a minor scandal within the early medical profession.
Manual knitting machine.

The Vermont Knitters

A major labor law dispute simmered for decades. At its center? Women being paid to do piecework on knitting machines in their homes.
A train yard in Montgomery, Alabama

The Ballad of Railroad Bill

The story of Morris Slater, aka Railroad Bill, prompts us to ask how the legend of the "American outlaw" changes when race is involved.
Fairy King and Queen, 1910

Building a Fairy Kingdom in Britain

Around the fourteenth century, folk and literary traditions concerning elves, demons, and other creatures coalesced into a unified fairy kingdom.

Railroad Chapel Cars Brought God to the People

Between 1890 and 1946, thirteen railroad chapel cars made their way across America, spreading a Christian message in rural communities.
A cattle roundup in Nevada, 1973, with a photoshopped UFO in the sky

The 1970s Cow Mutilation Mystery

When ranchers began reporting incidents of mutilated cattle, the ensuing panic fed both conspiracy theories and a growing cynicism about the government.
From the cover of NARP Newsletter, published by Native Alliance for Red Power, 1969

The Importance of Newspapers for the Red Power Movement

In the 1960s and 1970s, activists and organizers used Indian Country newspapers to cultivate a pan-Indigenous identity through a poetics of resistance.
Friedrich Nietzsche by Edvard Munch

The European MonEUlith: Nietzsche and Nationalism

What can Nietzche’s geophilosophical modes of thought offer us for understanding globalization in his time and pan-European politics today?
A poster made by Ghazal Foroutan

Was She Really Rosie?

The unlikely, true story of the Westinghouse “We Can Do It” work-incentive poster that became an international emblem of women’s empowerment.
Jade Snow Wong beside the cover of her book, Fifth Chinese Daughter

Jade Snow Wong’s Cold War World Tour

In 1953, the US Department of State sent ceramicist and author Constance Wong—known professionally as Jade Snow Wong—on a four-month goodwill tour of Asia.