The Rise and Fall of the Liberty Cap
What happened to the revolutionary headgear that symbolized freedom from enslavement? Meet the sectional politics of the early republic.
When Paper Was Fashion’s Favorite Material
It's hip, it's happening, it's wow, it's now, it's gone: RIP the paper dress, 1966–1968.
The Zoot Suit Riots Were Race Riots
In 1943, white servicemen attacked young people of color for wearing the ultimate in street style—on the pretext that they were shirking wartime duty.
How Gay Marielitos Changed Immigration
In 1980, the policy of denying entry into the US based on homosexuality ran smack into anticommunism.
On the Origins of the Blood Libel
The ultimate conspiracy theory may be the charge of Jews killing Christian children.
Teaching Black Women’s Self-Care during Jim Crow
Maryrose Reeves Allen founded a wellness program at Howard University in 1925 that emphasized the physical, mental, and spiritual health of Black women.
Indigenismo in the United States
The adoption of Aztec cultural iconography by modern activists has roots in Mexican nationalist policies of the 1920s.
Venus of the Sewers
The Roman sewer, the Cloaca Maxima, was presided over by a goddess whose shrine stood near the Forum.
Parker Pillsbury, Nineteenth-Century Male Feminist
Abolitionists like the New Hampshire native believed that masculinity required self-control, setting them against violent enslavers.