The Drama of Point d’Alençon Needle Lace
In its heyday, lace was beautiful, expensive, and handmade. Naturally, lace smuggling became the stuff of legend.
NOW and the Displaced Homemaker
In the 1970s, NOW began to ask hard questions about the women who were no longer "homemakers", displaced from the only role they were thought to need.
The Nation of Islam’s Role in US Prisons
The Nation of Islam is controversial. Its practical purposes for incarcerated people transcend both politics and religion.
COVID-19 and Justice for Food Workers
The COVID-19 pandemic put food workers in danger of contracting infections, with few, if any, consequences for the industries' failures to protect them.
Julia C. Collins & the Black Elite of the Gilded Age
HBO's The Gilded Age has done its homework on Black History, creating a character based upon real life wealthy Black women of the time.
The Foundations of Chicana Feminism
The Chicana feminist movement was initially met with resistance from within, and racism from without.
The Invention of Incarceration
Prisons have been controversial since their beginnings in the late 1700s — why do they keep failing to live up to expectations?
St. Patrick’s Day in Prison
Offhand references to St. Patrick’s Day showcase broader humor, humanity, and history in the American Prison Newspapers collection.
Mass Incarceration: A Syllabus
This selection of stories focuses on prison and mass incarceration in the US, which has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world.
Beware the Ides of March. (But Why?)
Everybody remembers that the Ides of March was the day Julius Caesar was assassinated. But what does it mean, and why that day?