The CIA logo over a Jackson Pollock painting

Was Modern Art Really a CIA Psy-Op?

The number of MoMA-CIA crossovers is highly suspicious, to say the least.
The Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Brullov

Pompeii Mania in the Era of Romanticism

Nothing appealed more perfectly to the Romantic sensibility than the mix of horror and awe evoked by a volcano erupting.
Trinidad-born journalist and activist Claudia Jones at the offices of The West Indian Gazette in 1962. Jones joined the Communist Party in 1936

Why Black Women Joined the Communist Party

During the Great Depression, Communists took to the streets to fight racism, poverty, and injustice. Among them were Black women.
Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C., during the great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 - 1919

Surviving a Pandemic, in 1918

A century ago, Catholic nuns from Philadelphia recalled what it was like to tend to the needy and the sick during the great influenza pandemic of 1918.
People wearing latex gloves while food shopping in Merrick, NY, March 17, 2020

Could Foreign Policy Stop Another Pandemic?

Diseases know no borders. International cooperation and solidarity, say scholars, are as essential as funding.
An advertisement for Teenform Bras

How Training Bras Constructed American Girlhood

In the twentieth century, advertisements for a new type of garment for preteen girls sought to define the femininity they sold.
The location of the Earth encircled by the celestial circles, 1661

The Protestant Astrology of Early American Almanacs

The wildly popular books helped people understand farming and health through the movement of the planets, in a way compatible with Protestantism.
William Cheselden giving an anatomical demonstration to six spectators in the anatomy-theatre of the Barber-Surgeons' Company, London, c. 1730

The Study of Human Anatomy and the Corpses of Vienna

For cultural and geographical reasons, the city was a great place to find bodies to dissect. But there was also the matter of one well-connected doctor.
View from Balcony of Woman's Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893

The World’s Fair That Ignored More Than Half the World

The spectacle of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 was unrivaled in its time. But it hardly represented the "world" of women and African-Americans.
Three issues of Freedomways

African-American Journal Freedomways on JSTOR

Ninety-eight issues of the influential journal are part of the open access, “Independent Voices” collection from Reveal Digital. Scholars of Black history, take note.