A railroad worker enjoys a sandwich and bottle of milk during his lunch break, circa 1950

Mother’s—and Others’—Milk

Said to bestow strength and beauty, to purify body and soul, and to yield success and happiness, milk’s image is as adulterated as the liquid itself.
“The Obscene M.D.” Colored lithograph. Morality of Modern Medicine Mongers. British College of Health, 1852.

Putting an End to Obscene Quackery

When medical professionals joined anti-vice campaigners to censor publications about sex in the 1800s, they found themselves wielding a double-edged sword.
The cover image from Ghost stories and phantom fancies, 1858

Class and Superstition in Britain

Believing in ghosts wasn’t a class marker until the 1820s, when suddenly the educated classes tried to convince the masses that these apparitions were delusions.
Five views of the eagle diamond

Shine On You Eagle Diamond

The year 1893 was a big one for Eagle, Wisconsin. Workers found a huge diamond on the Devereaux farm: sixteen carats, uncut, and now, all these years later, missing.
Charles Nelson of Hoxton in East London has been working as a 'knocker-up' for 25 years. He wakes up early morning workers such as doctors, market traders and drivers.

Who and What Was a Knocker-Upper?

Pour one out for the people paid to rouse the workers of industrial Britain.
An illustration of Dublin with a fleet of medieval ships above it in the sky

Ireland’s Upper Sea

In medieval Ireland, ships that sailed across the sky were both marvelous and mundane.
Mary and Carl Bach

The Gruesome History of Ohio’s “Fingers in the Jar”

Three of Mary Bach’s fingers, hacked off by her murderous husband in 1881, were displayed in a jar for more than a century in Bowling Green, Ohio.
Leukerbad, Switzerland

Madness on the Wind

The eerie effects of the Foehn—folklore or fact?
Four operators connect calls while working at a switchboard.

Hold the Line

As telephony developed, so did a workforce of switchboard operators—all women—who were ultimately rendered obsolete by technological progress.
An illustration of pollen and dust in the atmosphere from Popular Science Monthly, 1883

The Mystery of Crime-Scene Dust

In the late nineteenth century, forensic investigators began using new technologies to study minute details—such as the arrangement and makeup of dust.