Pancho Barnes and the Powder Puff Derby at Long Beach, California circa 1930-1931

1929 Women’s Air Derby Changed Views On Women Pilots

Women pilots were seen as oddities, opportunists, and "too scatterbrained" to fly. The 1929 All-Woman Air Race set out to change that.
Women speaking outside with an open book

Women Nerds!

This Women's History Month, take a minute to bow down to the women of Nerdlandia.
Police officers gather as the body of NYPD officer Wilbert Mora is transferred in an ambulance from NYU Langone Hospital to a Medical Examiner's office at the same location on January 25, 2022 in New York City.

Crime Waves and Moral Panics

From train robberies to organized retail theft to murder, are we really gripped by a crime wave?
Four Immortals Saluting Longevity. T

The Trouble with Immortality

Stories about immortality are present in many cultures throughout time. How cultures perceive immortality—as a blessing or a curse—can differ widely.
Genealogical Chronological And Geographical Chart. Embracing Biblical And Profane History Of Ancient Times From Adam To Christ, 1887

Where Did Family-Bible Genealogies Come From?

Royal lineage tracing, British laws of inheritance, and patriarchal Protestantism all contributed to the genealogical literacy of some Americans.
An illustration from The surprising adventures of a female husband! by Henry Fielding

The Female Husband is So Eighteenth Century

Henry Fielding's novel, a fictional account of the life of Charles Hamilton, conflates vagrancy with sexual, gender, and religious deviance.
Source: https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/ids:4589524

When Harvard Students Couldn’t Get Warm

The early heating systems of New England kept Harvard students cold until the early twentieth century.
Women from various districts are seen near cut-outs of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally held by Modi on December 21, 2021 in Allahabad, India.

Why Narendra Modi Presents Himself as a Guru

Drawing on traditions of monastic power, Modi’s party is trying to promote the image of India as a vishwaguru, or teacher to the world.
Animal magnetism

Mesmerizing Labor

The man who introduced mesmerism to the US was a slave-owner from Guadeloupe, where planters were experimenting with “magnetizing” their enslaved people.
The Actor Arashi Wakano as a wakashu in a kappa (raincoat)

The Disappearance of Japan’s “Third Gender”

Gender roles in Edo Japan recognized an in-between position for young men, called Wakashu, that was erased as Japan westernized.