The King of Mail-Order Muscles
Flab, begone! Earle Edwin Liederman wanted men to learn his vaudeville-strongman secrets—for a not-so-low price.
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.
Indigenismo in the United States
The adoption of Aztec cultural iconography by modern activists has roots in Mexican nationalist policies of the 1920s.
Knights and Kings: Medieval Chess as Male Bonding
Scholar Jenny Adams examines the homosocial facets of the game through literature of the Middle Ages.
Whence the White Horse of Uffington?
A white horse of chalk both defines and defies a common understanding of what English heritage is, and is not.
How Wet-Nursing Stoked Class Tensions
“[N]o man can justly doubt, that a childs mind is answerable to his nurses milk and manners.”
Sex Panic at the Department Store
Were shopgirls selling more than scents at the perfume counter? Three investigators were determined to find out.
The Hidden History of Biology Textbooks
American biology textbooks supposedly became less scientific after the Scopes trial. One scholar argues that this isn't the whole story.
The Ugly History of Chicago’s “Ugly Law”
In the nineteenth century, laws in many parts of the country prohibited "undeserving" disabled people from appearing in public.