Oscar Wilde’s Pamphlet: “Children in Prison and Other Cruelties of Prison Life”
Wilde's description is heart-wrenching, but that doesn't hold him back from the usual wit and drama that characterize his writing.
The Columbian Exchange Should Be Called The Columbian Extraction
Europeans were eager to absorb the starches and flavors pioneered by the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere.
Why the Dakota Only Traded among People with Kinship Bonds
“Trapping was not a ‘business for profit’ among the Dakota but primarily a social exchange,” one scholar writes.
When Botany Was for Ladies
In nineteenth century America, young women took to studying botany—a conjoining of interest, social acceptance, and readily available schooling.
How the Ban on Medical Advertising Hurt Women Doctors
Intended to protect consumers from unscrupulous quackery, a nineteenth-century ban on medical advertising proved to be a double-edged sword.
Industrial London’s Maternal Child Abductors
In industrial-era England, children took on new value in family life. Around this time, they started to be stolen more often, too.
The Invention of Sibling Rivalry
Sibling jealousy feels like a universal problem, but most parenting experts didn't even acknowledge it until the early 20th century.
The Genderless Eighteenth-Century Prophet
In 1776, a 24-year-old Quaker woman named Jemima Wilkinson died of fever, and came back to life as a prophet known as the Publick Universal Friend.
Speaking for Rural America, 100 Years Ago
In the early 20th century, the Country Life Movement tried to make rural life appeal to women. But it ignored many truths about farms and women alike.
Satan, the Radical
There is a long history of leftist thinkers embracing Satan, usually just as a way to shake up political rhetoric.