Richard Wright

Richard Wright Helped Bring Mental Healthcare to Harlem

The famous novelist worked to fight the psychological cost of black oppression.
Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo by Richard Samuel

The Bluestockings

Meet the original Bluestockings, a group of women intellectuals. Their name would eventually become a misogynist epithet -- but it didn't start that way.
Gregory Peck and Mary Badham review the script for the film, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' directed by Robert Mulligan.

Defying the Gender Binary in the 1930s

In the 1930s, experimental psychologist Agnes Landis interviewed women who identified as "tomboys."
Diane Keaton in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, 1977

“No Unescorted Ladies Will Be Served”

For decades, bars excluded single women, claiming the crowds were too “rough” and “boisterous” and citing vague fears of “fallen girls.”
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_African_American_women,_three-quarter_length_portrait,_seated,_facing_each_other_LCCN99472087.tif

Searching for Black Queer History in Sensational Newspapers

Sometimes finding the stories of marginalized populations demands reading between the lines.
Two waitresses at Kate Cranston's Willow Tea Room

The Top-Secret Feminist History of Tea Rooms

Nearly all American tea rooms were owned by women. They often opened up rooms in their homes or set up tables in their gardens.
A county fair in Shelbyville, KY

Judging Families at the State Fair

"Better Baby Contests" began as part of the Progressive Era push to improve children’s health and reduce infant mortality. Then eugenicists got involved.
Walter Rauschenbusch

When Christian Evangelicals Loved Socialism

At the turn of the twentieth century, American Christian evangelicals, led by Pastor Walter Rauschenbusch, were at the forefront of socialism.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at Duke University on November 13, 1964

Colleges’ Reluctant Embrace of MLK Day

The push for a national Martin Luther King holiday prompted a fierce political tug-of-war, on campus and off.
Volunteer nurses tending to the sick and wounded.

When Death Was Women’s Business

In the 19th century, women called "watchers" tended to the dying and the dead.