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katrina gulliver

Katrina Gulliver

Katrina Gulliver is a historian and freelance writer. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and TIME.

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Continental Currency $20 banknote with marbled edge (May 10, 1775)
Business & Economics

Marbled Money

Marbled paper was a way to make banknotes and checks unique—a critical characteristic for a nascent American Republic.
An advertisement for Gale Borden Eagle brand condensed milk, 1887
Politics & History

The Sweet Story of Condensed Milk

This nineteenth-century industrial product became a military staple and a critical part of local food culture around the world.
Picture of Kerria lacca from the book, Indian Insect Life: a Manual of the Insects of the Plains by Harold Maxwell-Lefroy
Plants & Animals

As You Lakh It

How did an oleoresin produced by insects in Asia become a standard part of European furniture manufacture and conservation?
American Mink in Surrey, England.
Lifestyle

Take Back Your Mink

Could lab-grown fur be an ethical alternative to fur farming?
A woman kneels at the headstone in the Detroit Canine Cemetery in Michigan
Plants & Animals

An Epitaph for Fido

Pet cemeteries document how humans’ relationships with their pets—and their deaths—have evolved since the Victorian era.
The interior view of the North Pneumatic Tube Station of the Merchandise Building of the Sears Roebuck and Company Mail Order Plant, Chicago, IL
Science & Technology

Something Old, Something Pneu

Pneumatic tubes offered a leap forward in business and communications, in the office and across the city.
Kudzu taking over forest
Plants & Animals

Coming Up Kudzu

Employed as a symbol of the American South or used as shorthand for unchecked growth, kudzu has demonstrated a tenacity beyond all imagination.
Woman pushing shopping trolley on red background, smiling, portrait
Business

Free Wheeling: Shopping Carts and Culture

The invention of the shopping cart changed our purchasing patterns, but the way we use it also reflects how we live life on the streets.
Fruitlands in 1915
Politics & History

The Alcott Anarchist Experiment

The failures at Fruitlands showed that anarchist and vegetarian ideals weren’t enough to sustain a community—spiritually or nutritionally.
Many hands make light work of the washing up at Grasmere Youth Hostel in the Lake District, 1941
Lifestyle

Yay for the Youth Hostel!

In the early twentieth century, hostel organizations helped young people to get out into the country and travel independently—with a bit of overnight supervision.
Child's shoe discovered in a wall, probably put there to protect a child from evil spirits, Lancashire, 1704
Politics & History

Hidden Charms

Why is there a shoe in your wall?
A row of British women sitting under hairdryers in a Paris salon
Politics & History

A Short History of Hairdryers

The beauty parlor became a place of sociability for women in the twentieth century, partly aided by modern technology of hair drying.
Two women throwing hoops circa 1960
Education & Society

Reaching New Spiritual Heights Through Hula Hooping

The post-World War II hula hooping craze is back...and this time it's got religion.
A pedestrian uses the press-button system in order to cross the road in Croydon, London, 1932
Education & Society

Look Both Ways

With the arrival of the automobile, governments had to scramble to find ways to protect and control pedestrian use of the road.
Velcro tape on black background
Science & Technology

Versatile Velcro™

Velcro is used in many spaces, from spacecraft to shoes. A relatively recent invention, it was inspired by the close observation of nature.
League of Women Voters representatives gather around a table on a sidewalk while writing and mimeographing news releases to hand out at train stops en route to the Democratic Convention.
Politics & History

The League of Women Voters Takes On the Environment

Having won the right to vote, some suffragists moved on to fight water pollution and protect the environment.
A nurse bottle-feeding a baby at St Vincent's Hospital, Montclair, Mexico, 1955
Health

The Milk Banks of New York

Milk banks, a successor concept to wet nursing, are a little discussed part of the contemporary landscape of infant care.
Woman with a home pregnancy test
Health

Home Pregnancy Tests

Before the arrival of home pregnancy tests, women had to seek answers at the doctor’s office, which was costly, inconvenient, and potentially embarrassing.
Mod dancers
Education & Society

Owner of a Lonely Heart

Personal ads changed dating, but they also provided source material for sociologists and psychologists to understand how people choose mates.
Juvenile wild rabbit sitting next to its burrow.
Plants & Animals

Coney Money

Want to make some coin raising rabbits? Get yourself an island. Or not, if you want to protect the existing ecosystem.
A woman sunbather covers her face as she tans, June 1949 at Sea Island Resort, Georgia
Education & Society

The Meaning of Tanning

The popularity of tanning rose in the early twentieth century, when bronzed skin signaled a life of leisure, not labor.
Brown Bears Sitting Together
Plants & Animals

Celebrate World Bear Day!

The joy and concern we feel on World Bear Day perfectly represents our complicated—and sometimes contradictory—feelings about these massive mammals.
Manual knitting machine.
Politics & History

The Vermont Knitters

A major labor law dispute simmered for decades. At its center? Women being paid to do piecework on knitting machines in their homes.
An illustration of the case of Maria Elisabetha Beckensteinerin
Education & Society

Suicide by Proxy

In early Modern Europe, suicide was a sin to be punished with eternal damnation. Some women found an awful workaround: committing murder.
Low angle view of Ferris wheel against clear blue sky
Science & Technology

The Big Wheel

The Ferris wheel may not have been a new idea, but the revolving structure offered fun—from the fairgrounds to the classroom.

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