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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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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.
A man eating oysters with gusto on the cover of the musical score for 'Bonne Bouche', a polka by Emile Waldteufel, c. 1850
Politics & History

Oyster Pirates in the San Francisco Bay

Once a key element in Native economies of the region, clams and oysters became a reliable source of free protein for working-class and poor urban dwellers.

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