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Black and white headshot of author Livia Gershon

Livia Gershon

Livia Gershon is a freelance writer in Nashua, New Hampshire. Her writing has appeared in publications including Salon, Aeon Magazine and the Good Men Project. Contact her on Twitter @liviagershon.

Physician letting blood from a man's arm
Health

How Physicians Became Scientists

The introduction of formal peer review to journals aided medical doctors in their quest to bring more scientific rigor to their field.
Percey Shelley holding some carrots
Education & Society

Percy Shelley: Trendsetting Vegetarian

The poet adopted a "Pythagorean" diet, which eliminated meat, and wrote that vegetarians would "no longer pine under the lethargy of ennui."
Andean ritual with coca leaves
Plants & Animals

What Coca Means in Peru

Coca has a long history of use in Peru: for sacred ritual, economic productivity, courtship and celebration of life events.
Spring desert wildflowers in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, CA
Politics & History

Making the (California) Desert Bloom

The question of Zionism in post World War II America did not have a single answer. One group proposed bringing agriculture to the California desert instead.
FNV headquarters occupied by sympathizers of the British mine strikers; the police remove the activists
Politics & History

How LGBTQ Groups Supported Striking Miners vs. Thatcher

During a national miners strike, LGBT activists became unexpected allies, united against the Thatcher government.
Mayan zodiac circle
Politics & History

How the Maya Kept Time

Many scholars contrast linear and cyclical time and note that cycles were an important part of Maya concepts of temporal reality.
Johnny Cash on stage with his band, in concert at San Quentin State Prison, California, February 24th 1969.
Arts & Culture

The Radicalism of Johnny Cash

The best-selling musical artist in the world in 1969, Johnny Cash sang of (and for) the "forgotten Americans": the imprisoned men of all races.
Great Snow in 1717
Politics & History

The Snowy Winter that Devastated Colonial New England

For eleven days in February and March 1717, New England was hit with four major snowstorms. The devastation struck some as a sign from God.
From the Spring 1972 cover of Ms. Magazine
Arts & Culture

Ms. Magazine’s Tricky Relationship with Advertising

On the fiftieth anniversary of Ms. Magazine, a look back at how the publication managed advertising demands while maintaining its founding ethos.
A cover design for Annie on My Mind
Arts & Culture

Queer YA: The Early Decades

While queer YA has exploded over the past decade, it began in the middle of the 20th century, with the first kiss in 1969.
A British airship in flight above the British countryside set against a cloudy sky, 1918
Politics & History

Whatever Happened to Airships?

In moving away from fossil fuels, some in aviation are thinking of bringing back helium-assisted flight.
A group of high school students constructs basic measuring devices for testing air, water, noise, and radiation-pollution levels. c. 1972
Education

The Troubles with Tracking

Educators have been debating academic tracking since the early years of the public high school.
An illustration of a hand holding a set of hand cuffs
Politics & History

Let’s Talk About (Your) Crimes

Asking yourself about what you've "gotten away with" may change how you think about "criminals."
Acland servants in 1897 by Sarah Angelina Acland
Politics & History

Who Does the Drudge Work? Answers from Edwardian Britain

In 1909, Kathlyn Oliver called for the creation of a servants' trade union that was “as important to the community as the worker[s] in any other sphere."
Sitdown strikers in the Fisher body plant factory number three. Flint, Michigan, 1937
Business

The Flint Sit-Down Strike, From the Inside

Americans in "The Great Resignation" and "Strikevember" are the heirs of the 1936-1937 sit-down strike by auto workers in Flint, Michigan.
A rice farmer with a handcart in Pingtung County, Taiwan, circa 1965.
Politics & History

Reclaiming Rice in Taiwan

After World War II, the US ramped up international food aid, both as a Cold War strategy and as a way to distribute surplus products.
A Cheshire cat stuffed toy, from the permanent collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
Arts & Culture

A Brief History of Literary Cats

There’s nothing like curling up with a good book and a soft cat. Even better is a book with a cat in it.
Two devadesis in Chennai, India, in the 1920s.
Politics & History

How South Asian Temple Dancers Fought Moral Reform

Devadāsīs appealed to a longstanding tradition to argue that they had a legitimate position in their modernizing nation.
Carl Sagan holding a globe model of the planet Mars, 1970s.
Natural Science

Should We Go to Mars? Carl Sagan Had Thoughts

It'd be "a step more significant than the colonization of land by our amphibian ancestors some 500 million years ago." But Sagan had reservations.
An illustration of a dating app with Victorian women's photographs
Politics & History

The “Dating Apps” of Victorian England

They didn't have smartphones back then, but they still had personal ads.
Andrew Carnegie (left) and Melvil Dewey (right)
Education

When Melvil Dewey Pursued Andrew Carnegie’s Millions

A clash of library enthusiasts ended with a sexual harassment scandal.
A Man And Woman Showing Ink-Marked Finger And Voter Card in Calcutta, India
Politics & Government

Why Vote? Lessons from Indian Villages

The voters one scholar studied didn't necessarily think they would benefit materially from being on the winning side. But turnout was over 90 percent.
Tobacco sharecropper's wife cleaning up table after washing breakfast dishes. Person County, North Carolina, 1939, by Dorothea Lange
Politics & History

How the New Deal Documented Southern Food Cultures

Photographers and writers hired by the US government presented the foodways of the South to a wide audience.
The Illustrated Police News, November 17, 1888
Politics & History

How Crime Stories Foiled Reform in Victorian Britain

Harsh punishments were declining in the nineteenth century. Then came sensationalist news coverage of a reputed crime wave.
A demon beneath the foot of St. Michael
Education & Society

Where Demons Come From

They're Satan's minions, no?

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