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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.

Tableau d'histoire naturelle Annelides, Crustaces, Arachnides, etc, 1834
Plants & Animals

Are Insects Capable of Moral Behavior?

Some 19th-century naturalists believed that bugs could think and should therefore definitely know that biting is out of line.
Pop art style comics panel angry woman grinding teeth with speech bubble and swear words symbols
Education & Society

The Theory of Cuss Word Relativity

Which words are considered taboo varies by place and time, scholars find.
Native Hawaiian schoolchildren around 1900.
Education

How Public Schools “Americanized” Hawai‘i

Colonial education administrators recruited teachers from the mainland, but soon realized another strategy was in order.
Black and white drawing of settlers in South Carolina in 1670
Politics & History

How Conservation Is Shaped by Settler Colonialism

The legal concept of "terra nullius"—meaning "no one's land"—influenced European colonialism and continues to shape the practice of conservation.
Shakyamuni Buddha with Avadana Legend Scenes
Education & Society

How Comparative Religion Took Root in the 19th Century

Many Americans considered faiths outside Christianity and Judaism to be "pagan." Unitarian minister James Freeman Clarke argued otherwise.
An advertisement for Schlitz Beer, 1967
Business

Selling Hedonism in Postwar America

The hedonism of American consumer culture is the result of deliberate efforts by mid-twentieth century marketing experts.
A fallout shelter
Politics & History

The D-I-Y Fallout Shelter

In the 1950s and 1960s, families planning for the apocalypse often took a homespun approach.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Politics & History

Why Were There Still Stories of Blackface in 2019?

One of the minor themes of 2019 was the revelation that various prominent white politicians had once worn blackface. The question is: why?
Medieval depiction of Caesarian birth
Health

How Medieval Surgeons Shaped Sex and Gender

Our ideas about surgically “correcting” intersex conditions go back to a shift in the profession of surgery seven centuries ago.
1971 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Ambulance
Health

When Ambulances Were Hearses

The federal government pushed the improvement of emergency services from several directions in the 60s and 70s.
A women's hockey team, 1931
Politics & History

A Century Ago, Women Played Ice Hockey

Ice hockey came to the U.S. from Canada at the end of the nineteenth century. Women started playing immediately, forming their own clubs.
Scholars attending a lecture in the Ashmolean Museum
Politics & History

The Invention of the Archive

Seventeenth-century scholars were horrified by how much ancient knowledge had been lost when the monasteries dispersed.
Luther at the Diet of Worms by Anton von Werner
Education & Society

Ok papist

England faced a generational divide almost 500 years ago, as the Protestant Reformation split the nation apart.
Oil refinery
Business & Economics

What Comes After Oil Culture?

Almost everything about our culture today is built on oil. Can we imagine a world built on a different energy infrastructure?
Elsie the Cow
Business

Who Was Elsie, besides the World’s Most Famous Cow?

In the Great Depression, Borden sought a new spokescow to help preserve its traditional agrarian image.
Buster Keaton, Margaret Leahy and Wallace Beery in a scene from The Three Ages, 1923
Politics & History

The Truth about “Caveman Courtship”

Cartoon stories about early humans bear a striking resemblance to many popular uses of evolutionary psychology today.
A person's hands wrapping Christmas gifts
Business

Only You Can Prevent Useless Gifts

Is it time for a revival of the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving (SPUG)?
An overhead view of a book store
Business

Why We Love Local Businesses

The explanation may have to do with the gift economy.
Vintage Portrait of two Babies in an Old Fashioned Antique Baby Carriage Buggy
Politics & History

This Isn’t the First Baby Bust

And it's unlikely to be the last. One scholar looks at the factors that contributed to the increase in childlessness at the turn of the twentieth century.
A classroom of young women
Education

The End of Men, in 1870

In 1790, U.S. men were about twice as likely as U.S. women to be literate. But by 1870, girls were surpassing boys in public schools.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cole_Thomas_The_Course_of_Empire_Destruction_1836.jpg
Business & Economics

A Nation in Decline, as Always

What does it really mean for a nation to be “in decline?” And why does it make for such appealing political rhetoric?
A climate protest
Education & Society

How to Sell Climate Denial

Climategate began with the leaking of emails sent to and from climate scientists. Climate skeptics quickly seized on just a few of them
Lysol advertisement from the March 1918 issue of Good Housekeeping via via Flickr 1918 Good Housekeeping Ad recommended Lysol to fight the typhoid epidemic.
Business

Good Housekeeping Treated Advertisers as Health Experts

Good Housekeeping set itself up as a source of authoritative advice, but included ads for “health” products known to be harmful.
Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen looking into an X-ray screen placed in front of a man's body and seeing the ribs and the bones of the arm.
Politics & History

The X-ray Craze of 1896

For many science-obsessed Victorians, X-rays were not just a fun novelty, but a potential miracle cure.
A can of mock turtle soup
Education & Society

The Real Joy of Mock Food

"Wow, this really kind of tastes like turkey.”

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