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.
In the early 19th century, mulberry trees became associated with economic prosperity and morally upright productiveness, leading to a speculative bubble.
What could be more American than a sugary soda mixed with a liquor made from sugar? The origins of rum and Coke is more problematic than you might expect.
In 1919, armed posses and federal troops killed as many as one hundred African-Americans in one of the worst instances of mass violence in U.S. history.
Early credit reporting companies urged people to “Treat their credit as a sacred trust” and argued that keeping a good credit record was a moral concern.
Today, economists tend to see anything that boosts consumption and production as a good thing. But that was decidedly not the case in earlier centuries.
