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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.

Professor in front of class

How One Group of Teachers Defended Academic Freedom

The opposition to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1950s San Francisco may offer insight on strategies for supporting academic freedom.
Bird's Eye frozen meals

The Evolution of Convenience Food in America

Meal kits signal a change in the way we cook, but this is nothing compared with how frozen food disrupted the American kitchen in the mid-20th century.
Edvard Munch's "Anxiety"

How Anxiety Got Rebranded As Depression

Depression diagnoses have skyrocketed over the past 50 years, but not necessarily as result of underlying changes in our mental health.
Catholic school building

School Choice Since 1800

Donald Trump is putting forward a plan to massively increase the use of public money to pay students’ ...
Soldier reading newspaper

When Did the Media Become a “Watchdog?”

The media changed its coverage over the course of the Vietnam War. But it may not have become more adversarial.
Japanese American school children

Lessons From a Japanese Internment Camp

Trump ally Carl Higbie recently cited Japanese internment camps during World War II as a “precedent” for a proposed registry of Muslims in the U.S.
Gem Chimney ad

Can Advertising Be a Science?

Advertisers have been trying to develop a precise science of advertising for more than a century.
Nixon and JFK

Should Nixon Have Demanded a Recount?

A lot about the 2016 presidential election has been unprecedented, but this isn’t the first time we’ve seen calls for recounts in some states.
toy train

Why We Give Children Toys for Christmas

Giving children toys for Christmas first became a thing in early nineteenth century England.
Civil Rights Marchers

Does Street Protest Matter?

Americans have turned to street protests to achieve their political goals—while critics have warned that this kind of public action won’t change anything.
University of Virginia

Should the Government Pay for a Classical University Education?

Questions about what sorts of higher education the government should pay for are nothing new.
Nineteenth century British periodicals

Nineteenth-Century Clickbait

Online publications that offer clickbait and easy entertainment mirror some of the most popular nineteenth century British magazines.
credit card decals

A Brief History of the Credit Card

For now-ubiquitous consumer credit cards, bad early results had a hidden benefit.
Sheet music from Barnum's Baby Shows

Babies on Display

In the mid- to late nineteenth century, people showed off their infants at baby shows.
Ayuba Suleiman Diallo

The Lost History of Early Muslim Americans

 Islam in America is clearly nothing new.
Martha Stewart and Snoop Dog

Snoop Dogg, Martha Stewart, and Whiteness

Martha Stewart has a new show with Snoop Dogg, premiering November 7 on VH1.
voter fraud

Creating the Voter Fraud Myth

Although in-person voter fraud is close to nonexistent, it’s a big concern for many voters.
Andrew Carnegie

The Social Responsibility of American Industrialists

In the 1890s, the first public relations professionals began advising the wealthy on how to use philanthropy to placate the public. 
Chick Tract

Chick Tracts and the Culture Wars

Jack Chick has been called the “most widely read theologian in history.” His Chick tracts have circulated for years. He was also vehemently anti-Catholic.
scared kid

How Scary is Too Scary?

Halloween poses questions for parents, like how scary is too scary for their kids? The answer depends on when we ask the question.
Business woman

The Businesswomen of Early Twentieth Century America

Women's roles in the business world partly depended on their status as consumers in the early twentieth century.
soap carving

When Corporations Co-opt Crafts

Procter & Gamble made its industrially produced soap the basis for a revival of an ancient craft, leading to a huge fad for soap carving.
Trump Tower

Do Corporate Leaders Need to Pay Taxes?

Donald Trump’s claim that he had a fiduciary duty to minimize his taxes has sparked a conversation about business ethics. Are CEOs obligated to avoid taxes?
Polish refugees

Refugees Have Always Made Americans Nervous

What happens when a big stream of refugees enters an American community, bringing their foreign customs and values and taking scarce jobs?
Strikers fight police in Minneapolis, c. 1934

The Checkered History of Colleges, Unions, and Scabs

In the early twentieth-century, some aristocratic college men were eager to prove their masculinity by working as strikebreakers.