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.
Poor laws passed in Great Britain in the 1830s reversed a centuries-old tradition to forbid workhouses from serving roast beef and plum pudding at Christmas.
Taking a ship from Europe to the Americas in the early 1500s meant entering a world of cutting-edge applied technology and the mixing of social classes.
In the early twentieth century, folk music in Sweden was connected with right-wing nationalists, leaving a complicated inheritance for today’s music fans.
In the nineteenth century, Queen Ranavalona became a foil to Queen Victoria, her “savage” queenship held in contrast to that of the “civilized” female monarch.
As urban growth brought rich and poor Parisians closer together in the 1830s, masked balls encouraged class mixing and costumes that crossed gender lines.
In 1723, a group of enslaved African Americans petitioned the Bishop of London to ensure that their children could attend school and learn to read the Bible.
As the United States prepared to enter World War I, the government created the first modern state propaganda office, the Committee on Public Information.
Believing in ghosts wasn’t a class marker until the 1820s, when suddenly the educated classes tried to convince the masses that these apparitions were delusions.
The bathroom didn’t become a thing until the nineteenth century, and most working-class US homes added plumbed-in amenities in piecemeal fashion over time.
To people who follow the Paleo plan, it can mean anything from embracing meat-eating as a feminist choice to seeking a balanced life with room for leisure.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, political and social activists saw separating sex from marriage and reproduction as an issue of freedom.
Thomas Jefferson thought whiskey was harmful to the country. Together with enslaved brewer Peter Hemings, he experimented with making less potent drinks.
