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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.

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How Mentally Ill People Fight for Their Rights

In the 1970s, a time of mass deinstitutionalization, former patients came together to found the Psychiatric Inmates Liberation Movement.

Seeing America in 1900

Posters and postcards showcasing unique destinations and sights in the United States helped homogenize the tourist landscape of the early twentieth century.
The video game "Doom 3" is displayed on a computer and game store shelf August 4, 2004 in New York City

Roger Ebert vs. Video Games

The film critic’s unconsidered observation about Doom touched off a firestorm that continues to burn for gamers and digital media critics.
Dara Shikoh and Mian Mir

Popularizing Meditation in the Mughal Empire

The methods of Sufi meditation were regarded as secret during the early Mughal empire. Why, then, did Dara Shikoh feel the need to write them down?
An illustration from Alice in Wonderland; a dramatization of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the looking glass," 1915

Who Made That Word and Why?

No matter how many words in a language, it seems that we always need just one more to explain ourselves.
Shéhérazade by George Barbier, 1910

The Exotic “Pornography” of the Arabian Nights

The heated debates over Burton’s explicit translation of the beloved tales exposed Victorian England’s preoccupation with sex.
Andrew Johnson holds a leaking kettle, labeled "The Reconstructed South", towards a woman representing liberty and Columbia, carrying a baby representing the newly approved 14th Constitutional Amendment

The Pro-Democratic Fourteenth Amendment

At the heart of recent US Supreme Court decisions, the Fourteenth Amendment was framed to require free speech and free elections in the South.
A 19th century advertisement for tomato seeds

Tomatoes as Medicine

Tomatoes, once believed by Americans to be poisonous, became an unquestioned staple of a healthy diet thanks to doctors and popular cookbooks.
A Kentucky Wildcats cheerleader performs in th first half against the Florida Gators during the Championship game of the 2014 Men's SEC Basketball Tournament

When Men Join Cheer

What happens when former football players, accustomed to practicing and playing in all-male environments, join gender-integrated cheerleading squads?
Women's Christian Temperance Union lecturing in a crowded bar in Pasadena, CA., 1947

The Forgotten Temperance Movement of the 1950s

Despite the repeal of Prohibition, alcohol consumption was an enormous political issue for many white American Protestants.
A collection of objects from the civil war

Patriotism and Consumerism in the Civil War

For a burgeoning consumer society, store-bought flags and bonnets offered proof that commercialism could go hand in hand with heartfelt emotion.
Octavia Butler

Octavia Butler’s Roots in Black History

The Parable books seem different yet familiar, their plots framed by a world shattered by racism, economic inequality, and climate change.
Film still from a 1960s drag cocktail party, picnic, and pool party, c. 1968-1969

The Battle over Drag in 1960s San Francisco

The organized struggle for rights has been shaped by debates over the relationship between gender presentation and sexuality.
Elvis Presley is shown during a karate workout, as seen in the film 'This Is Elvis', 1981.

Elvis and American Karate

Presley’s embrace of martial arts resonated with working- and middle-class Americans who felt alienated from the US justice system.
A group of holiday-makers sunning themselves on the beach at a South Coast resort, 1895

Inventing the Beach Read

Feeling guilty about kicking back with a paperback during vacation? There’s a precedent for escapist holiday reading, particularly during times of anxiety.
A meeting of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) leaders, c.1906 - c.1907

Can a Woman Be a Genius?

Many Edwardian progressives and utopians put their hopes in the exceptional individual who was able to overcome obstacles with a force of will.
The slave ship Diligente was engaged in the illegal slave trade when it was seized in 1838. A lieutenant in the British Royal Navy painted this scene from the ship.

The Unbearable Middle Passage

In the eighteenth century, doctors recognized melancholy as a disease endemic to groups forcibly displaced from their homes, particularly enslaved Africans.
A street dog in Varanasi city, India

How Street Dogs Spend their Days

Generally lazy, often friendly, the dogs of India know how to relax.
A woman breast feeding her child, 13th century

Paying Moms to Breastfeed in Medieval Europe

The idea of offering remuneration to women for breastfeeding—even their own children—wasn’t unusual in late medieval and early modern Europe.
Piggy bank sinking in water

How We All Got in Debt

Consumer debt shapes American lives so thoroughly that it seems eternal and immortal, but it’s actually relatively new to the financial world.
A colored etching of hands showing the sign language alphabet

Deaf Colonists in Victorian-Era Canada

In 1884, educator Jane Groom defied naysayers to found a community for working-class Deaf people on prairies of Manitoba.
Ceiling of Shah Mosque at Fatima Masumeh Shrine, Qom, Iran

Scientific Seances in Twentieth-Century Iran

Spiritism appealed to Iranian intellectuals who sought to reconcile their commitment to science with their pursuit of moral reform.
Sisters of the Holy Family, New Orleans

The Hidden History of Black Catholic Nuns

The lives and roles of African-descended women who joined predominantly white Catholic convents was deliberately hidden by congregational historians.
Studio portrait of American violinist Maud Powell, c. 1909

Women, Men, and Classical Music

As more women embraced music as a profession, more men became worried that the world of the orchestra was losing its masculinity.
Officers Blois, Godot and Catin and their dogs, Black, Job and Dick, in Neuilly-sur-Siene, 1900

Dogs, the Four-Legged Crime-Fighters of Paris

Now a familiar part of policing, the partnership between canines and cops developed in an unpredictable fashion.