Matthew Wills

White Shoes, WASPs and Law Firms

Law firms founded on Protestant identity necessitated the creation of firms that would hire those shut out by WASP gatekeeping.

Politics & History

Burning Kelp for War

World War I saw the availability of potash plummet, while its price doubled. The US found this critical component for multiple industries in Pacific kelp.

Politics & History

The Age of the Birth Certificate

When states began restricting labor by children, verifying a person's age became an important means of enforcement.

Business

Making Steel All Shiny and New

When it seemed that steel had lost its gleam with American consumers, the industry turned to marketing to make it shine again.

Arts & Culture

Stephen Crane vs. The Police

When the author tried to defend a woman from charges of solicitation, and then testified against the arresting officer, the NYPD struck back.

Striking miners in Buchtel, Ohio receiving "Blackleg" workmen when returning from their work escorted by a detachment of Pinkerton's detectives

Arts & Culture

American Vigilantism

In the early 20th century, labor unrest and strike breaking were done not by the government, by private agencies and self-appointed vigilantes.

Science & Technology

Wreath-Making in National Parks? In Mexico, Yes

Mexico created its national parks system in the 1930s. Today, hundreds of thousands of people live, and work, within its boundaries.

Politics & History

Charity Scams of Yore

Between the 1850s and 1940s, a charity scam worked a collection circuit of Evangelical Christians in least five hundred towns across eighty countries.

Some of the chief defendants listening to the court summary at the Nuremberg War Trials. In the front row (from left to right) are Goering, Hess, von Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner and Rosenberg. In the back row are Doenitz, Raeder, von Schirach and Sauckel.

Politics & History

In History, The Past is the Present is the Future

If the past is so all terribly bad, then aren’t we lucky in the present?

Activists march for missing and murdered Indigenous women at the Women's March California 2019 on January 19, 2019 in Los Angeles, California.

Politics & History

Colonial Traffic in Native American Women

Slavery in North America was not an institution of singular evil.

Politics & History

Silence in the Face of Intellectual Conflagration

Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler's actions (and inaction) towards Nazi Germany spoke loudly, while he said nothing.

King Arthur removing the sword from the stone

Arts & Culture

The Return of the Hidden Hero

The hero/king/god isn’t dead, he’s just sleeping, often under a mountain, waiting for the day his people really need him.

Politics & History

Race-baiting the Last Big City Socialist

When business interests tried to use red-baiting to take down a socialist mayor of Milwaukee in the Fifties, it didn't work, so they used race-baiting instead.

Painting of a woman's hand holding a pomegranate

Arts & Culture

The Paradoxical Pomegranate

Aphrodisiac and contraceptive, enflaming and cooling, the pomegranate was a balancing act, mediating between opposing states.

Politics & History

Separate Spheres On Narrow Boats: Victorians At Sea

On the North Atlantic, the ships were small and the trips were long, making it difficult to maintain the land-based social distinctions.

Education & Society

Ham Radio and Gender Politics

During its heyday in the 1950s, ham radio was predominantly a hobby for middle-class men, based in suburban homes.

a passenger on the London Underground, reading D H Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'

Arts & Culture

Would You Let Your Servant Read This Book?

How the ban on D. H. Lawrence's book Lady Chatterley's Lover was reversed.

A Young Student at His Desk: Melancholy by Pieter Codde, 1633

Health

The Anatomy of Melancholy at 400: Still Good Advice

Scholars! Feeling blue? Read on.

Politics & History

Dogs in the Trenches of World War I

While the history of pigeons and horses in the military is widely known, canines have gotten less attention.

A male janitor stands and bends over a urinal in a bathroom, scrubbing the porcelain with a detergent.

Politics & History

A Short History of the Public Restroom

How come it's so hard to go in sweet privacy when you're out and about?

JSTOR Collections

Bird Watcher

Herbert Keightley Job's work represents a major turn in the study of birds. Instead of shooting them, he photographed them, at least some of the time...