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Black and white headshot of author Matthew Wills

Matthew Wills

Matthew Wills has advanced degrees in library science and film studies and is lapsed in both fields. He has published in Poetry, Huffington Post, and Nature Conservancy Magazine, among other places, and blogs regularly about urban natural history at matthewwills.com.

A poster used in Japan to attract immigrants to Brazil. It reads: "Let's go to South America (Brazil highlighted) with families."

Asian South America

The migration of Asian people—from India, from China, from Japan—to South America and the Caribbean began as early as the sixteenth century.
Reverse Freedom Riders in Hyannis, MA in 1962

The Reverse Freedom Rides

The White Citizens’ Councils used the transportation of Black Americans to Northern states as a way to embarrass liberal critics and rally segregationists.
Boston Public Library

Out of the Card Catalog Closet

Librarians gathered in 1970 to challenge Library of Congress classifications and catalog subject headings that aligned homosexuality with deviance. 
Mam-speaking women drink coffee after a group meeting on February 12, 2017 in Cajola, Guatemala

The Mam In Oregon

Guatemalan immigrants, bringing with them unique skills and knowledge, are adapting to their new homes and communities in the Pacific Northwest.
Photograph: Art restorer, Claire Wilkins, at work restoring a self-portrait of the Spanish artist, Velasquez, after flooding at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, 1966

Source: Terry Fincher/Getty

Restoration Recipes

Need to clean your sixteenth-century distemper painting? Try a piece of bread (at your own risk).
King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort take part in an address in Westminster Hall on September 12, 2022 in London, England.

Royal Succession, Reformed

British history is witness to a long struggle to curtail the power of monarchs and redefine the regulations governing succession to the throne.
A Porsche Cayenne SUV

SUV: Stigmatized Urban Vehicles?

Skeptics in Sweden voiced concerns from the get-go. Even automotive industry journalists wondered why anybody needed an SUV to go to the opera.
The dwarf Gimli from the film 'The Lord Of The Rings', 1978.

J. R. R. Tolkien’s Jewish Dwarves

The peoples of Middle Earth weren’t just a product of Tolkien’s creative mind; they were shaped by the anti-Jewish culture that surrounded him.
Royal Air Force bombers, 1938

The RAF on Speed: High-Flying or Flying High?

Drug use during World War II, especially by Nazis, was typically viewed as immoral. But what about when it was approved by leaders of the Royal Air Force?
The lid of K'inich Janaab' Pakal's sarcophagus

From Mud to the Sun: The World Tree of the Maya

Cosmic trees, found around the globe and throughout history, may represent a primeval fount of creation or a vegetal axis mundi that connects life and death.
A photograph of George Leslie Stout, Langdon Warner, and Japanese officials at Nishi Honganji temple in Kyoto, Japan, May 1946

The Other Monuments Men

The men and women who tracked down looted art after WWII didn’t just go after stuff stolen by the Nazis. They also searched for treasures stolen by the Japanese. Sort of.
Foundation of the American Government by Henry Hintermeister

A Colorblind Compromise?

“Colorblindness,” an ideology that denies that race is an organizing principle of the nation’s structural order, reaches back to the drafting of the US Constitution.
An illustration of a whale watch boat and a whale

Who Is Watching the Whale-watchers?

Whale-watching cruises can negatively affect the behavior of cetaceans, depending on species, environment, and population.
Photograph: Sojourner Truth, 1860s

The Truth About Isabella Van Wagenen

Sojourner Truth’s entanglement with a dubious cult leader in New York City steadied her steps on the path for women’s rights.
E.E. Cummings, 1920

Revisiting The Enormous Room

This year marks the centennial of the publication of E. E. Cummings’s novel based on his imprisonment in France during World War I. 
Eugene Debs speaking at Canton, Ohio, 1918

In The Debs Archive

The papers of American labor activist and socialist Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) offer a snapshot of early twentieth-century politics.
A film title lantern slide for Broncho Billy

Whatever Happened To The Male Movie Fan?

In the early days of the film industry, the fanzone was full of men and boys. Then the studios chased them all away.
A yellow and purple button with "Fight AIDS, Not People with AIDS" in yellow and purple font.

Pro-Epidemic Stigmatization

Prejudice and moralism interferes with public health, aiding and abetting the spread of the HIV and monkeypox viruses.
An electron microscopic image depicting a monkeypox virion

The Monkeypox 411

Although it’s less fatal and less transmissible than the related smallpox, there’s still serious cause for concern with the most recent outbreak.
A Cane Toad is exhibited at Taronga Zoo August 9, 2005 in Sydney, Australia

Cane Toads, Dung Beetles, and Cork Hats

Predicting the effects of introducing a species into an ecosystem is difficult. Mitigating those effects later is even more so. Just ask Australia.
The Alamo by day with the Texas flag waving

How to Remember the Alamo?

A historian’s childhood visit to the Texas monument prompts questions about history, memory, and multiculturalism.
Voting Hands and Ballot Box

Happiness is a Warm Democracy

A greater exposure to democracy leads to a higher level of self-reported happiness.
A man sweeps cooked rice still in the husk into piles to dry at a rice mill July 18, 2008 in Srinigar, Bangladesh

Food Price Inflation and Health

Periods of concurrent economic downturn and high food price inflation can exacerbate health threats for infants and children in developing countries.
A North American Beaver - Castor Canadensis - sitting in the grass grooming itself

Beaver Politics in Oregon

Reintroduction of the beaver may help mitigate the effects of climate change, but the obstacles between these toothy rodents and their ponds are many.
A computer-generated image of the Project CyberSyn operations room

The Chilean Wide Web?

Salvador Allende’s attempt to network the national economy mirrored his government’s struggle to balance centralization and decentralization.