Frida Khalo painting

Did Frida Kahlo Suffer From Fibromyalgia?

Studying the artist's paintings may reveal more about the her early trauma and subsequent pain than suspected.
Nuns and cows

How Frontier Nuns Challenged Gender Norms

Scholars Carol K. Coburn and Martha Smith write that nuns were an important part of westward expansion—and in Colorado, nuns quickly learned how to use their gender to their advantage.
East LA Student protest

The Activist Students of 1960s East Los Angeles

Over a week and a half starting on March 1st, 1968, more than 10,000 students in mostly Chicano schools took part in what became known as the East Los Angeles School Blowouts.
Victoria wedding

A Natural History of the Wedding Dress

The history of the wedding dress is shorter than the history of weddings, and even shorter still than the history of marriage.
Gwyneth Paltrow at Toronto International Film Festival, 2012

The Glamorous Tradition of Hollywood Lifestyle Advice

For more than a century, Hollywood has been offering Americans lifestyle advice on how to live better, and the public has been gobbling it up.
Zora Neale Hurston

Voodoo and the Work of Zora Neale Hurston

Author Zora Neale Hurston, born on this day in 1891, is perhaps best known for Their Eyes Were ...
Pocahontas and John Smith

The Real Pocahontas

Pocahontas, Matoaka, and Lady Rebecca Rolfe were all the same young woman, who died in 1617, a long way from home.
The inside of a newsroom

Four Hard Truths about Fake News

Skeptical, self-aware interaction with digital data is the critical foundation upon which democracy may be maintained, explains media scholar Alexandra Juhasz.
Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Shirley Jackson and the Female Gothic

Critic Ruth Franklin has published a new biography on the criminally overlooked novelist, short story writer, and essayist Shirley Jackson.
An office secretary - 1970s

A Woman’s Life in Publishing

Anita D. McClellan entered the publishing industry as a secretary, one of the few opportunities available to women at the time. We tell her story.