Class and Superstition in Britain
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.
How Sailors Brought the World Home
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sailors gained a knowledge of the world and access to exotic goods unlike anything other non-elites could imagine.
What Was It like to Be an Inuit in London in 1772?
London had long been described as wearying and unreadable, so it's not surprising that Inuit visitors considered it unfathomable and irrational as well.
The Dawn of Kicks
Invented for a faddish game in the 1880s, tennis shoes became fashionable when manufacturers, fearing the tennis boom would go bust, pushed them off the lawn.
Black Power on British TV
International television coverage of the American Civil Rights struggle was critical in the construction of racial identity and experience in postwar Britain.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: Annotated
Jonathan Edwards’s sermon reflects the complicated religious culture of eighteenth-century America, influenced not just by Calvinism, but Newtonian physics as well.
Fighting for the Right to Party at Christmas
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Reformed Kirk of Scotland tried to shut down holiday celebrations. The Scottish people didn’t give up easily.
The Reality Behind Kitchen Sink Realism
The gritty dramas of the 1950s and 1960s revealed the bitterness and disillusionment of Britain's working class youth.
What We’re Reading 2021
Mini book reports from your favorite bloggers and editors here at JSTOR Daily.
Shoplifting, for Fun and Profit
"Hoisting" at the professional level could bring a sense of pride, along with the relief of avoiding grueling domestic work.