Postcards Revolutionized Pornography
In the late nineteenth century, the postcard became the ideal medium for expanding the audience for pornography, much to the concern of social elites.
The Flour War
In eighteenth-century France, the scarcity and price of flour was the base ingredient for what would become one of history’s bloodiest revolutions.
Bundling: An Old Tradition on New Ground
Common in colonial New England, bundling allowed a suitor to spend a night in bed with his sweetheart—while her parents slept in the next room.
Chicanx Studies: A Foundational Reading List
The field of Chicanx studies continues to expand, embracing analyses of racialization, gender, sexuality, Indigineity, and trans-ethnic identity.
Colonial Masquerade: Convict, Pirate, Gentleman, Con
The convict ships that colonized Australia carried people desperate to get out of their sentence. At least, that was true of Michael Stewart.
When Hitchhiking was Wholesome
In the 1930s, hitchhiking was viewed as an opportunity for generosity on the part of the driver and a way to practice good manners on the part of the rider.
What We’re Reading 2023
Enjoy a fresh batch of year-end book reports from all of the readers, writers, and editors at JSTOR Daily!
The Care of the Dead: A Reading List
An interdisciplinary bibliography exploring the care of the dead and how our final choices are shaped by culture, religion, economics, technology, and war.
Slavery and the Modern-Day Prison Plantation
“Except as punishment for a crime,” reads the constitutional exception to abolition. In prison plantations across the United States, slavery thrives.
What Skulls Told Us
The pseudoscience phrenology swept the popular imagination, and its practitioners made a mint preying on prejudices, gullibility, and misinformation.