Indian Dress

Why India Once Led The Fashion Industry

India led the fashion world in the 16th and 17th centuries through cotton fabric, design motifs, and its customer-centric market system.
Victorian era dog

The Victorian Debate Over Rabies

Rabies began a contentious debate between Victorian pet owners and veterinary experts about how to regulate dog health. Rough.
Woman sitting on chair, putting on stockings

Why Women Burned Their Stockings in the 1930s

The average 1930s American woman bought up to 15 pairs of silk stockings a year—until, that is, women boycotted the fabric behind an essential garment.
Smoke billowing over Tulsa, Oklahoma during 1921 race riots

The Devastation of Black Wall Street

Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1921. A wave of racial violence destroys an affluent African-American community, seen as a threat to white-dominated American capitalism.
Fishing Victorian

How the Victorians Went Camping

If you’re going camping this summer, will you rough it on a wilderness hike, or relax in a ...
NYC food riot

“Give Us Bread!”

In 1917, a food riot erupted in Brooklyn over the prices of staples. These forms of protest, sadly, are not quite yet ready for the dustbin of history.
Wedding bands

Selling the Men’s Wedding Ring

How changing mores, cultural pressures, and, yes, the jewelry industry made two-ring wedding ceremonies the norm in America.
A graffitied maid cleaning up the sidewalk by Banksy

How America Tried (and Failed) to Solve Its “Servant Problem”

In the early part of the twentieth century, most middle-class American homes had at least one servant. Then the "servant problem" arose.
Letter on Corpulence William Banting

When Dieting Was Only For Men

Today, we tend to assume dieting is for women, but in the 1860s, it was a masculine pursuit.
Sheet music from Barnum's Baby Shows

Babies on Display

In the mid- to late nineteenth century, people showed off their infants at baby shows.