View from Balcony of Woman's Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893

The World’s Fair That Ignored More Than Half the World

The spectacle of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 was unrivaled in its time. But it hardly represented the "world" of women and African-Americans.
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s Pamphlet: “Children in Prison and Other Cruelties of Prison Life”

Wilde's description is heart-wrenching, but that doesn't hold him back from the usual wit and drama that characterize his writing.
Portrait of William Blake, 1807

William Blake, Radical Abolitionist

Blake’s works offer an alternative to the failures of the Enlightenment, which couldn’t muster a consistent argument for abolition.
Painting of Ebinezer Elliot

Nineteenth-Century Rappers, Corn Laws, and the Rise of Free Trade

The strange intersection of corn laws, rap, poetry, and free trade.