Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" is a cultural touchstone. But what about the women behind the "Women," Alcott's real-life sisters on whom she based her characters? An interview with novelist Elise Hooper considers the life of "The Other Alcott."

In the late 1800s, American women began to move more freely in public. In response, public libraries created sex-segregated reading rooms, intended to keep women in their proper place.

Benjamin Lay was a radical abolitionist who helped turn the Quakers from slave-holders to leaders of the anti-slavery movement.

Butter sculpture is a fixture of American state fairs. The practice of using food as a medium for art dates back centuries.

Mr. Coffee, the first electric-drip coffee machine for home use, debuted in 1972, forever changing the way Americans made coffee.

Colonial narratives often boast triumphant victory and catastrophic defeat, but Mexican biombo paintings suggest a surprising alternative.

Procter & Gamble made its industrially produced soap the basis for a revival of an ancient craft, leading to a huge fad for soap carving.

Follow the rich history of Dorothea Lange, as she captured the iconic and lasting portrait of Florence Thompson, more famously known as Migrant Mother.

In colonial America, restaurants as we know them today were virtually unheard of.

To outsiders, art auctions can seem like a parody of bizarre spending by wealthy people. The origins of ultra-expensive art lies in the nineteenth-century.