Black and white studio photograph of Mahatma Gandhi wearing a white robe, looking directly at the camera and gently smiling, London, 1931

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

In a 1931 lecture, Mahatma Gandhi described a potential future for India, if only it could move beyond the caste system and communal tensions.
The New York American 1912 Headline for the sinking of the Titanic

Bodies of the Titanic: Found and Lost Again

Ideas about economic class informed decisions about which recovered bodies would be preserved for land burial and which would be returned to the icy seas.
The Dissolute Household by Jan Steen, ca. 1663-64

Drunk as a Lord? OK, if You’re a Lord

Where does class-based hypocrisy over substance use come from? Look to the seventeenth century.
View of the West Front of Monticello and Garden by Jane Braddick, 1825

Building A Better Democracy?

Metaphors of construction have been popular in American history from the start. How come?
Stacked products in open fridge

Food and Class: What’s in the Fridge?

A recent New York Times quiz got us thinking about refrigerators, food, diet, and assumptions about class. Here are 12 stories on the subject.
Adolph Menzel -The Iron Rolling Mill

Life in the Iron Mills as Fiction of the “Close-Outsider Witness”

Rebecca Harding Davis had no firsthand experience of iron mills. Neither does her nameless narrator.
A student standing at a crossroads

Why Everyone Doesn’t Value Choice to the Same Degree

Studies show that college-educated white Americans value having choice -- and yet having too much choice can paralyze and lead to dissatisfaction.
Illustration of a man surrounded by women

A 19th-Century Catfishing Scheme

In the late 1800s, a U.K. scheme lured lonely bachelors with newspaper advertisements supposedly placed by wealthy women.
A drawing of the Astor Place Riot, 1849, by Charles M. Jenckes

When an Argument Over Macbeth Incited a Bloody Riot

On May 10th, 1849, protestors rioted at Astor Place Opera House, leading to the deadliest civic insurrection in American history up to that time.
Children out at night

What Happened to the Night Children?

A hundred years ago, it was quite common for working-class children to roam the streets freely at night.