design

When plastics were first invented, they seemed to promise a utopian future.

The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright famously loathed commercialism, and yet he (reluctantly) designed commercial homewares to be mass-produced.

A money belt with a zipper became an instant success among WWI U.S. sailors, whose uniforms did not have pockets. Almost all initial zipper sales were for the money belts.

Are you wearing seaweed? People have been for hundreds of years, in sizing, patterns and fibers, although they might not have known it.

Before WWII, American businesses began embracing “creative waste”—the idea that throwing things away and buying new ones could fuel a strong economy.

Linoleum, which was created by pressing cotton scrim with oxidized linseed oil and adding cork dust and coloring, became instantly popular.

Early skyscrapers changed the ways we see race, how we see bodies, how we perceive and make judgments about people in the world.

The spoon predates the knife and the fork. It exists in every age and culture in a wide variety of shapes.

We've been fantasizing about colonial kitchens since soon after the Colonial era itself was over. What's that about?