Ada Lovelace, Pioneer
Ada Lovelace wrote extensive notes on the world’s first computer. Her innovations foreshadowed those used in twentieth-century PCs.
The Patron Saint of Bookstores
100 years ago, Sylvia Beach, the first publisher of James Joyce’s Ulysses, opened the doors to her legendary bookstore, Shakespeare & Co.
When Botany Was for Ladies
In nineteenth century America, young women took to studying botany—a conjoining of interest, social acceptance, and readily available schooling.
How the Ban on Medical Advertising Hurt Women Doctors
Intended to protect consumers from unscrupulous quackery, a nineteenth-century ban on medical advertising proved to be a double-edged sword.
Branding the Breast Cancer Narrative
Do those ubiquitous pink ribbons stand for women’s health concerns... or for normative concepts of beauty?
Selling Slashers to Teen Girls
The heroines of 1970s and 80s teen horror movies were traditionally feminine, tough, and sexually confident.
Industrial London’s Maternal Child Abductors
In industrial-era England, children took on new value in family life. Around this time, they started to be stolen more often, too.
Jane Fonda Changed Fitness Forever
Jane Fonda's workout videos cracked open the idea of who exercise was for, but only to an extent.
How Colonialism Shaped Body Shaming
When did heaviness and curviness in women become connected with the idea of "savagery"? It has a lot to do with 19th-century imperialist world views.
Remaking Betty Boop in the Image of a Housewife
Betty Boop was literally designed to be a bombshell, but around 1935, her creators decided to change her appearance.