Iran: Creativity in the Aftermath of Uprising

Pamela Karimi’s new book examines how Iran’s “Women, Art, Freedom” protest movement has influenced the country’s artists and their work.
A boarding house in Lowell, MA

Lowell’s Forgotten House Mothers

As vital to the success of industrial New England as the mill girls who toiled in the factories were the women who oversaw their lodging.
An illustration of a UFO

Far Out: Why Don’t We Believe in UFOs?

Is it scientific impossibility or simply human ego that stops us from entertaining the idea of extraterrestrial visitation?
Joseph Russell Smith

He Spoke for the Trees (and Also the Soil)

A champion of agroforestry, J. Russell Smith argued for the restoration of forests as key to sustainable agriculture in his seminal work Tree Crops.
Precious Newberry, a United States Postal Service mail handler, works to unload her mail truck at the Processing and Distribution Center after collecting mail on the busiest mailing day of the year for the U.S. Postal Service on December 14, 2015 in Miami, Florida.

How Mail Delivery Has Shaped America

The United States Postal Service is under federal scrutiny. It’s not the first time.
An illustration from Aleksandr Volkov’s Wizard of the Emerald City

Twin Curtains: Oz and the USSR

Aleksandr Volkov’s The Wizard of the Emerald City reimagined L. Frank Baum’s classic, imbuing the story with a love of labor for readers in the Eastern bloc.
Close-up of wild cereal grass (Poa annua) blooming over dark background

A Most Opportunistic Colonizer

Poa annua is a unique grass species now thriving on every continent—including Antarctica. Wherefore its wanderlust?
Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.36531311

Toledo’s Most Singular Pharmacist

The Ella P. Stewart Scrapbooks offer insight into the life and legacy of a pioneering Black woman who broke color barriers and helped birth the fight for civil rights.
A handbag with a United States flag coloring

The Power of the Purse

The first time a president withheld funds for something approved by Congress, it led to the Impoundment Control Act. We’ll soon find out if that law has teeth.
Tantalus

Tantalus, Pac-Man, and Unsated Hungers

What does a violent, ancient Greek myth reveal about our modern addiction to technology and the enduring power of stories?