Man proposing to woman on one knee, presenting her with a bouquet of roses, separated by black cubes

Love Is Blind…but Are Your Hormones?

Do women’s attraction to certain faces really change across the menstrual cycle? A long-running theory meets modern data.
Dorothy Parker, ca. 1935

Dorothy Parker: Sharp-Witted Writer, Bitter Professor

Dorothy Parker’s year as a visiting professor shows how a celebrated literary voice struggled to adapt to the realities of academic teaching.
Korean Orphan Choir in the Netherlands in 1962

How Cold War “Orphans” Sang Their Way into American Hearts

Touring choirs helped cast Korean children as ideal adoptees—and Americans as benevolent saviors.
Fashion plate from an 1869 issue of The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, surrounded by an 1861 color wheel by Michel Chevreul.

The Nineteenth-Century Science of Fashion

Victorian-era color theory moved from labs and studios into women’s magazines—and into everyday decisions about dress.
JSTOR Daily celebrates Black History Month

Celebrating Black History Month

JSTOR Daily editors pick their favorite stories for Black History Month.
Protestors picket behind a security barrier outside the 15th United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations complex in New York City, 1961.

The Congo Crisis and the Rise of a Pan-African Musical Politics

How Patrice Lumumba’s assassination reshaped Black internationalism—and pushed musicians toward a new kind of activism.
Basque sheep herder in Adams County, Idaho, photographed by Dorothea Lange, 1939

The Racial Myth of the Basque Sheepherder

How ideas of ancient tradition shaped labor and immigration in the American West.
The Sacrifice of Isaac by Francesco Guardi, 1750s

A History of Existential Anxiety

From medieval theology to modern philosophy, dread has long been a guide for living ethically.

The Medicinal Wood That Turned Water Blue

For nearly half a millennium, botanists sought the "true" identity of Lignum nephriticum, a mysterious marvel that confounded early modern science.
Laura Secord warning Lieutenant James Fitzgibbon of an impending American attack, June 1813.

Laura Secord’s Walk

In 1813, Laura Secord walked 20 miles through enemy territory to warn British troops of an American attack, changing the course of the War of 1812.