Lajpat Rai and W.E.B. Du Bois

Black Freedom and Indian Independence

Activists including W. E .B. Du Bois in the United States and Lajpat Rai in India drew connections between Black American and Indian experiences of white rule.
A map outlining the Proclamation of October 7, 1763, overlaid with a portrait of King George III.

Real Estate and the Revolution

When George III issued a proclamation forbidding settlement west of a line running through the Appalachian Mountains, colonists decided they’d had enough.
A woman gently applying skin cream to her face with the tips of her fingers, circa 1955

The Coldest Cream

Cold cream has been around since ancient Greek times. But what’s it actually for?
An Elberta peach from Georgia, 1901

The Georgia Peach: A Labor History

The peach industry represented a new, scientifically driven economy for Georgia, but it also depended on the rhythms and racial stereotypes of cotton farming.
From the cover of Feeling Asian American by Wen Liu

Racial Hierarchies: Japanese American Immigrants in California

The belief of first-generation Japanese immigrants in their racial superiority over Filipinos was a by-product of the San Joaquin Delta's white hegemony.
From Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone, which Matilda Tone edited and published, though credit was attributed to her son

Matilda Tone, Historian of Irish Republicanism

Through the work and writing of Matilda Tone, her late husband, Theobold Wolfe Tone, was constructed as the hero of Irish republicanism.
Bell Telephone, 1922

A Prehistory of Zoom

Concerns about privacy and pressures regarding the physical appearance of women and their homes contributed to the failure of AT&T’s 1960s Picturephone.
A briefcase with a pirate flag symbol

Modern Piracy: Arbitration as Plunder

In a world of globalized trade, an industry of piratical lawyers has arisen to help transnational corporations seize the assets of supposedly sovereign states.
DSM-5

What’s a Mental Health Diagnosis For?

Following the publication of the DSM-5, mental health professionals debated the expansion of “mental illness” to include normal parts of the human condition.
President Nixon with his edited transcripts of the White House Tapes subpoenaed by the Special Prosecutor, during his speech to the Nation on Watergate

Power over Presidential Records

By law, all communications seen and/or touched by a United States president are supposed to be preserved. Reality—and executive privilege—is a lot messier.