The Saturday Evening Girls’ Guide to Helping Immigrants Succeed
The “Saturday Evening Girls" was a Progressive-Era club that afforded urban, Jewish and Italian girls and women a chance at coveted social mobility.
The High School of the Future (in 1917)
In 1917, a Progressive education reformer surveyed the high school landscape and looked to the future. His grand plans still haven’t come to fruition.
WWII and the First Ethical Hacker
Rene Carmille has been called the first ethical hacker for sabotaging the computerization of data about French Jews during World War II.
Suggested Readings: High Deductibles, Bad Marriages, and Mr. Darcy
Extra Credit: Our pick of stories from around the web that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
How Slaughterhouse-Five Made Us See the Dresden Bombing Differently
The bombing of Dresden, Germany, which began February 13, 1945, was once viewed as a historical footnote. Until Slaughterhouse-Five was published.
Edgar Allan Poe and the Power of a Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe knew that readers would add their visual image of the author to his work to create a personality that informed their reading.
The Mystery of the Mona Lisa
The mystery surrounding the 1911 theft and subsequent conspiracy theory catapulted the Mona Lisa into the popular imagination.
How Women’s Studies Erased Black Women
The founders of Women’s Studies were overwhelmingly white, and focused on the experiences of white, heterosexual women.
The Weird Fairy Circles of Namibia
The deserts of Namibia are dotted with odd circular bare patches, ringed by the dry desert grasses. They're called "fairy circles." It’s a desert whodunit.
Zadie Smith
Ever since the publication of White Teeth, Zadie Smith has made a career of writing about the actual experiences behind topics like race and immigration.