From DiscoVision to SelectaVision
While these videodisc formats ultimately failed, they signaled that consumers were hungry for control of their home viewing.
Owner of a Lonely Heart
Personal ads changed dating, but they also provided source material for sociologists and psychologists to understand how people choose mates.
Connie Converse Wasn’t Just a Folk Singer. She Was a Scholar, Too.
The disappeared—but recently rediscovered—folk musician edited and published in academic journals under the name Elizabeth Converse.
Money and Activism: Mixed Messages
During the Cold War, philanthropic paternalism put Mexican American grassroots activists in the American Southwest at odds with East Coast funding institutions.
Should We Expect TV Chefs to Serve “Me on a Plate”?
Asian Americans navigate entrenched attitudes and expectations when it comes to their relationship with food—even while competing on Top Chef.
Red House: The Perfect Home for a Victorian Socialist
Subject to myriad interpretations over the last 150 years, William Morris’s Gothic-inspired home has been an enduring influence on Anglo-American architecture.
Sex-Cult Rocket Man
Jack Parsons, one of the “suicide squad” trio of young rocket-boy founders of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, had an improbable extracurricular life.
Coney Money
Want to make some coin raising rabbits? Get yourself an island. Or not, if you want to protect the existing ecosystem.
It’s Not as Good to Be the King as It Used to Be
The trial and execution of Charles I irrevocably sundered the tradition of a divine, anointed king.
Riot! At the Theater
One audience demanded more censorship, another less. Both challenged the reach of anti-obscenity laws in the early twentieth century.