Perle Mesta laughing at a dinner party.

Washington’s Hostess with the Mostes’

Dinner parties in the capital have long been a path to power, but Perle Mesta had her eye on a different prize.
Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, and fliers advertising jazz performances.

Jazz Off the Record

In the late 1960s, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, jazz legends were playing the best music you’ve never heard.
Kendrick Lamar in the spotlight performing a concert.

Bad Beef

Rap beef is form of capitalist accumulation that enriches artists—and, most of all, the corporate suits that run their record labels.
Leonardo Dicaprio in "Titanic."

Which Celebrities Popularized (or Tarnished) Baby Names? A Statistical Analysis

Which public figures impacted baby naming trends?
A cartoon of a group of effeminate men walking together.

Rise and Fall of the ‘Pansy Craze’

On Jazz Age gay culture and its backlash.
Depictions of possible causes of apocalypse through war, disaster, and climate change.

Apocalypse, Constantly

Humans love to imagine their own demise.

Why Is ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ So Misunderstood?

At 50, the game is more popular than ever, but its core appeal is still a great secret.
Spock and Kirk in a scene from Star Trek.

Star Trek’s Cold War

While America was fighting on the ground, the Federation was fighting in space.
Bob Dylan playing the electric guitar in 1965.
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'A Complete Unknown' Misses a Key Part of 1960s History

The Bob Dylan film forefronts a conflict between acoustic and electric music, while ignoring how the Vietnam War divided folk musicians.
Ballet dancers (all ages and genders)posing in christmas costumes.

How Christmas Became an All-American Holiday

What kind of Christmas did we used to know? To hear some critics and historians tell it, the holiday used to be a lot more religious than it is now.
Bob Dylan smoking a cigarette with his arms around Mimi Farina.

Bob Dylan and the Creative Leap that Transformed Modern Music

Bob Dylan decided he wanted to subvert the expectations of his fans – and rebel against industry forces intent on pigeonholing him and his work.
Meme of white Gen X voters in their ironic cynicism.

We Care a Lot: White Gen Xers and Political Nihilism

Since the 2024 election, liberals, progressives, and the left has been wringing our collective hands over why Trump won yet again.
A medieval drawing of a stork.
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Exit, Pursued by a Stork

When the 1930 Hays Code banned pregnancy in film, birds took over the business of birth.
he obverse (right) and reverse (left) of the James H. Hyde Medallion, designed by Paul H. Manship, on the Janvier reduction machine.

Tokens of Culture

On the medallic art of the Gilded Age.
1940s era tattoo shop

How Do You Preserve Tattoo History When Skin And Memory Fail?

Ed Hardy's historic tattoo parlor is closing. A lot more than that stands to be lost.
Still from "The Apprentice."

The Power Broker: Roy Cohn on Screen

The closeted right-wing operative has become a tragic character in the American repertory.
Soldiers sing at the end of the day in Vietnam, January 1968.
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The Soundtrack to Vietnam War History Isn’t Quite Historically Accurate

Why rock overtook every other genre to define our understanding of America at war.
Painting of Ancient Rome, by Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1757.
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All the World’s America’s Stage — Even Ancient Rome

Gladiator and Gladiator II have little to do with the Roman past. But they have a great deal to do with the American present.
Still from the documentary "Obsessed with Light", depicting Loie Fuller on stage in a gown.

A Dazzling Light in Dance History

When dancer Loïe Fuller’s spinning garment reflected the stage lights, it took on a life of its own, beguiling those in New York, Berlin, and Paris.
Richard Pryor.

Understanding Richard Pryor's Use of the N-Word

Pryor's use of the word represented something valiant.
Collage of The Golden Girls, a suitcase, a golf ball, viagra pills, and a Welcome to Florida sign.

How Old Age Was Reborn

“The Golden Girls” reframed senior life as being about socializing and sex. But did the cultural narrative of advanced age as continued youth go too far?
Virginia Tracy.

Is Virginia Tracy the First Great American Film Critic?

The actress, screenwriter, and novelist’s reviews and essays from 1918-19 display a comprehensive grasp of movie art and a visionary sense of its future.
Black and white photograph of the Opening of the New York City Subway, 1904.

Advertising Etiquette: On Shaping the New York City Subway

NYC subway etiquette reflects socio-economic divides.
Sketch of Mother and Infant, by J. Alden Weir, 1888.
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Keep Her Body from Pain and Her Mind from Worry

A reading list tracing the history of the birth control movement through novels.
William Faulkner and Ralph Ellison.

What the Novels of William Faulkner and Ralph Ellison Reveal About the Soul of America

The postwar moment of a distinctive new American novel—Nabokov’s "Lolita"— is also the moment in which William Faulkner finally gained recognition.
Fire (the Magazine) cover with bold words fire in red and other visual illustrations.

A Radical Black Magazine From the Harlem Renaissance Was Ahead of Its Time

Fire!! was a pathbreaking showcase for Black artists and writers “ready to emotionally serve a new day and a new generation.”
The cover of "Martian Time-Slip," featuring a man tending to a farm on Mars.

“Multiple Worlds Vying to Exist”: Philip K. Dick and Palestine

A critique of colonialism from Martian science fiction.
"REM" musicians pose in front of a mirror.

How R.E.M. Created Alternative Music

In the cultural wasteland of the Reagan era, they showed that a band could have mass appeal without being cheesy, or nostalgic, or playing hair metal.
Author Sanora Babb, with her husband James Wong Howe, in their library.

The Woman Who Defined the Great Depression

John Steinbeck based “The Grapes of Wrath” on Sanora Babb’s notes. But she was writing her own American epic.
The Fallen Angels on the Wing by Gustave Doré, a dark painting of angels falling from heaven.

The Political Afterlife of Paradise Lost

From white supremacists to black activists, readers have sought moral legitimacy in Milton’s epic poem.