Excerpts

Curated stories from around the web.
New on Bunk

Of Womb-Furie, Hysteria, and Other Misnomers of the Feminine Condition

Clare Beams on women's bodies and the power of names.
Map of Oregon

Oregon’s Racist Past

Until the mid-20th century, Oregon was perhaps the most racist place outside the southern states, possibly even of all the states.

How Nativism Went Mainstream

Three decades ago, California was the launchpad for a virulent strain of anti-immigrant politics that soon spread nationwide.

Day One at Yalta, the Conference That Shaped the World: ‘De Gaulle Thinks He’s Joan of Arc’

A day-by-day account of the historic summit in Yalta, seventy-five years later.

How the Bubonic Plague Almost Came to America

A Pompous Doctor, a Racist Bureaucracy, and More. From the book "Black Death at the Golden Gate".

The Legal Fight That Ended the Unjust Confinement of Mental Health Patients

Ayelet Waldman on the landmark case O’Connor v. Donaldson.

The Hipster

It happens every year.

How Christians of Color in Colonial Virginia Became 'Black'

Although the British settlers imported Africans from the first as slaves, the earliest Virginians had yet to establish many basic rules regarding slavery.

Martin Luther King Jr.: 50 Years Later

Activists today are taking up Dr. King’s mantle and reviving the Poor People’s Campaign.

The Life of Afong Moy, the First Chinese Woman in America

Contending with the orientalist fears and fantasies of a young nation.

Dream Come True

An excerpt from a new book reveals how Disneyland came to be.

When a City Goes Bankrupt: A Brief History of Detroit c. 2010

“The country cannot prosper if its cities are decaying.”

The Gay Activists Who Fought the American Psychiatric Establishment

Mo Rocca on the struggle to depathologize homosexuality.

Jim Crow Compounded the Grief of African American Mothers Whose Sons Were Killed in World War I

An excerpt from ‘We Return Fighting,’ a groundbreaking exploration of African American involvement in World War I.

Meet Mr. Mumler, the Man Who “Captured” Lincoln’s Ghost on Camera

When America’s first aerial cameraman met an infamous spirit photographer, the chemistry was explosive.

What’s Next?

Expanding the radical promise of the American Revolution.

The Midcentury Battle to Save America’s Cities from Crisis

Lizabeth Cohen on the poverty and prosperity of the American city.

Pornotopia

In the mid-20th century, Playboy wasn't just an erotic magazine. It was an architectural movement as well.

From Mind Control to Murder? How a Deadly Fall Revealed the CIA’s Darkest Secrets

Frank Olson died in 1953, but it took decades for his family to get closer to the truth.

The Slow Build Up to the American Revolution

American revolutionaries had a far wider range of reasons for supporting rebellion than we often assume.

On One of the Great Unsung Heroes of the American Labor Movement

Emma Tenayuca and the San Antonio Pecan Shellers Strike of 1938.

Nonsmokers, Unite!

The complicated privilege of forming a new constituency.

Teddy Roosevelt Hated Baseball

It was a struggle to even get the president to go to a game.

Jenny Zhang on Reading Little Women and Wanting to Be Like Jo March

Looking to Louisa May Alcott's heroine for inspiration.

How Google Discovered the Value of Surveillance

In 2002, still reeling from the dot-com crash, Google realized they’d been harvesting a very valuable raw material — your behavior.

A Brief History of American Pharma: From Snake Oil to Big Money

The dark side of the medical industrial complex.

The Political Chaos and Unexpected Activism of the Post-Civil War Era

Charles Postel on the temperance crusade that galvanized the American women's movement.

A Brief and Awful History of the Lobotomy

Groundbreaking discoveries... but at what cost?

Fried Chicken Is Common Ground

If you like hot chicken, perhaps you’d be interested in knowing where it comes from.

Why Were the 1970s So… Weird?

When the counterculture optimism receded, things got ugly.

American Green

How did the plain green lawn become the central landscaping feature in America, and what is the ecological cost?

Jill Lepore on Early American Ideas of Nationalism

"Inevitably, the age of national bootblacks and national oyster houses and national blacksmiths produced national history books."
Workers with a steam plough on a sugar plantation in Puerto Rico.

How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

The expansion of banks like Citigroup into Cuba, Haiti, and beyond reveal a story of capitalism built on blood, labor, and race.

On America’s Wild West of Dinosaur Fossil Hunting

In 19th-century America, rare old bones were a resource like any other.

The Rocket Scientist Who Had to Elude the FBI Before He Could Escape Earth

Frank Malina's scientific dreams were as radical as his politics.
Political cartoon of Columbia giving the Civil Rights bill to a Black man.

What Are These Civil Rights Laws?

The context and aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to kill the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Edmund White on Stonewall, the ‘Decisive Uprising’ of Gay Liberation

At what point does resistance become the only choice?

How Cars Transformed Policing

Most communities barely had a police force and citizens shared responsibility for enforcing laws. Then the car changed everything.

How Spaghetti Westerns Shaped Modern Cinema

In the realism, the set pieces, the operatic music, Sergio Leone was pointing the way towards modern filmmaking.
Lithograph of Black wet nurse nursing a white baby.

George Washington’s Midwives

The economics of childbirth under slavery.

William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll

From Bob Dylan to David Bowie to The Beatles, the legendary Beat writer’s influence reached beyond literature into music in surprising ways.
Banthe Bombers protest photograph by Richard Avedon.

Richard Avedon and James Baldwin’s Joint Examination of American Identity

Their 1964 collaboration, "Nothing Personal," brought together aspects of American life and culture through photographs and text.

How Alexander Calder Became America's Most Beloved Sculptor

In an exclusive excerpt from his new book, 'Calder: The Conquest of Time,' Jed Perl reveals a hidden side of the artist.

Poems of the Manhattan Project

John Canaday's poems look at nuclear weapons from the intimate perspectives of its developers.

Laura Ingalls Wilder and One of the Greatest Natural Disasters in American History

When a trillion locusts ate everything in sight.
Hillary Clinton speaking about early childhood development.

The Mismeasure of Minds

25 years later, The Bell Curve’s analysis of race and intelligence refuses to die.

Inside San Francisco’s Plague-Ravaged Chinatown

A city on the edge.
Two hikers sit on a mountaintop and look at the view.

Climbing Mountains for the Right to Vote

On the 1909 National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention in Seattle.
Pile of garbage.

The Curious History of Crap—From Space Junk to Actual Poop

We don't think much about where our waste goes, but the history of what we do with poop is also the history of how we grow food.

Where to Score: Classified Ads from Haight-Ashbury

From 1966-1969, the underground newspaper 'San Francisco Oracle' became exceedingly popular among counterculture communities.
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