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A man lifts a woman out of a boat and onto the pier. Photo from London, 1925.

The Complex History of American Dating

While going out on a date may seem like a natural thing to do these days, it wasn't always the case.
A pile of hand-written zines in colorful designs.

Queer Teenage Feminists on the Printed Page, 1973 to 2023

How lesbian teenagers forged community bonds and found connection through magazines.
Katherine Rye Jewell standing in front of a tree and brick building on Vanderbilt University's campus.

‘Live From the Underground’ Details the Influential World of College Radio

What made those left-of-the-dial broadcasts so special during the 1980s, ‘90s and 2000s?
Google's word occurences tool shows the word "teenager" appear around 1940, with an exponential increase in occurences up through the 2000s.

Teenagers Didn't Always Exist

So where were those angsty kids?
Winona Ryder as Veronica in The Heathers.

“Heathers” Blew Up the High-School Comedy

The 1989 cult classic ushered in a darker, weirder, more experimental era for teen movies.

Rat Race

Why are young professionals crazy for marathons?
network of connected smiling faces

Ecstasy’s Odyssey

When the creator of MDMA first experimented with the drug, he felt a mellow sensation that he compared to "a low-calorie martini."
A bedroom decorated with Bob Marley merchandise and the Jamaican flag.

Bob Marley’s ‘Legend’ Is One of the Bestselling Albums Ever. But Does It Tell His Full Story?

After 40 years and more than 25 million copies sold, what story does ‘Legend’ tell us about Bob Marley and the people listening to it?
Woman creating a "zine", using a presumably Xerox photocopy machine.

American Counterculture, Glimpsed Through Zines

Zine-making is a tradition shared by the young and alienated, people enamored with the fringes of culture. Can a museum exhibit capture its essence?
Nicki Minaj and the autobiography of Malcolm X written by Alex Haley.

It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop

We cannot understand the last fifty years of U.S. history—certainly not the first thing about Black history—without studying the emergence and evolution of rap.
Grandmaster Flash, DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Chuck D.
partner

Hip-Hop's Black Caribbean Roots

The relationship between the DJ and his MC derived from a Jamaican “toasting” tradition and its related “sound clash” culture.
Members of the Wu-Tang Clan.

'Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)' Turns 30

How the album pays homage to hip-hop's mythical and martial arts origins.

Why Generational Thinking Isn't Bull

Reflections on Pavement, Nirvana, the very meaning of history, and the end of neoliberalism.
A collage of a feminine hand using a computer mouse and an eye layered over it as if watching.

Many Revolutions

The internet has expanded how we understand the possibilities of the trans experience.
Collage of a shirtless performer and a cutaway image of an egg.

My Generation

Anthem for a forgotten cohort.
Marijuana leaves superimposed over photo of two men.

The Dank Underground

In the late Sixties, countercultural media was distributed by the Underground Press Syndicate and bankrolled by marijuana.
Nine yearbook photos, including Langston Hughes'.

Class Production

A collection of high school yearbooks from Cleveland captures the rise, fall, and uncertain future of the American middle class.
The original members of the hip-hop group De La Soul.

Hip-Hop at Fifty: An Elegy

A generation is still dying younger than it should—this time, of “natural causes.”
Two campers kissing at Camp Cejwin, 1982.

The Jewish Summer Camp Hookup Scene Is Real. Here’s Why It Was Built.

All coed camps can be like this. But Jewish ones were different.
Four characters from "Dazed and Confused."

The “Dazed and Confused” Generation

People my age are described as baby boomers, but our experiences call for a different label altogether.
Rap group Public Enemy: (Clockwise from bottom left) Flavor Flav, Professor Griff, Terminator X, S1W, and Chuck D

How Rap Taught (Some of) the Hip Hop Generation Black History

For members of the Hip Hop generation who came of age during the Black Power era, “reality rap” was an entry into the political power of Black history.
original

The Life of Song

What the surprising career of Bob McGrath teaches us about popular music.
Overhead view of people walking around in the Mall of America

The Most American Form of Architecture Isn’t Going Anywhere

A new book challenges the dominant narrative that malls are dying.
A Vietnam veteran greets supporters and press outside District Court in Concord

The Second (and Third) Battle of Lexington

What kind of place was the town I grew up in?
Screen frame from the television program Home Improvement, depicting parents chastising their teenage son.

In the ‘90s the U.S. Government Paid TV Networks to Weave “Anti-Drug” Messaging Into Their Plot Lines

These storylines portrayed those addicted to drugs and alcohol as lunatics whose only cure can come from punitive measures, abstinence, and “tough love.”
Photograph of a dilapidated mall from the rear parking lot.

Mallstalgia

Once derided as cesspools of Reagan-era consumerist excess, the shopping mall somehow became an unlikely sort-of quasi-public space that is now disappearing.
Image of two people (one old and one young) playing tug of war with an elephant over an American flag.

End the Generation Wars

Lazy assumptions about young and old cloud our politics.

The Hospital Occupation That Changed Public Health Care

The Young Lords took over Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx on July 14, 1970. Their demand? Accessible, quality health care for all.
Middle finger that says "Millenial" and Fist that says "Gen Z"

It’s Time to Stop Talking About “Generations”

From boomers to zoomers, the concept gets social history all wrong.
Newspaper article titled 'Novel-reading a cause of female depravity'

Why Novels Will Destroy Your Mind

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, novels were regarded as the video games or TikTok of their age — shallow, addictive, and dangerous.

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