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The entrance of Fischer Bros, a Jewish grocery store, with a line of people going out the door.

The Rise of the Jewish Grocer

From kosher butchers, fruit peddlers, and herring dealers on the Lower East Side to supermarket innovators across the country
by Jenna Weissman Joselit via Tablet on February 3, 2025
Black and white photo of Boston’s Old Corner bookstore (1900).

Bookselling Out

“The Bookshop” tells the story of American bookstores in thirteen types. Its true subject is not how bookstore can survive, but how they should be.
by Dan Sinykin via The Baffler on October 16, 2024
Corner store in Detroit.

Murder At the Corner Store: Immigrant Merchants and Law and Order Politics in Postwar Detroit

With seventeen holdups in the past few months, something had to be done. “We will talk to the mayor and the police commissioner. We need more protection".
by Kenneth Alyass via The Metropole on November 17, 2022
Quisqueya Bodega in Crown Heights

The NYC Bodega: A History of Violence and Resilience

Bodegas serve as lifelines and community centers, yet have faced heinous violence. Here is the story of the New York City bodega.
by Isa Farfan via Untapped New York on July 19, 2022
Donald Trump speaking at a meeting with small businesspeople at the White House on January 30, 2017.

Family Capitalism and the Small Business Insurrection

The increasingly militant right supports the private, unincorporated, and family-based versus the corporate, publicly traded, and shareholder-owned.
by Melinda Cooper via Dissent on January 13, 2022
Alice Lee Hum with her mother Jean, at a laundry on 21st Ave in Astoria, Queens, c. 1951.

How Childhoods Spent in Chinese Laundries Tell the Story of America

The laundry: a place to play, grow up, and live out memories both bitter and sweet.
by Eveline Chao via Atlas Obscura on January 3, 2018

The Small Business Myth

Small businesses enjoy an iconic status in modern capitalism, but what do they really contribute to the economy?
by Benjamin C. Waterhouse via Aeon on November 8, 2017

The Craft Beer Explosion: Why Here? Why Now?

The crucial decade was the 1970s, when the industry’s increased consolidation and ever-blander product collided with key social and economic changes.
by Ranjit S. Dighe via Process: A Blog for American History on July 6, 2017
A small business on Cortlandt Street in NYC

When Ground Zero was Radio Row

When City Radio opened on NYC's Cortlandt Street in 1921, radio was a novelty. Over the next few decades, hundreds of stores popped up in the neighborhood.
by Ben Shapiro, Joe Richman via Radio Diaries on June 3, 2002
A man in a suit with angel wings clipped to his back, tipping a hat with six different arms.

The Cult of the Entrepreneur

Why do Americans idealize people who found businesses?
by Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein via The New Republic on February 17, 2025
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.
by Casey Taylor via Defector on December 6, 2024
A boarded-up food center.

The Great Grocery Squeeze

How a federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert.
by Stacy Mitchell via The Atlantic on December 1, 2024
Bookcover of Golden States, of people in bathing suits doing yoga.

How Dr. Bronner’s Spiritual Messaging Became a Global Brand

Dr. Bronner blends spirituality, ethical consumerism, and social activism, aiming to support both community and environmental causes through “All-One” values.
by Eileen Luhr via University Of California Press Blog on October 23, 2024
Bookstore

Are Bookstores Just a Waste of Space?

In the online era, brick-and-mortar book retailers have been forced to redefine themselves.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on August 19, 2024
People looking at a window display in a candy store depicting "Fudge Town."

Fudgetown, USA

How a Michigan vacation town transformed the sweet into a nationwide tourist attraction.
by Heather Radke via TASTE on May 21, 2024
A hand reaches for stacks of coins and bills, superimposed on photos of factory smokestacks.

Profit, Power, and Purpose

The greatest challenge presented by modern corporations, small as well as large, involves purpose.
by Michael Lind via The Hedgehog Review on November 1, 2023
Food with prices in store window display
partner

The FTC May Crack Down on Price Discrimination. Will It Matter?

The Robinson-Patman Act was supposed to prevent price discrimination — but consumers wanted cheap goods.
by Marc Levinson via Made By History on May 23, 2023

Activist Businesses: The New Left’s Surprising Critique of Postwar Consumer Culture

Activists established politically informed shops to offer alternatives to the consumer culture of chain stores, mass production, and multinational corporations.
by Joshua Clark Davis via Process: A Blog for American History on May 2, 2023
64 East 7th Street, New York City, 2022.

The Parsonage

An unprepossessing townhouse in the East Village has been central to a series of distinctive events in New York City history.
by David Hajdu via Places Journal on April 1, 2023
Cartoon of several Chinese-Americans holding a sign that says, "Chinatown is Not For Sale"

Dynasty Center: Exclusion and Displacement in Los Angeles’s Chinatown

The original Los Angeles Chinatown, now known as “Old Chinatown,” developed in the 1860s.
by Jean Young via Folklife on October 24, 2022
Daguerrotype of Robert Cornelius.

Portraits of Brotherly Love

Philadelphia portrait studios in the Age of the Daguerreotype (1840-1849).
by Rachel Wetzel via Library of Congress on July 1, 2022
Actors James Stewart as George Bailey, Donna Reed as Mary Hatch, and Frank Faylen as Ernie in the 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection / Getty Images)

That Time the FBI Scrutinized “It's a Wonderful Life” for Communist Messaging

The film “deliberately maligned the upper class,” according to a report that didn’t like the portrayal of Mr. Potter as a bad guy.
by John Nichols via The Nation on December 24, 2021
William Wells Brown

William Wells Brown, Wildcat Banker

How a story told by a fugitive from slavery became a parable of American banking gone bad.
by Ross Bullen via The Public Domain Review on November 24, 2021
Ronald Reagan pointing at a graph explaining his proposed tax policy.

Ronald Reagan and the Myth of the Self-Made Entrepreneur

Why a policy agenda adopted in the name of entrepreneurs hurt entrepreneurs more than it helped them.
by Steven K. Vogel via The Economic Historian on October 5, 2021

The People, It Depends

What's the matter with left-populism? A review of Thomas Frank's "The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism."
by Erik Baker via n+1 on March 24, 2021
Photograph of Michael Lind wearing a blazer and tie.

Michael Lind on Reviving Democracy

To fix things, we must acknowledge the nature of the problem.
by Michael Lind, Aaron Sibarium via The American Interest on January 29, 2020
Four African-Americans in front of a McDonalds restaurant

The Intertwined History of McDonald’s and Black America

In good ways and bad, the Golden Arches have always loomed large in the African American experience.
by Marcia Chatelain via Gen on January 6, 2020

Before Stonewall, There Was a Bookstore

Networks of activists transformed Stonewall from an isolated event into a turning point in the struggle for gay power.
by Jim Downs via The Atlantic on June 27, 2019

The Destruction of Black Wall Street

Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood was a prosperous center of Black wealth. Until a white mob wiped it out.
by Chelsea Saunders via The Nib on February 4, 2019

The Mystique of the American Diner, From Jack Kerouac to “Twin Peaks”

Freedom, fear and friendliness mingle in these emblematic eateries.
by Ryan P. Smith via Smithsonian on August 31, 2017
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