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Harry Smith.

‘Cosmic Scholar’ Review: Harry Smith’s Strange Frequencies

Smith collected rare books, paper airplanes, Pennsylvania Dutch tools—and harvested the folk music recordings that changed a generation.
Max Fleischer’s Superman

On the Men Who Lent Their Bodies (and Voices) to the Earliest Iterations of Superman

A wrestler, a Sunday school teacher, and a mystery man walk into a studio.
Captain Lightfood on horseback firing a pistol.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot: The American Creation of Irish Outlaw Folk Heroes

Martin’s confession relates outlaw adventures that appear to be original. But were they real? 
Cover of the book "When Crack Was King," and Donovan X. Ranmsey.

A History of the Crack Epidemic From Below

How documenting the history of the drug war is a “community project” and reflections on 1990s rap music's anti-crack hits.
Exhibit

Moving Pictures

Tracing the history of Americans' relationships with the silver screen, from film's earliest days to the cinematic creations of our own times.

Marker at the Trinity test site in New Mexico.

Nolan’s Oppenheimer Treats New Mexico as a Blank Canvas

There is no acknowledgement in the film of the existence of downwinders from the test, in New Mexico or elsewhere.
Still from the film 'Oppenheimer.'

‘It’s Really First-Class Work’

Watching 'Oppenheimer' with the author of a definitive account of the Manhattan Project.
Movie poster for "Bad Day at Black Rock."

Buried in the Sand

On John Sturges’s “Bad Day at Black Rock” and Japanese America.
Drawing from "Little Nemo in Slumberland" by Winsor McCay

The Cutting-Edge Cartoons of Winsor McCay

A prolific, meticulous artist, McCay created characters and storyscapes that inspired generations of cartoonists and animators.

‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Tell the Same Terrifying Story

The “Barbenheimer” double feature captures the dawn of our imperiled era.
Oppenheimer movie poster.

The Race to Make Hollywood’s First Atomic Bomb Movie

Before Christopher Nolan’s "Oppenheimer," the world nearly got Ayn Rand’s "Tribute to Free Enterprise."
The iconic white lettered Hollywood sign

The Hidden History of the Hollywood Sign

“The sign has become a worldwide symbol of the Hollywood of the imagination, and it allows anyone who sees it to fill it with whatever meaning they want.”
Margot Robbie in "Barbie" film.

This is the Real History of Barbie

Before the eagerly-anticipated film hits our screens, we take a look back at the story of the world's most famous doll.
The stairs leading to the segregated section of a cinema in Belzoni, Mississippi, in 1939.

The Writers Who Went Undercover to Show America Its Ugly Side

In the 1940s, a series of books tried to use the conventions of detective fiction to expose the degree of prejudice in postwar America.
J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer, Nullified and Vindicated

The inventor of the atomic bomb, the subject of Christopher Nolan’s new film, was the chief celebrity victim of the national trauma known as McCarthyism.
Diners conversing at French restaurant.

Crème de la Crème

How French cuisine became beloved among status-hungry diners in the United States, from Thomas Jefferson to Kanye West.
Police and bystanders at night.

Do Cartels Exist?

A revisionist view of the drug wars.
A black-and-white frame of a crowd of police officers confronting strikers - beating them with clubs.

When Unions and Police Clash: The Memorial Day Massacre You May Not Know About

Decades ago, labor protests, picketing and strikes often led to violent confrontations between activists and police, although that almost never happens today.
Miles Davis, Howard McGhee, and unknown pianist. NYC, September 1947.

On Menand’s "The Free World" and Dinerstein’s "The Origins of Cool in Postwar America"

Two differing explorations of post-WWII culture, politics, and ideals.
Ronald Squire, Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge.

Against Race Essentialism

Black identity is a reality, not an idea.
A portrait of Jackie Robinson in his Brooklyn Dodgers uniform, circa 1945.

Jackie Robinson Was More Than a Baseball Player

Jackie Robinson is popularly portrayed as the man who broke baseball’s color line by quietly enduring racist abuse. But that narrative is much too narrow.
A man walking an alligator on a leash.

Photographs of the Los Angeles Alligator Farm

These images of the LA Alligator Farm depict a level of casual proximity unthinkable today.
Winnifred Eaton

The First Asian American Screenwriter

The woman with the pen name Onoto Watanna had a stunningly productive literary career as a cookbook writer, novelist, and screenwriter.
Baby Drew in a dress and sitting on a chair, 1913.

Boys in Dresses: The Tradition

It’s difficult to read the gender of children in many old photos. That’s because coding American children via clothing didn’t begin until the 1920s.
Fisk University Class of 1888.

*The South*: The Past, Historicity, and Black American History (Part II)

Exploring recent debates about the uses–and utility–of Black history in both the academic and public spheres.
1970s commercial airplane flying over a mountain range

How 1970s California Created the Modern World

What happened in California in the 1970s played an outsized role in creating the world we live in today – both in the United States and globally.
An elephant holding a broom with its trunk.

Lions and Tigers and Cameras!

How the movies gave Los Angeles a zoo.
Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo with his wife Cleo at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in 1947. Bertoldt Brecht can be seen in the background.

Monopolywood: Why the Paramount Accords Should Not Be Repealed

If studios can again harness the income from exhibition, we may see a return of traditional vertical integration.
Oscar statues.

What the Oscars Represent: Meritocracy Without Merit

How the institution’s reactionary origins still leak into today’s film culture.
J. Edgar Hoover and two other men pose with guns.

The Cult of J. Edgar Hoover

A zealot through and through, he ran the FBI like a religious sect.
Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz."

The Feminist of Oz

Learn more about the story of Matilda Gage, whose writings inspired the witches in "The Wizard of Oz."

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