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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.
Young girl triplets wearing identical clothes sitting on a bed.

Posed Riddles

Seeing through empathy with Diane Arbus.
Black writers Askia Toure, Lorenzo Thomas, and Ismael Reed seated at an Umbra meeting.

A New Flame for Black Fire

What will be the legacy of the Black Arts Movement? Ishmael Reed reflects on the transformation and growth of Black arts since the 1960s.
Old computer with its mouse over the AOL logo.

America Online: A Cautionary Tale

On the rise and fall of the quintessential ’90s online service provider—and a warning about today’s social-media giants.
Albert Sidney Burleson partially obscured by postage stamps with Woodrow Wilson's face.

America’s Top Censor—So Far

Woodrow Wilson’s postmaster put papers out of business and jailed journalists. The tools he used still exist.
Black and white lithograph drawing of a white man dragging away a Black woman as another white man holds her baby.

Maternal Grief in Black and White

Examining enslaved mothers and antislavery literature on the eve of war.
Invisible Man book cover with Ralph Ellison on the back

Broke and Blowing Deadlines

How Ralph Ellison got Invisible Man into the canon.
Picture of two early cosplayers at a convention.

How Costumes and Conventions Brought Sci-Fi Fans Together in the Early 20th Century

Andrew Liptak on the origins of cosplay.
Collage of of Stewart Brand peeking out from behind the earth.

Stewart Brand’s Dubious Futurism

What did the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog stand for?
Drawing of John Stuart Mill

Haiti, Slavery and John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was an unusual man who lived an extraordinary life devoted to a set of problems that once again dominate political thought in the 21st century.
Illustration of Thomas Stevens on his bike

The 19th-Century Hipster Who Pioneered Modern Sportswriting

More than a century before GoPro, Thomas Stevens’ around-the-world bike ride vaulted first-person “sports porn” into the mainstream.
Photo of Danyel Smith.

Danyel Smith Tells the History of Black Women in Pop Music

The author discusses Whitney Houston, Gladys Knight, racism in magazines, and why she’s so hopeful for the future of music and writing.
Photograph of Mrs. Frank Leslie

‘Mrs. Frank Leslie’ Ran a Media Empire and Bankrolled the Suffragist Movement

A new book tells the scandalous secrets of a forgotten 19th-century tycoon, Miriam Follin Peacock Squier Leslie Wilde, also known as Mrs. Frank Leslie.
Cover of an early Superman comic book.

The Vigilante World of Comic Books

A sweeping new history traces the rise of characters caught in a Manichaean struggle between good and evil.

Macho Macho Men

Bodybuilding is routinely presented as the very apex of male heterosexuality—but its history is a bit gayer than you might think.
“Linen” postcard, depicting cars parked along a city street, in front of "Chop Suey" building, where people are standing outside.

Street Views

Photographs of empty city streets went out of fashion, but lately are coming back again. What's lost in these images of vacant streets?
A selection of newspaper covers from the Reveal Digital American Prison Newspapers collection
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Introducing American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside

This overlooked corner of the press provided news by and for people incarcerated. A newly available archive shows it worked hard to reach outside audiences too.
Lithograph of a horse and four dead bison on the plains

How Yellowstone Was Saved by a Teddy Roosevelt Dinner Party and a Fake Photo in a Gun Magazine

Teddy Roosevelt made an unlikely alliance with George Bird Grinnell, and together they made efforts to stop poaching and conserve Yellowstone.
The writer (seen here in a picture from the eighteen-eighties) hid his own life story.

Are All Short Stories O. Henry Stories?

The writer’s signature style of ending—a final, thrilling note—has the touch of magic that distinguishes the form at its best.
Members of Mattachine Society

Harry Hay, John Cage, and the Birth of Gay Rights in Los Angeles

Five men sat together on a hillside in the late afternoon, imagining a world in which they did not have to hide.
They pronouns in multi-colored boxes

Where Gender-Neutral Pronouns Come From

We tend to think of "they," "Mx.," and "hir" as recent inventions. But English speakers have been looking for better ways to talk about gender for a long time.
Revenge of the Goldfish by Sandy Skoglund, 1981

Obscura No More

How photography rose from the margins of the art world to occupy its vital center.
engraving of Harriet Beecher Stowe
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A Forgotten 19th-Century Story Can Help Us Navigate Today’s Political Fractures

Reconciliation is good — but not at any cost.

Photographer Lee Miller’s Subversive Career Took Her from Vogue to War-Torn Germany

She also acted as a muse to artist Man Ray, with whom she briefly led a relationship.
A print featuring fish that look like the American flag.

Propagating Propaganda

Toward the end of WWI, as the U.S. peddled Liberty Bonds, a goldfish dealer bred a stars-and-stripes-colored carp: a living, swimming embodiment of patriotism.
Carvings on two whaleteeth (scrimshaw)

The Pleasure Crafts

Everyday people's creation of porn and erotic objects over the centuries.
A television news reporter in a segment from the 1990s on juvenile crime

Superpredator

The media myth that demonized a generation of Black youth.
A Japanese mother and daughter, farmworkers in California, photographed in 1937 by Dorothea Lange

Whitewashing the Great Depression

How the preeminent photographic record of the period excluded people of color from the nation’s self-image.
Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir during an interview for CBS, November 11, 1973.

US Media Talks a Lot About Palestinians — Just Without Palestinians

Although major U.S. newspapers hosted thousands of opinion pieces on Israel-Palestine over 50 years, hardly any were actually written by Palestinians.

Explore 175 Years of Words in 'Scientific American'

Search a 4,000-word database to see how language in the magazine evolved over time.

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