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popular culture

activities, experiences, or artistic products that pervade society in a particular time

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Elvis Presley dancing.

How Long Will We Care?

A music critic assesses Elvis Presley's influence on popular culture.
by Lester Bangs via Village Voice on August 29, 1977
Two bikers ride through the desert in Easy Rider, a 1969 film.

See America First

Two movies, 'Easy Rider' and 'Alice's Restaurant,' reveal the ideals of counterculture and act as vehicles for social commentary.
by Ellen Willis via New York Review of Books on January 2, 1970
Sheet music cover for "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier," 1915.

"I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier"

The sound of antiwar protest in 1915.
via Voices & Visions
Political cartoon of smokers.

Puff, Puff? Pass!: The Anti-Tobacco Writings of Margaret Woods Lawrence

Reformers linked tobacco use to a deterioration of social and familial values, a habit that disrupted the sanctity of the home.
by Brian Fehler via Commonplace on April 8, 2025
A woman at a toy counter.
partner

“The End Is Coming! The End Is Coming!”

In the 1990s, an entire industry was born of trying to convince Americans that Beanie Babies were a great investment opportunity.
by Ross Benes via HNN on April 1, 2025
Shots from various conspiracy films of the 20th century.

The Life and Death of Conspiracy Cinema

Why did Hollywood lose interest in making paranoid thrillers? Was it a change in the culture? Or a change in the marketplace?
by T. M. Brown via The Nation on March 31, 2025
A portrait of Edgar Allen Poe.

The Most Overrated Writer in America

Do people really like Edgar Allen Poe?
by Naomi Kanakia via Woman of Letters on March 18, 2025
Cartoon of well-dressed arm holding a lit match

The Gilded Age Never Ended

Plutocrats, anarchists, and what Henry James grasped about the romance of revolution.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on February 24, 2025
Elaine May and Walter Matthau sitting on a bench in May’s film A New Leaf.

May Days

A new biography of an elusive comic talent.
by Lizzy Harding via Bookforum on February 11, 2025
A group of people riding horses on a dude ranch.

The Rise and Resilience of Dude Ranches

Dude ranches have been a popular American vacation spot for more than one hundred years.
by Teresa Bitler via The Saturday Evening Post on February 3, 2025
The Griffith Observatory, constructed by the Works Progress Administration, on a hill overlooking Los Angeles.

A New Deal for Architecture

What it conveys is quite specific: grandeur, beauty, dynamism, and power.
by David Schaengold via Compact on December 20, 2024

Can the Rodeo Save a Historic Black Town?

One woman’s quest to rescue Boley, Oklahoma.
by Caleb Gayle via The Atlantic on December 17, 2024
William F. Buckley, Donald Trump.

The Modern Conservative Tradition and the Origins of Trumpism

Today’s Trumpist radicals are not (small-c) conservatives – but they stand in the continuity of Modern Conservatism’s defining political project.
by Thomas Zimmer via Democracy Americana on December 16, 2024
A painting of a large camera on a film set, surrounded by green screens.

Casual Viewing

Why Netflix looks like that.
by Will Tavlin via n+1 on December 16, 2024
Johnny Carson hosting the Tonight Show.

The Amazing, Disappearing Johnny Carson

Carson pioneered a new style of late-night hosting—relaxed, improvisatory, risk-averse, and inscrutable.
by Isaac Butler via The New Yorker on November 6, 2024
A drawing of Kamala Harris in a police uniform.

Lipstick on the Pigs

Kamala Harris and the lineage of the female cop.
by Sophie Lewis via The Drift on October 28, 2024
An old, crumbling Victorian house with figures from horror, including Toni Collette in Hereditary, a zombie, Edgar Allen Poe, and Stephen King.

American Horror Stories

It just might be the great American art form. You can thank the residents of Salem for that.
by Laura J. Miller via Slate on October 19, 2024
partner

The Bowl Truth

On Joan of Arc’s much-maligned and forgotten haircut.
by Emma Maggie Solberg via HNN on October 1, 2024
An illustration of the book "Silent Spring" on top of the earth.

This Book Helped Save the Planet—but Created a Very Harmful Myth

It radically shifted the way the world looked at the environment, but created a wave of misinformation we’re still dealing with today.
by Katie MacBride via Slate on September 29, 2024
John Mack speaking on the Oprah Winfrey Show, with a tagline that reads "John Mack, M.D., Harvard Psychiatrist Who Believes Patients Were Abducted By Aliens."

John E. Mack and the Unbelievable UFO Truth

The controversial career of John E. Mack, the Pulitzer Prize–winning Harvard psychiatrist who wrote best-selling books on UFO abduction.
by Michael J. Socolow via Los Angeles Review of Books on September 21, 2024
The title card for Little House of a Prairie on a green hill.

50 Years Ago: America Loved a Little House

The beloved family show left a lasting legacy.
by Troy Brownfield via The Saturday Evening Post on September 11, 2024
Taylor Swift performing on stage.

Has Pop Music Got Less Melodic? I’ve Immersed Myself in 70 Years of Hits – This is What I’ve Found

A new study claims that songs have become less complex. But the magic of these short, sharp tunes can’t be so easily distilled.
by Tom Breihan via The Guardian on August 5, 2024
From left, Sam Warner, Harry M. Warner, Jack L. Warner, and Albert Warner.

Are Hollywood’s Jewish Founders Worth Defending?

Jews in the industry called for the Academy Museum to highlight the men who created the movie business. A voice in my head went, Uh-oh.
by Michael Schulman via The New Yorker on July 17, 2024
Man and woman testing buttons on machine at Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory

Tomorrow People

For the entire 20th century, it had felt like telepathy was just around the corner. Why is that especially true now?
by Roger Luckhurst via Aeon on June 3, 2024
A photograph of four children standing, one is slouching.

Are You Sitting Up Straight? America’s Obsession with Improving Posture

In Beth Linker’s new book, she applies a disability studies lens to the history of posture.
by Laura Ansley via Perspectives on History on May 9, 2024
The Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
partner

Walt Disney Presents Manifest Destiny

On the St. Louis theme park that never made it past the drawing board.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via HNN on April 30, 2024
Basketball players taking a knee on the court and wearing "Black Lives Matter" shirts.
partner

How the NBA Learned to Embrace Activism

A changing NBA fan base drove the league toward an embrace of Black culture, and social justice politics.
by Adam Criblez via Made By History on April 19, 2024
John Thorn photographed in front of baseball memorabilia.

How Baseball’s Official Historian Dug Up the Game’s Unknown Origins

A lifelong passion for the national pastime led John Thorn to redefine the sport's relationship with statistics and reveal the truth behind its earliest days.
by Frederic J. Frommer via Smithsonian on March 28, 2024
A masculine caricature of an Irish-American woman threatening an American woman in a kitchen.

From Saint to Stereotype: A Story of Brigid

Caricatures of Irish immigrants—especially Irish women—have softened, but persist in characters whose Irishness is expressed in subtle cues.
by Melanie Beth Curran, Margaret Lynch-Brennan, M. Alison Kibler, Peter Flynn via JSTOR Daily on March 27, 2024
Cover of "James" by Percival Everett

Gulp Fiction, or Into the Missouri-verse

On Percival Everett’s “James.”
by Matt Seybold via Cleveland Review of Books on March 25, 2024
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