popular culture — Bunk History

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The Debt That All Cartoonists Owe to "Peanuts"

How Charles Schulz's classic strip shaped the comic medium.

by Chris Ware via The New Yorker on September 24, 2019

The End of the Golden Era of Chess

The recent passing of Pal Benko and Shelby Lyman draws the curtain on an American period that produced some of the game’s most sparkling play.

by Peter Nicholas via The Atlantic on September 5, 2019

How Davy Crockett Became an American Legend

Was Davy Crockett a sellout? And does it matter?

by Phil Edwards, Coleman Lowndes via Vox on August 7, 2019

What Maketh a Man

How queer artist J.C. Leyendecker invented an iconography of twentieth-century American masculinity.

by Tyler Malone via Lapham’s Quarterly on June 10, 2019

A Short History of Country Music’s Multicultural Mishmash

Or everything that came before Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus walked down that “Old Town Road.”

by David Hajdu via The Nation on June 7, 2019

The Definitive Oral History of TiVo

How the original DVR paved the way for Netflix and the cord-cutter movement.

by Tom Roston via OneZero on April 2, 2019

Newspaper clipping featuring giant championship bat being presented to the Cincinnati Red Stockings.

How the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Turned Baseball into a National Sensation

Meet the team that transformed baseball from a pastime to an industry.

by Robert Wyss via The Conversation on March 27, 2019

Drawing of people dancing on a dance floor

A Data-Led Theory to Generationally Divided Dance Floors

Some age groups are more likely to recognize certain songs than others.

by Matthew Daniels, Liana Sposto via The Pudding on February 17, 2019

Still from the Golden Girls.

Deconstructing HIV and AIDS on The Golden Girls

In 1990, one of America's most beloved sitcoms took on the HIV epidemic with humor and sensitivity.

by Claire Sewell via Nursing Clio on December 4, 2018

Frederick Douglass Forum

An online forum on the life and legacy of Frederick Douglass.

by David W. Blight, Leigh Fought, Manisha Sinha, Chris Shell, Noelle Trent, Neil Roberts, Christopher Bonner via Black Perspectives on November 30, 2018

The Surprising History (and Future) of Dinosaurs

For well over a hundred years, paleontology has done double duty as mass entertainment.

by Chantel Tattoli via The Paris Review on September 28, 2018

Illustration of Howard Thurston, gazing into a skull while surrounded by supernatural creatures

Howard Thurston, the Magician Who Disappeared

Overshadowed by more famous contemporaries, the visionary behind “The Wonder Show of the Universe” left a far-reaching legacy.

by Eliza McGraw via Smithsonian on August 9, 2018

"Black Panther" comic book cover.

Black Panther and the Black Panthers

Much is at stake in understanding the history and relationship between black superheroes and black revolutionaries.

by Amy Ongiri via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 23, 2018

A New Golden Age for the Tiki Bar

Half a century after the tropical craze of the 1960s, the modern age of escapism is taking cues from the past.

by Kara Newman via The Atlantic on June 5, 2018

A Timeline of Working-Class Sitcoms

Over the years, there have been surprisingly few of them.

by Kathryn Van Arendonk via Vulture on May 18, 2018

A man demonstrating television to another.

This Futuristic Color TV Set Concept From 1922 Was Way Ahead of Its Time

Back in the earliest days of imagining what TV looked like, the appliance was a magic technology.

by Matt Novak via Paleofuture on May 4, 2018

Hysterical Cravings

How “pickles and ice cream” became the iconic “crazy” snack for pregnant women.

by Rebecca Onion via Slate on April 18, 2018

Still of Molly Ringwald and Emilio Estevez from The Breakfast Club.

What About “The Breakfast Club”?

Revisiting the movies of my youth in the age of #MeToo.

by Molly Ringwald via The New Yorker on April 6, 2018

The Ambivalence of Appropriation

A new book by Eric Lott frames white appropriation of blackness as containing the possibility of greater racial solidarity.

by Noah Hansen via Public Books on March 29, 2018

Intricately painted Easter eggs.

Why Easter Never Became a Big Secular Holiday like Christmas

Hint: the Puritans were involved.

by Tara Isabella Burton via Vox on March 29, 2018

What Makes Jewish Comedy Jewish?

In the latter half of the twentieth century, American comedy just was Jewish comedy, tamped down to appease audiences.

by David Baddiel via The Times Literary Supplement on February 28, 2018

I Grew Up as a Black Southerner Idolizing Robert E. Lee

I didn't know the Confederate general owned slaves. I didn't even know he was part of the Confederacy.

by Issac J. Bailey via Vice on November 2, 2017

Charlie Chaplin and another mustachioed character in a film.

The Meaning of a Mustache

To shave or not to shave? At the start of the twentieth century, a trend away from facial hair reflected dramatic social and economic shifts.

by Christopher Oldstone-Moore, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on October 23, 2017

The 1960s Photographer Who Documented the Peace Sign as a Political Symbol

Jim Marshall photographed the spread of the peace sign between 1961 and 1968, with his images now published for the first time by Reel Art Press.

by Allison C. Meier via Hyperallergic on October 20, 2017

Is Ron Chernow's Ulysses S. Grant biography "OK"?

On October 15th, a tweet by Bunk contributing editor Kevin Levin touched off this fascinating exchange between several historians on the subject of popular history. Among the topics it covered were novelty, craft, context... and the musical Hamilton.

by William Hogeland, Kevin M. Levin, Megan Kate Nelson, T. J. Stiles, Josh Feigenbaum, Meghan Roberts, Brooks Simpson via Twitter on October 16, 2017

40 Years Ago: A Look Back at 1977

A visual trip back in time to 1977.

by Alan Taylor via The Atlantic on October 16, 2017

When Cardigans Were Battle Attire

Your favorite light sweater was worn to war, before getting picked up by academics, Mr. Rogers, and Kurt Cobain.

by Jennifer Le Zotte via Racked on October 3, 2017

Otis Redding

Five Magnificent Years

A recent Otis Redding biography examines what was and what could have been, 50 years after tragedy struck.

by Geoffrey O'Brien via New York Review of Books on September 10, 2017

Lithograph book illustration of pirates of America.

A Treasure Trove of Trials

This collection of piracy trials comprises documents that were published before 1923 and that are part of the holdings of the Law Library of Congress.

by Francisco Macías via Library of Congress on September 5, 2017

Lin Manuel Miranda and fellow actor dressed in colonial era clothing

How to Love Problematic Pop Culture

Revisiting the contradictions in "Hamilton" – and in the pushback to criticisms of the beloved musical.

by Lyra Monteiro via Medium on August 27, 2017

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