popular culture — Bunk History

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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?

by Jerry Kuntz via Commonplace on August 8, 2023

The Sugarhill Gang's Wonder Mike, Master Gee and Hen Dogg in November 2019.

The Unlikely Origins of ‘Rapper’s Delight,’ Hip-Hop’s First Mainstream Hit

The Sugarhill Gang song remains one of rap's most beloved. But it took serendipity, a book of rhymes, and an agreement to settle a lawsuit for it to survive.

by Kim Bellware via Retropolis on August 8, 2023

Charles Dickens as he appears when reading, Harper’s Weekly (December 7th, 1867).

A Christmas Carol In Nineteenth-Century America, 1844-1870

What were Americans' immediate responses to "A Christmas Carol," and how did Dickens' reading tours and eventual death reshape its meaning?

by Thomas Ruys Smith via Comparative American Studies on July 27, 2023

Actor portraying Oppenheimer.

The Real History Behind Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer'

The "father of the atomic bomb" has long been misunderstood. Will the new film finally get J. Robert Oppenheimer right?

by Andy Kifer via Smithsonian on July 18, 2023

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.”

by Nathan Smith via Smithsonian on July 13, 2023

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.

by Marie-Claire Chappet via Harper's Bazaar on July 13, 2023

Scene from "The Sugarland Express." A woman is leaning out the window of police car.

Hot Pursuit: The Brief Rise of 1970s Hixploitation Cinema

On the drive-in movie culture that captured a yearning for fast cars on dusty roads.

by Scott Von Doviak via CrimeReads on July 11, 2023

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.

by Samuel G. Freedman via The Atlantic on July 10, 2023

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.

by Kelly Alexander, Claire Bunschoten via Aeon on July 7, 2023

Puff Daddy performs at his annual White Party.

Hip-Hop’s Midlife Slump

It’s been 25 years since Puff Daddy went to the Hamptons. What’s changed?

by Xochitl Gonzalez via The Atlantic on July 3, 2023

Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina.

"If America Doesn't Become America": Outlander and the American Revolution

"Outlander" challenges the myth of American exceptionalism at the root of much U.S. popular culture.

by Michelle Orihel via Age of Revolutions on July 3, 2023

Woody Guthrie

Will Rogers & Woody Guthrie, Two Great Americans

Popular culture and social critique through Rogers' writing and Guthrie's songs.

by Greg Mitchell via Between Rock and a Hard Place on June 29, 2023

Artistic representation of a man using psychedelics. The man's head appears like a matryoshka doll.

Brains on Drugs

Between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, drug use to expand one’s consciousness went from an intellectual pastime to an emblem of social decay.

by John Semley via The Baffler on June 14, 2023

A meme, entitled The Many Faces of Generation X, showing stills of a girl from a movie called The Breakfast Club.

The Constructive Culture of Gen X Cynicism

Skepticism drove some of this more cynical or realistic worldview, based on their experiences growing up in the 70s and 80s.

by Mindy Clegg via 3 Quarks Daily on June 5, 2023

A woman poses with a kitten next to a wooden barrel labeled "Queen of the Mist"

American Daredevils

The nineteenth-century commitment to thrilling an audience embodied an emerging synergy of public performance, collective experience, and individual agency.

by Robert Westbrook, Betsy Golden Kellem, William P. Goldman, Jacob Smith, Aimee Nezhukumatathil via JSTOR Daily on May 24, 2023

Miles Davis, Howard McGhee, and unknown pianist. NYC, September 1947.

Michael Kramer 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.

by Michael J. Kramer via Society for U.S. Intellectual History on May 21, 2023

Barbie dolls in 1959 wearing the zebra-striped swimsuit.

A Cultural History of Barbie

Loved and loathed, the toy stirs fresh controversy at age 64.

by Emily Tamkin via Smithsonian on May 18, 2023

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.

by Erica X. Eisen via The Public Domain Review on May 11, 2023

Collage of baseball caps

The History of the Baseball Cap

The long, strange, history of the baseball cap.

by Michael Clair via Major League Baseball on May 9, 2023

A fast food worker working a drive thru hands a bag to a customer in a car.

A History of the Drive-Thru, From California to Coronavirus

COVID-19 has recast the often-maligned restaurant drive-thru window as both a critical amenity and a basic comfort.

by Adam Chandler via Serious Eats on April 1, 2023

A flower.

A Structural History of American Public Health Narratives

Rereading Priscilla Wald’s "Contagious" and Nancy Tomes’ "Gospel of Germs" amidst a 21st-century pandemic.

by Amy Mackin via Assay Journal on March 25, 2023

Oscar statues.

What the Oscars Represent: Meritocracy Without Merit

How the institution’s reactionary origins still leak into today’s film culture.

by David Hajdu via The Nation on March 8, 2023

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.

by Adam Hochschild via The Nation on March 7, 2023

Four characters from "Dazed and Confused."

The “Dazed and Confused” Generation

People my age are described as baby boomers, but our experiences call for a different label altogether.

by Bruce Handy via The New Yorker on March 2, 2023

Cover of "Gravity's Rainbow," depicting a orange-red sky over a small city.

History Is Hard to Decode

On 50 years of Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow.”

by M. Keith Booker via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 28, 2023

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.

by Joanne McNeil via The Nation on December 15, 2022

The Life of Song

What the surprising career of Bob McGrath teaches us about popular music.

by Kathryn Ostrofsky on December 14, 2022

Collage of yoga, palm tree, police tape

The Birth of a New Brand of Exercise Fetish

From Bikram yoga to Tae Bo, the 1990s exploded with exoticized consumer fitness products.

by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela via The Nation on December 13, 2022

Crowds and escalators in the Mall of America.

The Rise and Fall of the Mall

Alexandra Lange's "Meet Me by the Fountain" recovers the forgotten past and the still hopeful future of the American shopping mall.

by Melvin Backman via The Nation on December 12, 2022

Ollie Brown holding Rolling Stone magazine.

What Was the Music Critic?

A new book exalts the heyday of music magazines, when electric prose reigned and egos collided.

by John Semley via The New Republic on November 18, 2022

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