Menu
Idea

sensationalism

147
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Still from the 2023 indie film "Late Night with the Devil"

The Role of Talk Shows in Sensationalizing the Satanic Panic of the 1980s

"Late Night with the Devil," a “found footage” horror film, perfectly captures the mood and style that surrounded media depictions of the occult in the 1970s.
by Joseph Laycock via Religion Dispatches on March 26, 2024
Digital illustration of a wagon filled with newspapers.

Fear in the Heartland

How the case of the kidnapped paperboys accelerated the “stranger danger” panic of the 1980s.
by Paul M. Renfro via Slate on August 9, 2021
Cover of John Krakauer's book "Under the Banner of Heaven," featuring the Utah landscape.

Abusing Religion: Polygyny, Mormonisms, and Under the Banner of Heaven

How stories of abuse in minority religious communities have influenced American culture.
by Megan Goodwin via The Revealer on February 20, 2019
A portrait of a woman in an crime pamphlet labeled "the beautiful victim."

The Bloody History of the True Crime Genre

True Crime is having a renaissance with popular TV series and podcasts. But the history of the genre dates back much further.
by Pamela Burger, Jack Miles, Joy Wiltenburg, Frederick Burwick, Karen S. H. Roggenkamp via JSTOR Daily on August 24, 2016

By Which Melancholy Occurrence: The Disaster Prints of Nathaniel Currier, 1835–1840

Why Americans living in uncertain times bought so many sensational images of shipwrecks and fires.
by Genoa Shepley via Panorama on October 14, 2015
Painting of the archangel Michael, holding shield, defeating Satan and other angels.

Extremist Pop Culture and the American Evangelical Right

Jack Chick and the origins of the 1980s “Satanic Panic."
by Sean Goodman via Journal of the History of Ideas Blog on December 16, 2024
Burglar sneaking into the bedroom of a sleeping woman.

True Crime: Allan Pinkerton’s “Thirty Years a Detective”

Am 1884 guide to vice and crime by the founder of the world’s largest private detective agency.
by Sasha Archibald via The Public Domain Review on December 5, 2024
Donald Trump

Racism Against Haitians Didn’t Begin in Springfield, Ohio

In the early 19th century, US elites demonized the self-liberated slaves of the Haitian Revolution as dangerous practitioners of barbaric rituals.
by Ayendy Bonifacio via Jacobin on September 18, 2024
Drag queen reading book to children.

Censorship Through Centuries

A new book examines battles over drag story hours and book bans through the lens of LGBTQ history.
by Rebecca L. Davis via Literary Hub on September 9, 2024
Eyes looking through the stripes on an American flag as if they were window blinds.

How Conspiracy Theory Made America

Americans are seized by conspiracy theories, and as a result, democracy is in peril—so conventional wisdom holds.
by Michael Cuenco via Compact on August 2, 2024
Clara Bow

Taylor Swift’s Homage to Clara Bow

The star of the 1920s silver screen who appears on Taylor Swift’s new album abruptly left Hollywood at the height of her success.
by Deirdre Clemente, Annie Delgado via The Conversation on April 15, 2024
Jewish moneylender choking debtor

"A Fiendish Fascination"

The representation of Jews in antebellum popular culture reveals that many Americans found them both cartoonishly villainous and enticingly exotic.
by David S. Reynolds via New York Review of Books on February 1, 2024
Young boy receiving polio vaccine from doctor

Hesitancy Against Hope: Reactions to the First Polio Vaccine

Hesitancy and opposition to vaccines has existed in the past, and such awareness provides needed context to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine within American history.
by Stephen E. Mawdsley via Process: A Blog for American History on January 9, 2024
Planned Parenthood center in Kentucky

The 113-Year-Old Law Behind Anti-Abortion Activists’ Latest Scheme

The Christian right is pushing a slate of laws to stop a new, vague offense they have dubbed “abortion trafficking.”
by Melissa Gira Grant via The New Republic on September 7, 2023
Photos of Harriet Boyd and Cora Stewart.

They Were Fearless 1890s War Correspondents—and They Were Women

Were Harriet Boyd and Cora Stewart rivals in Greece in 1897? The fog of war has obscured a groundbreaking tale.
by Richard Byrne via The New Republic on August 25, 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
Photo-Illustraton of Adolph Ochs.

The Invention of Objectivity

The view from nowhere came from somewhere.
by Darrell Hartman via The Atlantic on June 3, 2023
Soldiers, sailors and marines in Los Angeles, June 7, 1943, stopping a street car looking for zoot suits.

Where and How the Zoot Suit Riots Swept Across L.A.

A location-based timeline and interactive map of the L.A. Zoot Suit Riots.
by Christian Orozco via Los Angeles Times on June 2, 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
Photograph, “The Burning City of San Francisco."

Eyewitness Accounts of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake

The heart of this book is the sharp and disjointed accounts of survivors, their experience not yet shorn of its surprise.
by Sasha Archibald via The Public Domain Review on May 23, 2023
Security guards separate guests on an episode of ‘The Jerry Springer Show’ titled ‘I am pregnant by my half-brother.’

Jerry Springer and the History of That [Bleeping] Bleep Sound

As ‘The Jerry Springer Show’ climbed the ratings ladder, the censorship bleep became a star of the show.
by Matthew F. Jordan via The Conversation on May 2, 2023
Painting called "Hudibras’ Discomfiture at the Hands of the Skimmington," by Francis Le Piper, seventeenth century.

American Charivari

The history and context of the made-up aesthetics of the early Ku Klux Klan.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Lapham’s Quarterly on April 24, 2023
Collage of BuzzFeed logo and people using electronic devices.

They Did It for the Clicks

How digital media pursued viral traffic at all costs and unleashed chaos.
by Aaron Timms via The New Republic on April 18, 2023
A box of explosives removed from the murderer's home

America’s First Plane Bomber, and His Intended Victim

A mass murderer of 1955.
by Nathan Munn via Popula on April 5, 2023
Cattle in Nevada, 1973 (and a UFO)

The 1970s Cow Mutilation Mystery

When ranchers began reporting incidents of mutilated cattle, the ensuring panic fed both conspiracy theories and a growing cynicism about the government.
by Livia Gershon, Michael J. Goleman via JSTOR Daily on March 17, 2023
Sign for the Hong Kong Restaurant

The Rotten Science Behind the MSG Scare

How one doctor’s letter and a string of dodgy studies spurred a public health panic.
by Sam Kean via Distillations on March 2, 2023
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) points to a newly installed sign above his office after he was elected in 15 rounds of votes.
partner

What Lessons Can the House Draw From 1923’s Speaker Battle?

The House speaker fight was eerily reminiscent of 1923 — but the differences between the two will drive what comes next.
by Christopher McKnight Nichols, Maxine Wagenhoffer via Made By History on January 9, 2023
Illustration of Samuel Adams writing a document, with images of the American revolution behind him.

How Samuel Adams Helped Ferment a Revolution

A virtuoso of the eighteenth-century version of viral memes and fake news, he had a sense of political theatre that helped create a radical new reality.
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on October 24, 2022
Handwritten sign that says, "We know more than our doctors."

Doctors Who?

The history of DIY transition offers one path toward what might come after, or in the place of, state-sanctioned care.
by Jules Gill-Peterson via The Baffler on October 4, 2022
A person holds up a "Don't Tread on Florida" poster at an August rally in Tampa featuring Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio.
partner

The ‘Florida Man’ is Notorious. Here’s Where the Meme Came From

The practice of seeing Florida’s people, culture and history in caricature form is deeply rooted in the state’s colonial past.
by Julio Capó Jr., Tyler Gillespie via Made By History on September 14, 2022
View More
30 of
147

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History