cultural history

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  12/1/2019
  

  Spinster, old maid or self-partnered – why words for single women have changed through time

  by Amy Froide

  Attitudes toward single women have repeatedly shifted – and part of that attitude shift is reflected in the names given to unwed women.

• 
• SOURCE: Time
  11/25/19
  

  It’s Easy to Dismiss Debutante Balls, But Their History Can Help Us Understand Women’s Lives

  by Kristen Richardson

  The debutante ritual flourished roughly from 1780 to 1914—beginning with the first debutante ball in London and ending with the outbreak of World War I. 

• 
• 11/17/19
  

  The History of Personal Hygiene: An Interview with Peter Ward

  by Aleisha Smith

  "The history of the unremarkable and the ordinary have an importance of their own, one that can easily surpass the history of greatness in any of its many forms."

• 
• 11/3/19
  

  The First World War through a camera lens: from the soldier’s snapshot to the memorial photograph

  by Caroline Scott

  While professional lenses had captured scenes from the Crimean and the American Civil War, this was the first time that large numbers of serving men took cameras into the frontlines and made a visual record of their own experiences. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  10/29/19
  

  Rabies’ horrifying symptoms inspired folktales of humans turned into werewolves, vampires and other monsters

  by Jessica Wang

  The author's new book, “Mad Dogs and Other New Yorkers: Rabies, Medicine, and Society in an American Metropolis, 1840-1920,” explores the hidden meanings behind the ways people talked about rabies.

• 
• 10/27/2019
  

  What the Most Influential Text on Cannibalism Can Teach Us About Studying History

  by Tim Seiter

  From the Man-Eating Myth’s saga, we learn that if we focus too heavily on a single perspective while ignoring others, dangerously flawed history is bound to be produced.

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian.com
  10/10/19
  

  The Feminist History of ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’

  by Anna Laymon

  The song was written as Jack Norworth’s ode to his girlfriend, the progressive and outspoken Trixie Friganza, a famous vaudeville actress and suffragist.  

• 
• 10/13/19
  

  Rethinking Polygamy: An Interview with Sarah M.S. Pearsall

  by Kyla Sommers

  "Polygamy controversies place us amid major events in early America because such clashes were about the organization and governance not just of house- holds but of societies, nations, and empires.”

• 
• 9/29/19
  

  What Abraham Lincoln Got Right About Addiction

  by Ed Simon

  This National Recovery Month, Ed Simon examines the history of addiction recovery movements. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/25/19
  

  Why fears over Generation Z are overblown

  by Miranda Sachs

  We keep comparing young Americans to baby boomers and Generation X, but those comparisons are deeply flawed.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/21/19
  

  An Improbable Relic of Auschwitz: a Shofar That Defied the Nazis

  The daughter of a Holocaust survivor has brought forward a ram’s horn trumpet and her father’s account of the power of belief amid death.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/5/19
  

  Not having kids is nothing new. What centuries of history tell us about childlessness today.

  by Rachel Chrastil

  The long history of childlessness can help us to debunk myths, tell our stories and expand the range of our possibilities. 

• 
• 8/27/19
  

  The Cultural History of Woodstock and a Message of Hope

  by Harlan Lebo

   The Woodstock weekend marked the beginning of a new era in America, a new consciousness about the way the world could be.

• 
• 8/11/19
  

  Counterculture 1969: a Gateway to the Darkest and the Brightest

  by Harlan Lebo

  The question of how counterculture emerges is a reflection of an era, with results that produced the worst and best of a generation.

• 
• 8/4/19
  

  Woodstock at 50: A Conversation with Award Winning Filmmaker Barak Goodman

  by Jonathan Montano

  Goodman's latest documentary, "Woodstock: Three Days That Changed a Generation," premieres on PBS August 6th. 

• 
• 7/28/19
  

  Invented in the Fifties, Adolescence Swallowed the Nation—And Now the White House, Too

  by Tracy Dahlby

  The fixation with our president’s juvenile leadership style overlooks a deeper one: America’s obsession with eternal adolescence.

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  7/20/19
  

  The Vicious Fun of America’s Most Famous Literary Circle

  by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

  The Algonquin Round Table trained a generation of socially conscious writers.

• 
• 6/30/19
  

  What We Can Learn About Tough Times and Problem-Solving from the 1970s

  by Tracy Dahlby

  If 70s sage E.F. Schumacher has anything to teach us today, it may lie in his chronically appealing idea that optimism about the human spirit, and faith in our potential for problem-solving, can flourish even in the toughest of times.

• 
• SOURCE: Nursing Clio
  6/18/19
  

  The Opioid Epidemic as Metaphor

  by Faith Bennett

  As cinematic portrayals of opioid use and abuse tend to be this sensational, commonplace opioid usage almost feels as if it doesn’t fit into this pattern of addiction at all. 

• 
• 2/3/19
  

  What I’m Reading: An Interview With Cultural Historian Surekha Davies

  by Erik Moshe

  Understanding the past involves mental stamina and breadth