How a $750 Down Jacket is Dividing College Campuses
When students critique outdoor fashion on campus, their views reveal gendered, ethnic, and regional stereotypes at play in the local meaning of international brands.
Tagged: History
Making the Nation in the Gilded Age: A Conversation with Richard White
To be outside the “home” was a dangerous place to be in Gilded Age America. Richard White tells the story of how the modern nation reluctantly came into being alongside the environmental crisis of the late nineteenth century.
How Canada’s Scientists Mapped the Arctic North and Weathered the Cold War
In the 1940s and 1950s, atmospheric studies of Canada’s Arctic North were defined by technological failure. Edward Jones-Imhotep tells the story of the Cold War from a new vantage point—that of an “unreliable nation.”
The Immigrants Who Supplied the Smithsonian’s Fish Collection
The Smithsonian’s fish collection preserves not just specimens but the labor and knowledge of immigrant fishermen on the California coast.
When We Repealed Daylight Saving Time
In 1922, 16 states and 137 cities followed Daylight Saving Time—and the rest of the country did not. Repealing Daylight Saving Time only made the map of national temporal borders more complex, causing heartbreak and confusion at the border.
The Case for Ecological Reparations: A Conversation with Jason W. Moore
Making things right in the face of climate change demands that colonialism, race, and gender take center stage in the story of capitalism.
The Black Birders Who Made White Ornithologists Famous
Nancy Jacobs’ new book uncovers how African birders and vernacular birding knowledge helped build European imperial science.
The Fragile Society We’ve Built from Rocks: A Conversation With Gregory Cushman
Fertilizers, computers, gasoline, and other parts of our everyday lives come from irreplaceable deposits found in the Earth. But how long will they last?
Rural People and Academic Elites Saved Higher Education Once. They Can Do It Again.
Rural resentment is nothing new. When one university reckoned with it a century ago, it convinced farmers that the university worked for them—and improved itself in the process.
How’d We Get So Cheap? A Conversation with Bryant Simon
The author of “The Hamlet Fire” discusses a deadly blaze at a chicken-processing facility and the logics of cheapness which provided the kindling.
