What does turn-of-the-century “Change of Air” travel reveal about the role of vacationing in U.S. culture and society today? Alexis Schmidt examines the historical transition of Change of Air from a legitimate medical prescription into a commodified and efficient vacation on the coast—a cultural attitude that persists in “health” vacation narratives to this day.
The outdoor recreation economy (ORE) is where land, labor, and leisure collide. Mara MacDonell explores the complexities and complications behind the apparent rise of ORE, including housing insecurity, economic inequality, and environmental degradation.
Micaela Edelson reveals the often hidden health costs of pesticide exposure to migrant farmworkers in the United States.
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended global circuits of resource extraction. Brian Ikaika Klein, Stephanie Postar, Laura Dev, Hilary Faxon, and Matthew Libassi tell the story of a gold-filled suitcase to show how.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, video games offered Nat Mesnard and many others an escape from isolation. But the false promise of endless productivity in factory building games like Satisfactory ensnared them in a myth of capitalist “progress.”
Tea gardens in West Bengal are steeped in legacies of British colonialism. Chandreyi Sengupta, Mrinmoyee Naskar, and Debajit Datta trace the lingering social and environmental impacts of the 19th-century plantation system.
A poetic and visceral narrative of salt mining in Gujarat, India, Divya Victor’s Kith calls attention to the lives and deaths of salt farmers.
Dr. Shona Jackson discusses labor in the Caribbean and the need for radical, collective labor histories that include Creole groups and Indigenous peoples.
The Dole pineapple plantation has a destructive history of transforming the Hawaiian Islands. Mallory Huard describes how that continues today in the tourism industry.
From toxic street slush to plowed-in cars, winter can be frustrating. But it doesn’t have to be. A historian uncovers 19th-century lessons for working with—not against—the snow.
