In south-central Pennsylvania’s Pine Grove Furnace State Park lie the ruins of one of three secret interrogation camps in the continental United States for prisoners of World War II. You are looking on the first slide at the remains of a large mess hall. Camp Michaux was originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the […]
Camp Michaux at Pine Grove State Furnace Park Read More »
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the United States through the Great Depression and the Second World War, winning four consecutive elections despite the fact that he was believed to have suffered from polio, aka infantile paralysis. His reliance on wheelchairs and other assistance to get around was something that his opponents thought would make him
FDR and his Work with the Polio Disease Read More »
Reading about the way the cigarette industry insidiously and effectively played the American public is like watching a horror movie. By now we all (I hope) know how major tobacco companies secretly designed strategies to hide information about the links between smoking and cancer, but reviewing the advertisements and internal corporate documents is like looking
How the Cigarette Industry Played the American Public Read More »
This week’s posts feature women who became famous for something they didn’t do. And we begin with the case of Mrs. O’Leary and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.On a windy day on October eighth of that year, after a lengthy dry season, a barn belonging to the Irish immigrants Mr and Mrs O’Leary caught
Mrs. O’Leary and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 Read More »
This week, I am teaming up to do a crossover-post series on fashion statements that made history with my friend (and former student) Katie McGowan! (@katiemaecrochet ) Following is her write-up featuring Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s “Dissent” collar.Fashion can be used to express opinions, and no one did that more effectively than the late Supreme Court Justice,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Her Judicial Collars Read More »
In the second cross-over post for the week, I bring you an analysis of President Nixon’s gray suit that helped him lose the 1960 election to JFK. Katie McGowan wrote up this fashion decision that influenced history:America’s first Presidential debate in 1960 was unprecedented in many ways, but perhaps most importantly for giving live faces
Richard Nixon and His Grey Suit Read More »
Here is the Tortugas Mountain in southern New Mexico, endpoint of a three-day religious festival among the American Indians of the region held from December 10-12 each year.The festival celebrates the Virgin Mary, but also the culture of the peoples from this area who trace some of their heritage to a mission called Señora de
Tortugas Mountains and Piro Indian Festivals Read More »
So much about human nature can seem depressing: we unthinkingly follow orders, allow confirmation bias to skew our views, and commit horrible acts of violence against people we don’t even know. However, the opposite is also true, and history has many examples of people who have disobeyed authority and risked their lives for total strangers.
Hugh Thompson’s Fight Against the My Lai Massacre Read More »
Last week on February 18, 2021, NASA’s Rover “Perseverance” landed safely on Mars. If you got a chance to watch the event unfold at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, you no doubt were moved by the atmosphere of tense but hopeful expectation held by all scientists in the room. The hush as the
The Lucky Peanuts of NASA Read More »
Some moments in history seem dramatically more pivotal than others. Take the episode in 1971 in a town meeting in Durham, North Carolina, for example. A “charrette”, or series of community gatherings, had been organized around the issue of the deeply segregated schools. The goal was to find common ground amidst severe racial tensions. The
The Racial Collaboration of Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis Read More »
I don’t want to run any sort of lens filter through this image — it would mar the beauty of one of the most famous works by the surrealist artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985). This is “The Window of Peace and Happiness”, an enormous 15’x12′ stained glass window the artist did for the United Nations headquarters
Marc Chagall’s “The Window of Peace and Happiness” Read More »
In 1985, scientist, Katalin Karikó left her native Hungary for the United States with her husband and two-year old daughter. The University of Szeged, where she had earned her degree and was working as a postdoctorate fellow, had run out of funding. So the family — who had to sew cash into their daughter’s stuffed
“The Long Walk” is a Navajo experience of great devastation committed by the U.S. government, especially officials Kit Carson and General Carleton. This mural, “Return from the Long Walk,” by Navajo artist Richard Kee Yazzie, portrays the resilience and renewed shared values of the Navajo survivors of the Fort Sumner internment camp. During the period
The Navajo Long Walk Read More »
Here you see the ruins of a base-end “fire station” that was created shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor when the U.S. entered the Second World War. Scouting stations like this one, which is on the Muir Woods lookout point (see second picture) were built along the northern California coastline to watch out for
World War II “Gopher Holes” Read More »
My niece and I got to hike up Mount Tamalpais, aka “Mount Tam,” one of the most treasured State Parks in California. Cresting off the coast of Stinson Beach, Mount Tam features giant redwoods and moss-covered rocks that frame a high tree canopy — until the trails open up to the stunning ocean views you
California’s Mount Tamalpais Read More »
We all know that our society creates ideas about gender, and that what we consider masculine or feminine today are transitive concepts. So it goes with how culture has treated babies’ and children’s clothing. This picture of a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt taken in 1884 is a case in point: he is wearing a white
The Color War of Gender Read More »
Pittsburgh’s unusual geography — with three rivers that conflate at different spots amidst steep hillsides — made it difficult for pedestrians to traverse. Starting in the 1870s, German immigrants started building funicular railcars to make getting around easier. Today only two of these remain, and the one featured here is the Duquesne Incline. Built
Pictured here is a circular plaque, commemorating the location of Fort Duquesne in 1774. Today not even ruins remain, but the location is memorable, lying at the tip of a spit of land called “the Point,” right at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in downtown Pittsburgh. As can be surmised from
This is a story about a ghost story — the legend of Big Liz of Greenbrier swamp. The tale dates to the American Civil War, when, according to a retelling by S.E. Schlosser, a young but powerfully strong woman — her huge arms could carry two sows at once — was suspected of being
Big Liz of Greenbriar Swamp Read More »
Here you see La Posada, constructed in 1929 in Winslow Arizona — the last of the Fred Harvey Hotels still in operation. The Fred Harvey Company’s restaurants and hotels shaped the architectural landscape and culture of the American Southwest — packaging the American Indian, Spanish Mission Revival, and US cowboy culture for middle-class tourism. And
