Staten Island Wilderness, Going, Going, Gone? By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight One of the last pieces of wilderness on Staten Island might get bulldozed.
The Camouflage Artist: Two Worlds Wars, Two Loves, and One Great Deception By Mary Horlock Feature In the first war, Joseph Gray used his art to reveal his fellow soldiers. In the next war, he used it to hide them.
Ghost Writer: The Story of Patience Worth, the Posthumous Author By Joy Lanzendorfer Feature The most remarkable thing about Patience Worth wasn’t that she was dead. It was that all she wanted to do was write books.
Fairy Scapegoats: A History of the Persecution of Changeling Children By Longreads Feature Distraught over a sick or disabled child, parents would torture — sometimes even kill — what they believed to be a malevolent stand-in for a stolen baby.
How American Women’s Pro Baseball Kept Lesbians in the Closet By Krista Stevens Highlight “Play like a man, look like a lady.” At Narratively, Britni de la Cretaz looks at the history of lesbianism in early pro women’s baseball and at the beautiful love stories that the movie “A League of Their Own” chose to ignore.
Nell Battle Lewis, Storyteller for Jim Crow By Longreads Feature How an otherwise high-minded social reformer preserved and perpetuated her white supremacist worldview.
Queens of Infamy: Anne Boleyn By Anne Thériault Feature In Tudor England’s big-sleeved game of thrones, winning and dying were not mutually exclusive.
In the End, It’s All Just the Stories We Tell By Michelle Weber Highlight Diana Arterian’s sad, lyrical essay on the legacy of the Armenian Genocide in the diaspora centers on a family story that everyone has heard — but that no one knows the truth of.
When the Movies Went West By Longreads Feature Scorned by stage actors and mocked by the theater-going upper classes, filmmakers nevertheless developed a bold new art form — but they needed better weather.
The Roaring Girls of Queer London By Longreads Feature Flashy hooligans like Moll Cutpurse and Long Meg sported broad-brimmed hats, wore “ruffianly short locks,” and carried swords. Other women lived quietly in secret same-sex marriages.
Goodness, How Delicious, Eating Goober Peas By Michelle Weber Highlight Is there anything peanuts aren’t good for?
This Essay is the Very Pineapple of Writing By Michelle Weber Highlight This is the most important pineapple-themed essay you’ll read today.
The Ladies Who Were Famous for Wanting to Be Left Alone By Longreads Feature The Ladies of Llangollen fell in love, ran away together, and lived a scholarly life of “delicious seclusion” — secluded, that is, except for all the visitors.
When Sartre and Beauvoir Started a Magazine By Longreads Feature In 1945, Les Temps modernes shocked the world with its pessimism and grim determination, and catapulted its founders into intellectual superstardom.
“99 Luftballons” and the Grim Fairy Tales of ’80s West Germany By Ben Huberman Highlight On storytelling in the shadow of Chernobyl, U.S. military planes, and not-so-distant German history.
Queens of Infamy: Eleanor of Aquitaine By Anne Thériault Feature Life gets busy when you have empires to build and marriages to annul.
This Is How They Saved Me By Michelle Legro Feature One month after her father was arrested, Neda Semnani and her family were taken on a dangerous journey to be smuggled out of Iran.
The Way We Treat Our Pets Is More Paleolithic Than Medieval By Longreads Feature Hunter-gatherers tended to think of pets as part of the family, and so do we. But in other time periods, intimacy with animals has been more taboo.
The Island that Disappeared By Aaron Gilbreath Feature An Englishman searches for what’s left of Providence, a failed Puritan colony in the Caribbean.
To Be a Lexicographer Is to Surrender to Folly By Ben Huberman Highlight On the never-ending, unattainable quest to create the perfect English dictionary.
How Lobbyists Normalized the Use of Chemical Weapons on American Civilians By Longreads Feature Or, how we learned to stop worrying and love the gas.
Determined to Hitch a Ride on the Greatest Rig in America By Laurie Gwen Shapiro Feature Billy Gawronski was hell-bent on stowing away to Antarctica on Richard Evelyn Byrd’s 1928 expedition.
A Mother’s Less-Than-True Story of Being a Child Bride By Michelle Legro Highlight Getting married in her swimsuit at the age of 12 was something Danny Wallace’s mother would tell anyone she met. It also wasn’t true.
Watching a Fall By Aaron Gilbreath Feature The allure and shame of watching America’s last public hanging.
Maybe Your House Can Be “Most Congenial” By Michelle Weber Highlight Richard Wallace considers his chances (not great) at being memorialized by a blue English Heritage plaque.
Welcome to Parliament! Bachelors Can Only Wear Brown Shoes Every Other Tuesday By Michelle Weber Highlight What changes politically if Parliament moves to a modern, inclusive space from one steeped in sexist, classist history?
New York Radical Women and the Limits of Second Wave Feminism By Danielle Jackson Highlight The collective redefined feminism in the 1970s, but it’s blind spots still linger, especially for black women.
When Newspapers Cover the Private Lives of Nazis By Matt Giles Commentary Ordinary details can furnish a room, they can set a table, they can fill the time between hushed meetings of planned genocide.
The Real Refugees of Casablanca By Longreads Feature When it came to gathering refugees, the waiting room of the U.S. consulate was probably the closest thing to Rick’s Café Américain.
Your Own Personal Jesus-Lite By Michelle Weber Highlight Elizabeth Harper traveled to Bonito, Italy to visit Zio Vincenzo. Long-lost relative? No, miracle-working mummified corpse of a nameless Neapolitan.
