The Woman Who Smashed Codes: America’s Secret Weapon in World War II By Longreads Feature How “know-nothings” Elizebeth Smith Friedman and William F. Friedman became the greatest codebreakers of their era.
A History of American Protest Music: ‘We Have Got Tools and We Are Going to Succeed’ By Tom Maxwell Feature Lead Belly, Lee Hays, and the hammer songs that powered the folk movement.
The Examination of a Playboy Bunny By Michelle Legro Commentary When Gloria Steinem applied for a job as a Bunny in 1963, she was told she first had to see a doctor.
Did You Happen to See the Most Interesting Man in the World? (He’s In Room 328) By Michelle Weber Highlight Libraries contain more than books — they have archives, and the archivists want to help you explore them.
My Journey to the Heart of the FOIA Request By Spenser Mestel Feature Fifty years ago, the Freedom of Information Act gave the public access to government secrets — all you had to do was ask. How a simple request became a bureaucratic nightmare.
Ta-Nehisi Coates Takes on the Trump Presidency By Danielle Jackson Commentary In an excerpt from his upcoming book on the Obama administration, Coates constructs an incisive look at Donald Trump’s political ascent.
Tennessee, Goddamn: Memphis Fights To Remove Its Confederate Monuments By Danielle Jackson Commentary The legacy of General Nathan Bedford Forrest has the city going up against the state of Tennessee.
Like Sheep to the Sanitized Slaughter Zone By Michelle Weber Highlight “Turkey, in all of its modernist efforts, is just covering up the smell of its own shit.”
American Sphinx By Colin Dickey Feature Civil War monuments in the North erased an emancipated Black population. But the Sphinx looked to a new world: an integrated Africa and America.
It Takes a Village: A ‘Village Voice’ Reading List By Erin Blakemore Commentary The paper redefined the alt-weekly and introduced readers to a new kind of journalist and critic.
These Are the Locals Who Get The Story of Charlottesville Right By Nell Boeschenstein Commentary The historians, activists, reporters, and columnists who tell the complicated and ever-changing story of their own community.
A Look Back at the 1939 Pro-Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden and the Protesters Who Organized Against It By Matt Giles Commentary Seventy-something years ago, another massive rally took place in the United States that featured a clash between protesters and white supremacists.
The Hippies Who Hated the Summer of Love By Longreads Feature The merchants of Haight-Ashbury advertised a summer of free food, free lodging, and free love. What they got instead was a civic nightmare.
Whose Fault Was Dunkirk? By Longreads Feature For years, historians have blamed King Leopold of Belgium. But did they fall for Allied propaganda?
The Brief Career and Self-Imposed Exile of Jutta Hipp, Jazz Pianist By Longreads Feature Europe’s “First Lady of Jazz” moved to New York in 1955, played for five more years, then disappeared — while royalty checks piled up with her record label.
Billy Bragg: Skiffle Songs Are Railroad Songs By Pam Mandel Commentary “The British kids were trying to escape the past as quickly as they could and the guitar offered them the best means to do that.”
How to Get Away with Spying for the Enemy By Longreads Feature How does someone get away with helping a foreign adversary? Writer Sarah Laskow digs into the gonzo story of an American acquitted of spying for the Soviets—even after he confessed to it.
Percy Ross Wants to Give You Money! By Jacqui Shine Feature He was was a self-made, blue-collar millionaire in Reagan’s America. But when Percy Ross decided to give away his fortune, he made things simple: all you had to do was ask for it.
The Re-Kazakhification of Kazakhstan, On Horseback By Michelle Weber Highlight After years of Soviet control, the country looks to the cultural foundations of its nomadic past.
The Word Is ‘Nemesis’: The Fight to Integrate the National Spelling Bee By cgreend Feature For talented black spellers in the 1960s, the segregated local spelling bee was the beginning and the end of the long road to Washington, D.C.
They’re Good Mangoes, Mao By Michelle Weber Highlight The fruit took on cult status in China after Mao gifted his workers a box of mangoes sent from Pakistan.
American Dolchstoss By Shawn Hamilton Feature The German “stab-in-the-back” myth springs back to life in America, this time through scapegoating over lost jobs.
The Sun Never Sets on Oppression and Dominance, or Why You’re More Aztec Than You Think By Michelle Weber Highlight Aztec priests ripped out people’s hearts daily as a sacrifice to the sun, and for Sam Kriss, the contemporary West might be a lot more like them that we think.
The Lost Art of Getting Lost By Pam Mandel Highlight Pam Mandel’s absurdly earned travel resume is why she always have time for the same sentiments from other voices of this rootless era.
Norma McCorvey Versus Jane Roe By Longreads Feature In 1970, a homeless woman pregnant with her third child met with two lawyers at a pizzeria in Dallas. Did it matter, in the end, who Jane Roe really was?
How the Canadian Government Tried to “Remove the Indian From the Child” By Krista Stevens Highlight Betty Ann Adam tells how she was taken from her mother at age three, as part of Canada’s attempt to “remove the Indian from the child.”
The Tears and Tenacity of the Mothers of the Disappeared By Michelle Weber Highlight During the ’70s and early ’80s, 30,000 people “disappeared” during Argentina’s Dirty War — including Delia’s pregnant daughter, Stella. What happened to baby Martín?
The Revolution Will Be Handmade! By Krista Stevens Highlight Knitting and sewing circles have long been the perfect environments for women to organize.
Tell Me What Donut You Prefer, and I’ll Tell You Who You Are By Michelle Weber Highlight Have you ever thought really hard about donuts? Like, 7,000 words hard? Keaton Lamle did.
Where Were You the First Time You Realized the Government Wasn’t Always On the Ball? By Michelle Weber Highlight The 1969 oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara galvanized environmental activism, and Pacific Standard’s oral history is a great read.
You must be logged in to post a comment.