US jails are now the nation’s biggest mental healthcare providers, a fact that surprises many Americans. But, it turns outs, there’s always been a thin division between the nation’s jails and mental healthcare system.
Hulu’s Mrs. America and the Real History of the Battle Over the ERA
What can Mrs. America tell us about the historical context of the battle over the Equal Rights Amendment? Where does it shine and where does it fall short? And what should we take away from the show, and its real history, to better understand our present?
Of Plagues and Papers: COVID-19, the Media, and the Construction of American Disease History
In their attempts to make sense of the novel coronavirus, media outlets frequently invoke the past, comparing COVID-19 to the Black Death, the "Great Influenza" of 1918-19, and other historical disease outbreaks. The act of connecting "then" and "now" has produced two countervailing historical narratives: one that emphasizes medical progress over time, and another that highlights America's failure to learn the lessons of past pandemics.
No Valentines for Women’s Rights: Why No Man Should Marry a Suffragist
Life Magazine Promises “$300 to the Winner” Throughout the fall and winter of 1910, Life magazine called upon readers to submit three hundred-word manuscripts to their New York office. Each issue of the magazine would contain a selection of the best submissions and, in early 1911, the editors would declare a winner. That author would receive $300—equivalent... Continue Reading →
Suffrage Pie, Honest Watergate Salad, and (Im)Peach-Mint Crumb Cake: Food, Recipes, and Humor as Political Commentary
Although social media enables political food puns to go viral, they are rooted in a long tradition of journalists, activists, and average citizens combining food and humor to poke fun at political opponents. This article examines three such moment: (Im)Peach-Mint Crumb Cake and President Trump, The Watergate Cookbook and President Nixon, and Suffrage Pie For the Doubting Husband from the women's suffrage movement.
The Gendering of Human Rights: A Brief History and Today’s Challenges
The Trump administration has been making efforts to redefine human rights. The history of human rights examined through a gendered lens helps explain why those efforts are so controversial - and dangerous.
What the Media Overlooks: The 1936 Roots of the Current UAW-GM Strike
The current UAW-GM strike has been in the news recently. But the historical roots of the current strike extend back over eighty years to the Flint Sit-Down strike of 1936.