2019 marks the 150th anniversary of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. When builders pounded the golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, 1869, they opened a new era in transportation. But long train … Read the article
Hugh Ryan’s When Brooklyn Was Queer is a groundbreaking exploration of the LGBT history of Brooklyn, from the early days of Walt Whitman in the 1850s up through the queer women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy … Read the article
With Major League Baseball emerging from its winter slumber, fans tend to acknowledge what anniversaries the new season brings us. The 2019 season is the centennial of the infamous Black Sox scandal, when gangsters fixed the outcome … Read the article
The clash of old and new in Yunnan Province, China, is mind-numbing. Ancient Buddhist temples vie for attention with massive infrastructure projects around the provincial capital, Kunming: parades of towering apartment blocks, superhighways and bullet trains. One … Read the article
In 1921, Frances Lester Warner described a Christmas Eve scene in Boston with “red and white crystal” in shop windows, “lights gleaming on the slippery cross-streets, throngs of last-minute shoppers” and “bright posters still cheerfully advising us … Read the article
Every year as the days grow shorter, amidst the holly, cookies, and carols there is another timeless holiday tradition—sending and receiving Christmas cards to and from those you love. 100 Christmas Wishes is a collection of vintage … Read the article
In 1933, a former Hollywood screenwriter-turned-mystic named William Dudley Pelley made a startling public announcement. During a trance four years earlier, Pelley claimed, he had received some startling news from his spiritual contacts. The world was about … Read the article
More than half a century ago, friendly rivalry between musicians turned 1965 into the year rock evolved into the premier art form of its time and accelerated the drive for personal freedom throughout the Western world.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century and for the first few years of the twentieth, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege, and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing … Read the article
In 1904, at the apex of his career, Henry James came home from Europe for the first time in more than 20 years. He’d written many books—Daisy Miller, The Wings of the Dove, What Maisie Knew, Portrait … Read the article