Cat with its hair standing up

Nine Black Cat Stickers

They crossed our path and we lived to tell the tale. Check them out in the Street Arts Graphics Collection!
A mother plays the guitar while her two daughters sing / Guitarist Joan Jett of the rock band "The Runaways" performs on stage in Los Angeles in August, 1977

At First, the Guitar Was a “Women’s Instrument”

The history of the guitar shows that musical instruments have been gendered—but just how changes over time.
A film still from The Frog

The Bizarre Marvels of Segundo de Chomón, Father of Spanish Cinema

Segundo de Chomón made “trick films” that experimented with color and temporality, influencing the surrealist work of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí.
Cover of Trumbull Park by Frank London Brown

How Trumbull Park Exposed the Brutal Legacy of Segregation

Frank London Brown’s 1959 novel, which presents a powerful story of white supremacist hatred, has been selected for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.
From From canal boy to president by Horatio Alger, 1881

The Creepy Backstory to Horatio Alger’s Bootstrap Capitalism

In a famous essay, a scholar uncovered difficult truths about Alger, whose name has been associated with the "rags to riches" myth.
An 18th century casta painting

The Paintings That Tried (and Failed) to Codify Race

Casta paintings of the eighteenth century tried to show who was who in New Spain. But reality was much more complicated.
A poster advertising the IV Review of Polish Short Films, organized by the Zygzakiem Cinema Club in Warsaw, January 11-14, 1976.

Polish Posters in the RISD Library Collection

Posters are part of a tradition of object-based learning at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Lon Chaney’s Movie Monsters

You might know him from Phantom of the Opera or The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Marian Anderson with Harold L. Ickes (Secretary of the Interior)

Marian Anderson Photo Archives

The African American opera singer made history with a stirring concert at the Lincoln Memorial. But there was much more to Marian Anderson.
Harry Gottlieb's Artists' Union membership card, 1935

How the Artists Union Shook Up the New Deal

When artists showed solidarity with one another and the larger labor movement, they won federal patronage.