How Los Angeles Started Its Sprawl
Victorian values and Anglo(phile) aesthetics shaped the city’s infrastructure and architecture in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
“Everybody Look What’s Going Down”: The Sunset Strip Riots
In 1966, tired of being harassed by the police for their counterculture ways, the teens of Sunset Boulevard fought back through protests and music.
Seeing America in 1900
Posters and postcards showcasing unique destinations and sights in the United States helped homogenize the tourist landscape of the early twentieth century.
Bourbon Country
Examining the ingredients—time, grain, government regulations—that have made bourbon an enduring national favorite.
The Hunt for the Massachusetts “Wild Man”
In a tale with as many false identities as supposed crimes, investigative reporter Annie “Londonderry” Kopchovsky gets her man (maybe).
The Changing Face of Southern California
An expansive collection of postcards captures the evolving cultural landscape of Southern California—particularly greater Los Angeles—in the twentieth century.
The Pro-Democratic Fourteenth Amendment
At the heart of recent US Supreme Court decisions, the Fourteenth Amendment was framed to require free speech and free elections in the South.
A Return To Nineteenth-Century Style Regulation?
In an era of laissez-faire governance, a growing number of federal and state regulations were justified as necessary to protect public health and morality.
Fairness on the Fairway: Public Golf Courses and Civil Rights
Organized movements to bring racial equality to the golf course have been part of the sport since the early 1900s.
The New Deal Comes To Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico was hit hard by the Great Depression. New Deal relief programs were often democratic and locally controlled.