Did department stores train people to be difficult customers?

Aug 13, 2021
Amanda Mull, a staff writer at The Atlantic, argues that department stores had a hand in building class consciousness.
Customers shop at Macys department store in New York on Black Friday, Nov. 27, 2020.
Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images
Trump supporters gather at the U.S. Capitol prior to Wednesday's insurrection. “We have often lost sight of the fact that our biggest and most successful export is not capitalism, but is democracy,” said Kathleen Day, an expert on financial crises.
Oivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

How the Spanish flu contributed to the rise of Hollywood

Nov 19, 2020
The 1918 pandemic helped shift the film industry’s center of power. Could the coronavirus pandemic do the same?
A scene from the 1923 film "The Ten Commandments," one of the films that helped establish Southern California as the center of the film industry in the years following the pandemic of 1918.
Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

Soap saves countless lives every year. Here's how it was invented

May 25, 2020
Cody Cassidy, author of "Who Ate the First Oyster?" said the inventor of soap had no idea about its life-saving potential.
More soap use can save lives, the World Health Organization says.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images

The campaign finance of women's suffrage

Jun 4, 2019
Behind the political struggle was a well-financed lobbying operation.
3rd May 1913:  Grand Marshal Inez Milholland Boissevain (1886 - 1916) leads a parade of 30,000 representives of the various Women's Suffrage associations through New York City.
Paul Thompson/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

A major trade sticking point between the U.S. and China has deep roots

Feb 14, 2019
The history of intellectual property theft goes back centuries.
"Theft [of technology] was the norm throughout history, all the way since the Industrial Revolution," says Greg Clark, a professor of economics at the University of California, Davis.
Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

A history of U.S. recessions

Dec 18, 2018
Dozens have happened since the country’s founding.
A trader working on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 15, 2008 in New York City.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

How woven cloth changed the course of history

Dec 11, 2018
From Viking sails to international trade, author Kassia St Clair explains how fabric influenced civilization.
Was woolen sailcloth the secret weapon of the Vikings? Above, the Draken Harald Harfagre, a reconstruction of a Viking longship.
Photo by Thos Robinson/Getty Images for Draken Harald Harfagre

Author Caitlin Rosenthal on the role of slavery in the history of business

Aug 14, 2018
Caitlin Rosenthal, author of "Accounting for Slavery," discusses the role slavery plays in the history of business.
Stereograph Cards Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.