American suburbia of the 1950s and 60s had one foot in the future and the other in the past. The suburban mindset was a vast and ambitiously idealistic movement that claimed future happiness could be found in uniformity, not to mention a detached home, an accessible mall, and automobile dependent lifestyle. The extent of its cultural homogeneity was not only alien in its scope—assuming a lifestyle that could satisfy many and exist in perpetuity—but also bred estrangement among those who could not fit within it. Beneath the fantasy  simmered a tension, which found its voice in a literary m ..read more

The public health maxim "breast is best," touted by organizations such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization, has become a popular adage. But debates about the merits of maternal breastfeeding compared to other methods of infant feeding abound—and they have for centuries.   The supposedly unnatural dangers of one such alternative feeding method, wet nursing, have been used as justification for maternal breastfeeding as the preferable and safer method, which better aligned with notions of femininity and motherhood. Similar logic pervaded English beliefs that mothers’ active imag ..read more

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the figure of the “anti-vax mom” has loomed large in the public consciousness and the popular press. She is the monster emblematic of our moment: She attends rallies maskless, pulls her children out of public schools to dodge state-mandated vaccinations, and takes to her blog to pen screeds that are at best ill informed and at worst deliberately manipulative. She wears a MAGA hat to match her Trump bumper sticker; she is the embodiment of disinformation as a cultural woe. Doubtless such women exist; doubtless many do. And doubtless, too, their beliefs ..read more

In 1969, Margaret Fuchs, an unassuming housewife and mom of three living in California, received a letter from the White House. It was a message from Glenn Seaborg, the Nobel-prize winning chair of the Atomic Energy Commission and personal adviser to President Nixon. The most famous chemist in the U.S. at the time, Seaborg was considered the world’s foremost authority in nuclear science. He had a question for Fuchs about caesium-137, a crucial radioisotope and a key marker for nuclear contamination around the world. Fuchs read the message and sent her response. Her children were astonished. “M ..read more

CW: child abuse, anti-semitism and racism.  Whenever a photograph is taken, there is always an objective. The objective can be positive, such as capturing a beautiful landscape, a delicious meal, or a cherished memory. But a photograph can also be used to deceive, manipulate, or humiliate subjects. When photography was invented, it was impossible to predict the way in which it would be used to categorize and destabilize. Over the last few years, deep fakes and editing programs have become possessively dominant inside the realms of social media, but the manipulation in visual imagery is no ..read more

Domestic violence and poverty are social problems that are born out of cycles that are nearly impossible to break free from without reimagining current policies and support structures. Unfortunately, many public policies are built on historical framing of such situations as a result of an individual's choice—a choice to not work or a choice to stay in an abusive relationship. This maintains a limited, incredibly privileged understanding of the true nature of domestic violence and poverty, how they are intertwined, and the support individuals need. These rationales have led to clear and lasting ..read more

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Every three hours, one weirdly charming Twitter feed posts a yellowed illustration of a fruit or nut from the National Agriculture Library’s Pomological Watercolor Collection. @pomolgical is a bot coded by artist and activist Parker Higgins, who helped convince the USDA to remove the paywall to the collection, ensuring public access to even the high-resolution images.  The Pomological Watercolor Collection comprises over 7,500 paintings, lithographs, and line drawings of fruit and nuts. These pieces were originally commissioned by the USDA between 1886 and 1942 as part of a documentary ef ..read more

Perhaps best known for her 1969 book “On Death and Dying,” Elisabeth Kübler-Ross sparked a conscientious debate about the process of passing away and the care of the terminally ill.  Her well-known model on the "Five Stages of Grief" has become fundamental in relieving and comforting patients with a limited life prognosis. “On Death and Dying” became a publishing phenomenon and continues to contribute to the public discussion on the suffering of the dying, and the importance of palliative interventions. Kübler-Ross has been recognized as one of the most important minds of the 20th century ..read more

Throughout the 20th century, the competition to find new antibiotics was among the most important searches for a biomedical intervention for infectious disease. With the onset of World War II, the search accelerated with the need to treat soldiers overseas.  Although Alexander Fleming had discovered penicillin in 1928, scientists didn’t know the full range of its abilities, and it was difficult to mass produce. Penicillin and other antibiotic research were a military priority during the war, and as such the federal government and pharmaceutical companies funded research at several univers ..read more