Category: Historical Topics

Historical Topics, History in Popular Culture, Op-ed

Beneath the SHEIN Sheen: The Horrors of Ultra-Fast Fashion and Modern Garment Work

Kate Dillard Online shopping is a sport. Scouring the internet for hours and frantically “adding to cart” to lock in those limited-time deals requires stamina and leaves you with a dopamine rush. But in this sport, there are no winners. Behind every trendy top and cheap price tag is a dark backstory. The garment industry has a long history of worker abuse and exploitation, from … Continue reading Beneath the SHEIN Sheen: The Horrors of Ultra-Fast Fashion and Modern Garment Work

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Historical Topics

Cottages and Kittens: The Culture of Comfort

Megan Huang During the start of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the world saw the rise of what became known as “cottagecore.” Given a name in 2018 by Tumblr users (because who else?), this Zillennial lifestyle aesthetic consisting of sunny days, rolling flower meadows, and flouncy dresses represented an idyllic, bucolic fantasy of young womanhood. When the real world was flooded with daily news updates about … Continue reading Cottages and Kittens: The Culture of Comfort

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Historical Topics, History in Popular Culture

Hamilton’s Legacy: A Political Affair

Sophie McCarthy Infidelity has plagued politics, sent shockwaves through sports, and birthed award-winning reality television. Even the fastest-growing Broadway musical features a cheating scandal. Hamilton, debuting in 2015, has quickly climbed to the fourth highest grossing show of all time. The production, which centers on the turbulent political career of Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton, spans twenty-eight years, two hours & forty-five minutes, and forty-six songs. … Continue reading Hamilton’s Legacy: A Political Affair

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Historical Topics

The World Has Always Been Ending

Tyler Isgar The world has always been ending. This is to say that throughout history, different societies have often been convinced that theirs was the last generation before the imminent end of the world. Today is no different. Anxieties around climate change, the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, political instability, and a fragmented world order all contribute to an air of “doomerism,” a general anticipation … Continue reading The World Has Always Been Ending

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Historical Topics, History in Popular Culture

Life, Liberty, & Leotards: Women’s Gymnastics at the 1996 Olympic Games

Juliana Lo On July 24, 1996, the New York Times front page image featured the United States’ women’s gymnastics team receiving the gold medal at their home Olympics in Atlanta. The headline in the sports section stated: “For the Magnificent Seven, It Hurts So Good” underscoring the dramatic finish to the team event. These female athletes, nicknamed the Magnificent Seven, signified the rise and excellence … Continue reading Life, Liberty, & Leotards: Women’s Gymnastics at the 1996 Olympic Games

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Historical Topics, Op-ed

Conspiracy Theories in American History and the 2024 Presidential Election

Anna Maggi In the wake of the 2024 Presidential election, one thing surprised me more than anything else: the immediate conspiracy-mongering of the left. Within hours of Vice President Harris’s concession speech, Democrats were parroting conspiracy theories initially peddled by Donald Trump and his followers after the 2020 election. Across Tiktok and X, posts with over 10 million viewers spread conspiracy theories about the election … Continue reading Conspiracy Theories in American History and the 2024 Presidential Election

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Historical Topics

Vampyrus Serviensis: The First Vampire Craze in the Habsburg Monarchy

Tyler Isgar “Between 1730 and 1735,” wrote Voltaire in his Dictionnaire Philosophique, “nothing was spoken about more than vampires — how they were hunted down, their hearts torn out, and their bodies burnt. They were like the martyrs of old; the more of them that they burnt, the more of them they found.” The popular culture craze for vampires from the turn of the twenty-first … Continue reading Vampyrus Serviensis: The First Vampire Craze in the Habsburg Monarchy

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Book Reviews, Historical Topics

Review of Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Jenna Marcus Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a stunning work of historical fiction that brings to life twentieth century China in heartfelt, thought-provoking, and beautifully devastating ways. Spanning seven decades, the story traces three generations of two interconnected families amidst the backdrop of the Chinese Civil War, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square protests, and modern-day China and Hong … Continue reading Review of Do Not Say We Have Nothing

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Historical Topics, research

The Witch of Northampton: On ancestry research and family lineage

Maddie Densmore My interest in genealogy began well before I became a historian. In fact, it began well before I fully understood what it even was. As a child, I found myself watching a documentary show with my mom from time to time — “Who Do You Think You Are.” Adapted from a British version of the same name, it follows celebrities as they team up … Continue reading The Witch of Northampton: On ancestry research and family lineage

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Historical Topics

The Past, in the Present: The Conundrum of Historical Memory

Megan Huang 2024 marks the bicentennial of the return of Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, to the United States, almost fifty years after he first sailed for North America to aid the American Revolution. Lafayette had dreamed of coming back to the United States for years, but having been deeply enmeshed in the considerable turmoil and change of his home country of France, … Continue reading The Past, in the Present: The Conundrum of Historical Memory

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