Fashionable women's clothing in the 1890s moved away from the exaggerated styles of previous decades. Skirts were no longer as wide as in the 1850s or as bustled as in the late 1860s and mid-1880s. They were also not as tight as in the late 1870s. However, …
These images, taken between the turn of the 20th century and the 1950s, show how student housing in the US has changed over the past hundred or so years. The students used a vivid combination of vintage decor, collegiate pennants, high school diplomas, fami…
In the 19th century, the accessibility of medicine was like opening Pandora's box—it brought both blessings and bizarre, sometimes perilous, quackery. Some "cures" were harmless hoaxes, but many others were downright dangerous, often containing addictiv…
It is said that the washing machine did more to liberate women in the 20th century than the pill or the right to work or vote. Before the advent of the washing machine, laundry was often done in a communal setting. Villages across Europe that could afford i…
The Maya people have been called many names over the years, such as “the mysterious Maya” and “the magnificent Maya,” and many scholarly books have been written about this ancient Mesoamerican civilization. Many years before European explorers came to t…
The process that led up to the national park idea is complex. From arts and literature came the Romantic movement, which encouraged the experience of the mountains and wilderness. Authors like Henry Davia Thoreau and Washington Irving exhorted Americans…
Edwardian fashion refers to the clothing that was in style between the late 1890s and 1914 or the beginning of the Great War. Also called La Belle Epoque (the Beautiful Era), and the Gilded Age, this was a time when women's fashions took on a new opulence …