Livia Gershon

To shave or not to shave? At the start of the twentieth century, a trend away from facial hair reflected dramatic social and economic shifts.

In an economy based on doing business with strangers, monitoring people's trustworthiness quickly became very profitable.

White supremacists have long used fear of losing essential rights in their arguments.

In the 1960s, there was no grand vision behind the idea of a middle school. The problem that the model sought to solve was segregation.

We often forget that Nixon took decidely liberal stances on welfare, healthcare, and universal basic income.

In the 1940s and 50s, a life of business travel represented a sense of freedom for gay men that would have been impossible in earlier decades.

What did Americans think of World War I before the US entered the conflict 100 years ago?

Abortion was first criminalized in the mid 1900s amidst concerns that too many white women were ending their pregnancies.

Today, we tend to assume dieting is for women, but in the 1860s, it was a masculine pursuit.

Trump ally Carl Higbie recently cited Japanese internment camps during World War II as a “precedent” for a proposed registry of Muslims in the U.S.

Ever since Kennedy-Nixon, televised debates have given viewers an insight into candidates' policies—and their personalities, too.

Sociological data from immediately after the riots in Watts, Los Angeles, in 1965 show major disparities in attitude by race.

How history textbooks reinforced narratives of racism, and the fight to change those books from the 1940s to the present.

The holiday emerged not from the 17th century, but rather from concerns over immigration and urbanization in the 19th century.