“Well-behaved women seldom make history,” wrote Harvard historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich memorably in 1976. She argued that “ordinary” women who don’t happen to marry future presidents…or lead the way to be the first in their fields…or get burned at the stake are rarely ...read more

Get your eight hours. A command so familiar it feels timeless: humans just need their eight hours of sleep. It’s natural. But our past sleep schedules challenge the idea that anything, even our biological needs, truly transcends historical boundaries. For much of recorded ...read more

Whether you parcel them out for lunch the next day or squirrel them away with the best intentions until they’ve gone bad, leftovers are a mostly unremarkable reality of modern life. But leftovers have a story to tell, and their curious history tells us about changes in technology ...read more

As temperatures climb, millions of children all over the United States pack their bags each year and head to sleepaway camps ranging from the rustic to the super-luxurious. But it was not always so. Until the late 19th century, summers were for children to work or play in ...read more