On Halloween, the smallest details can bring an entire decade back to life: a plastic mask, a homemade cape, a paper party decoration, or a group of children lined up on a front step with their candy bags. In the United States, October 31 has long been a night for costumes, neighborhood traditions, and a […]

New York City in 1980 had a look that can be surprisingly difficult to picture today. The buildings are familiar, the streets are recognizable, and the crowds move with the same hurried energy, yet the details belong unmistakably to another time. Cars from another generation line the curbs, shop signs have different names, and people […]

Before September 11, 2001, popular culture had already imagined many of the images that would later become permanently associated with that date. Movies, television shows, comic books, advertisements, music videos, magazine covers, and other forms of media occasionally featured the World Trade Center alongside airplanes, explosions, burning buildings, or scenes of destruction. Some of these […]

In the 1930s, caring for people with mental illness in the United States was largely centered on large state hospitals, where patients could remain for months, years, or sometimes much of their lives. These institutions were designed to provide housing, medical supervision, and psychiatric care on a scale that smaller hospitals and community services could […]