A BICYCLE BUILT FOR HER

During the 1890s, when bicycles were all the rage, women rode free. Not even a Victorian backlash could stop them.

WONDERSThe AtticJune 5, 2024bicycles, bicycle boom, 1890s bicycle boom, Amelia bloomer, women's history Comments

THE REAL RHIANNON

Part folkie, part music scholar, Rhiannon Giddens is a walking American songbook.

FOLKIESThe AtticMay 30, 2024Rhiannon Giddens, Carolina Chocolate Drops, American folk music, Folk music, banjo, banjo history Comments

THE MONUMENT TO HOPE

In the Massachusetts 54th, democracy and racial equality found new champions and a startling memorial.

HEROESThe AtticMay 23, 2024Shaw memorial, 54th Massachusetts, Memorial Day, Decoration Day, Shaw 54th memorial Comments

THE SIGNS, THE RAVE -- BURMA SHAVE!

Through Depression and war, America got a lift from a little shaving company and its roadside verse.

WITSThe AtticMay 17, 2024Burma-Shave, Advertising, Americana Comments

THE CLUB THAT STARTED IT ALL

Shortly before the vote and long before the Sixties, Heterodoxy put feminism up front.

REBELSBruce WatsonMay 10, 2024Heterodoxy, Women's history, Feminism, Greenwich Village, Bohemians, American radicals, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood Comments

WHEN TV TALKED SENSE

When TV was coming of age, Dick Cavett asked it to think.

WITSThe AtticMay 2, 2024Dick Cavett, The Dick Cavett Show, Late night TV, 1970s Comments

MIND IN A MAN'S WORLD -- MARGARET FULLER

In her brief, brilliant life, Margaret Fuller was the heart and mind of women’s equality

HEROESThe AtticApril 24, 2024Margaret Fuller, Transcendentalism, The Dial, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau, Henry David Thoreau, Emerson Comment

THE CAMERA AS WEAPON

From LIFE to Vogue to “Shaft,” Gordon Parks brought black life into focus.

ART-ISHThe AtticApril 18, 2024Gordon Parks, Shaft, Blaxploitation, African-American history, LIFE magazine Comments

HEARTS IN GRANITE

People on the Plains led quiet, anonymous lives. Until Spoon River.

BOOK-ISHThe AtticApril 11, 2024Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters, American poetry, Lewistown, Lewistown Illinois, Great Plains, American LiteratureComment

MY RENDEZVOUS WITH SUN AND MOON

No malaise, no 1000-mile drive, no downer decade could dampen the miracle of sun and moon.

WONDERSThe AtticApril 3, 2024Solar eclipse, Total solar eclipse, American travel, 1979 Comments

OL' DIZ -- AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL

His English was fast and loose but his fastball was faster. There was only one Dizzy Dean.

HEROESThe AtticMarch 27, 2024Dizzy Dean, St. Louis Cardinals, Baseball, Gashouse Gang, The Depression Comments

THE WELL-BEHAVED WOMAN BEHIND 'WELL-BEHAVED WOMEN...'

How an unknown grad student, mother of five, became a historian, an inspiration, a meme.

HEROESBruce WatsonMarch 6, 2024Well-behaved women, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale, Women's History, Women's History Month, Colonial history, American history Comments

THE POET AND HER WILD GEESE

Weaving wonder out of darkness, Mary Oliver became America’s favorite poet.

DREAMERS, BOOK-ISHThe AtticMarch 6, 2024Mary Oliver, American Poetry, Nature Poetry, Best-selling Poet in America, America's best-selling poet, "The Wild Geese" Comments

THE WOMAN WHO NURTURED THE MODERN

America was going modern — skyscrapers, biplanes, Model T’s. Why not poetry? Harriet Monroe asked.

BOOK-ISHThe AtticMarch 4, 2024Harriet Monroe, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Foundation, Imagism, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Chicago, Modern American poetry Comments

THE PUDDLE-WONDERFUL POET OF SPRING

Think April is “the cruelest month?” E.E. Cummings will cure your despair.

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

BOOK-ISHBruce WatsonMarch 3, 2024E.E. Cummings, e.e. cummings, American poetry, Poetry about spring, 1920s Comments

ROSS GAY, AMBASSADOR OF DELIGHT

For a full year, poet Ross Gay focused on things that delight him. The result: The Book of Delights. You need this now.

BOOK-ISHThe AtticMarch 1, 2024Ross Gay, American poetry, Book of Delights Comments