George Washington’s Dinner Table Is Still Set in This Manhattan Tavern

Fraunces Tavern is a whisky-soaked lesson in some of the weirdest, most wonderful moments of American history . It was the go-to spot for all Revolutionary festivities, from the farewell dinner that a certain George Washington held for his officers in 1783, to the “Evacuation Day” party thrown by the governor once the British split. Whether it was…

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Tiny American Mugshots of the Anti-Espionage Age

From the 1930s to the 1950s, these charming little I.D. badges were rolled out across America as a “fail-safe” homeland security measure in a crackdown on the threat of industrial espionage. Each badge gives clues to a story, whether you’re trying to piece together the identity of the person or the company they worked for.…

The Gender Fluid Secret Soldiers of the American Civil War

Today’s subject choice originated by stumbling across a photograph of Albert D.J. Cashier, born Jennie Hodgers in 1843. He served for a full 3 year term after enlisting in the Union army at the age of 19 and fought in over 40 battles against the Confederate Army. When the war was over, Albert continued to live as a man in…

Clubhouse Goals with the Red Rose Girls

“The chief obstacle to a woman’s success is that she can never have a wife.” Anna Lea Merritt (19th Century Artist), Lipincott’s Magazine. Virginia Woolf may have nailed the formula to becoming an independent, creative woman in her 1929 essay A Room of One’s Own, but groups of artistic women had been testing this formula…

The Not-So-Straightforward Story of Women and Trousers

Not-so-fun fact: Until January 31st of 2013, it was illegal for women in France to wear trousers. It made headlines at the time when a 200 year-old law requiring women to ask police for special permission to “dress as men” or else risk being taken into custody, was finally revoked. The law had been kept in place…

London’s Lost Department Store of the Swinging Sixties

If you thought that Harvey Nichols or Harrods were the epitome of a London fashion department store, it’s time to re-introduce you to Big Biba, a fallen icon of the Swinging Sixties that redefined the High Street shopping experience… It all started in 1964, when a small-time mail order business called Biba’s Postal Boutique advertised…

What about Mrs* Eames?

“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts,” once said Ray Eames, the artist, designer, and wife of Charles Eames. The Eames partnership revolutionised our concept of modern furniture and quite literally shaped the way we live. Although their collaboration was truly egalitarian, Charles Eames became the face behind…

10 Things you Probably didn’t know about Ernest Hemingway (like he was a KGB Spy)

1. He was a failed KGB Spy In the last few years of his life, Ernest Hemingway grew paranoid and talked about FBI spying on him. He was even treated with electroshock therapy as many as 15 times at the recommendation of his physician in 1960. It was later revealed that he was in fact…

The Kids Who Burned New York

The club kids burned bright and fast. They were the society misfits. The ‘freaks’. A sharp cocktail of young drag queens who built a community out of their craft, and a cast of constantly rotating nightlife characters with one common mantra: be whatever you want, but just don’t be boring. We’re headed back to a…

We Just Walked into America’s Strangest Egyptian-UFO Cult

Not long ago in Georgia, black and gold pyramids stood proudly on the 476-acre compound of Tama-Rey. It was the holy “Land of the Sun,” a place where the self-declared God, Dr. Malachi Z. York, manipulated thousands of nationwide followers in the “Nuwaubian Nation of Moors” to believe they were cosmic purveyors of an extraterrestrial…