For as long as women have battled for equitable political representation in America, those battles have been defined by images – whether illustrations, engravings, photographs, or colorful chromolithograph posters. Some of these pictures have been fl...

In 1992, Dr. Ross A. Slotten had the dubious distinction of signing more death certificates in the city of Chicago – and, by inference, the state of Illinois – than any other physician. As a family physician, he trained to care for patients from birt...

Charles Manson was perhaps the most infamous criminal of the 20th century. Convicted for orchestrating the shocking Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969, and for two other killings, there has been much written about him. But not many people knew him as well...

On the morning of July 1, 1800, a surveyor and mapmaker named Cayetano Diaz opened the window of his study in Guatemala City to find a horrific sight: a pair of severed breasts. Offering a meticulously researched and evocative account of the quest to...

The Victorian era saw remarkable economic growth and a rise in real wages. But not everyone shared in the nation's prosperity. Many families continued to live in grinding poverty with women and children usually faring worst. In this incisive account...

There's no question that cats rule the world – ask any cat owner and they'll tell you how these balls of fur insert themselves into our lives and establish dominion over the household. In this book, Leah Goren brings together smart, funny essays by b...

In this classic analysis of hard-pressed families, the authors discover that financial stability for many middle-class Americans is all too fragile. The authors consider the changing cultural and economic factors that threaten financial security and...

This fascinating and enlightening study of the tie-on pocket combines materiality and gender to provide new insight into the social history of women's everyday lives – from duchesses and country gentry to prostitutes and washerwomen – and to explore...

"She fought a lonely and almost single-handed fight, with the single-mindedness of a crusader, long before men or women of any race entered the arena; and the measure of success she achieved goes far beyond the credit she has been given in the histor...

The malign and long-lasting influence of Chicago police commander Jon Burge cannot be overestimated, particularly as fresh examples of local and national criminal-justice abuse continue to surface with dismaying frequency. Burge's decades-long tenure...