Betsy Golden Kellem

In the 1800s, women playing tragic leads captivated crowds while critics struggled to reconcile talent with gender norms.

Freaks asked audiences to think about the exploitative display of human difference while also demonstrating that the sideshow was a locus of community.

Even when it was considered socially unacceptable, American women were knocking down pins on the local lanes.

Invented in 1922, water-skiing quickly became shorthand for American ideas on beauty, athleticism, and affluence.

You may have heard of IBM’s chess-playing computer, but Johann Nepomuk Maelzel’s Automaton Chess Player beat Deep Blue to the (mechanical) punch. Check mate.

Before the establishment of the Hollywood Production Code in the 1930s, filmmakers deployed gender and sexuality stereotypes for glamour, humor, and drama alike.

The increasing secularism of the nineteenth century helped make board games a commercial and ideological success in the United States.

Marching bands at historically Black colleges and universities can be seen as both celebratory emblems and complicated arbiters of Black American culture.

The sport of competitive walking touched on social concerns such as debt and poverty, fitness and fame, but it also found support in the temperance movement.

For years, the double feature was a dependable part of the movie-goer’s life. Where did it come from, and where did it go?

A popular act on the Black vaudeville circuit, the Whitman Sisters relied on a reputation for strong morals while challenging racial and gender codes.

With origins in the theater of the early eighteenth century, “panto” remains a crucial element of the holiday season in Great Britain and Ireland.

Why do we love donning period costumes and re-enacting our history through mock battles, pioneer villages, and Renaissance Faires?

Palm reading, also known as palmistry or chiromancy, has fascinated us as a practice and a party trick for centuries.

Developed in the nineteenth century, the stereoscope gave people a new way of seeing themselves and the world around them.

The annals of competitive eating contests are full of more than just hot dogs.

Even as televisions spread across the American landscape, the drive-in movie theater grew in popularity in the years following World War II.

From its nineteenth-century origins, burlesque developed into a self-aware performance art that celebrates the female form and challenges social norms.

Though they each arrive with an individual sense of humor and fashion, the fifteen Doctors reflect the political and social issues of their respective eras.

Despite an enduring slice of audience that treats his work as precious and mythic, most Shakespeare fans have rarely met an adaptive concept they didn’t like.