History / United States / 19th Century

From the award-winning author of Dressing Up, a riveting and diverse history of women's hair that reestablishes the cultural power of hairdressing in nineteenth-century America.

How American bicyclists shaped the landscape and left traces of their journeys for us in writing, illustrations, and photographs.

How Americans adapted European royal illuminations for patriotic celebrations, spectacular expositions, and intensely bright commercial lighting to create the world's most dazzling and glamorous cities.

A number of curious communities sprang up across the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century: simulated cities, states, and nations in which children played the roles of legislators,...