Great Glass Coffin Scam: When Hucksters Sold the Fantasy of Death Without Decay

“One More Opportunity Knocks at Your Door,” declared an advertisement in the November 9, 1916, issue of the “Oklahoma City Times.” The tantalizing notice shared column space with sales pitches for hair tonics and headache cures and offered its own remedy for one of life’s mortal problems. The ad copy guaranteed that this business venture was fail-safe, with shares of stocks ready to be purchased. The demand for this wondrous new product would only increase, … (continue reading)

Day of the Dolphin: How Vintage Florida Kitsch Masked a Grim Reality

For people of a certain age, one iconic image screams “Florida”: A dolphin, leaping majestically into the air, to the delight of an enthusiastic crowd—cameras snap, everyone smiles. The 1950s and ’60s craze for Florida dolphin shows has left us with boatloads of appealing collectibles. Postcards, brochures, and souvenirs such as flying dolphin salt-and-pepper shakers convey a sunny nostalgia for family vacations spent on Florida’s beaches.

“It was so much fun sitting in that stadium and watching … (continue reading)

Giving Thanks: Jefferson Airplane Guitarist Sheds the Rock-Star Mask to Tell His Truth

“If you remember the ’60s, you weren’t there.” So goes the stoner cliché. Despite this paradoxical measure of authenticity, Jorma Kaukonen’s Been So Long: My Life and Music (St. Martin’s Press) is filled with richly detailed recollections of that landmark decade, although Kaukonen does confess to forgetting big chunks of the 1970s and ’80s. “That’s true,” the lead guitarist of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna confirmed when we spoke recently about … (continue reading)

Was Robin Williams’ Art Collection a Window on His Troubled Mind?

On August 12, 2014, I interviewed cycling legend Gary Fisher for an article I was writing about the origins of mountain biking in Marin County, California. It was the day after Robin Williams committed suicide, which was all anybody could talk about. Indeed, my conversation with Fisher began with an unprompted recollection on his part of his old high-school chum.
“I went to Redwood High School, class of … (continue reading)

Demolishing the California Dream: How San Francisco Planned Its Own Housing Crisis

If you want to understand San Francisco’s self-inflicted housing crisis, look no further than the city’s very first zoning law, commonly known as the Cubic Air Ordinance, which set a disturbing standard for the city’s eventual missteps. Proposed in 1870, during a time of rampant real-estate speculation in a boomtown renowned for its lawlessness, the new law required boarding houses to offer a minimum amount of space per tenant. Officials … (continue reading)

United States of Protest: A Citizen’s Guide to 250 Years of Resistance

Two black men walk into a coffee shop, ask to use the restroom, and are denied. They sit down at a table, and within two minutes, the store manager calls the police. The officers immediately arrest the men and lead them out of the store in handcuffs. It might sound like a scene from a civil-rights sit-in at a lunch counter the South in 1960, but if you’ve been … (continue reading)

From Yosemite to Bears Ears, Erasing Native Americans From U.S. National Parks

Immersed in the American West during the early 19th century, artist George Catlin made it his goal to capture idyllic scenes of nature, often featuring the frontier’s many Native American inhabitants. Catlin was concerned about the destruction white settlers would bring as they moved west from the urbanized East Coast, reshaping the landscape for agricultural and industrial uses, and he wanted to document scenes of indigenous life before it was forever … (continue reading)

Masher Menace: When American Women First Confronted Their Sexual Harassers

In the late 19th century, from the moment that American women were granted the freedom to leave their houses unescorted, they encountered a pest known as “the masher.” Generally, a smarmy mustachioed fop, this unfamiliar man winked at or brushed up against a shop girl on the streetcar, loomed over and stalked a working woman walking down the street, called out “hey turtle-dove” to teenage girls. The most galling mashers groped, … (continue reading)

From Folk to Acid Rock, How Marty Balin Launched the San Francisco Music Scene

Bill Graham, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia—half a century on, these names still evoke the sound of San Francisco in the late 1960s. To be sure, the city’s greatest concert promoter, singer, and guitarist all deserve their status as cultural icons, but it was another guy whose name you might not immediately recognize, Marty Balin, who drew the world’s attention to San Francisco in the first place. That’s because in … (continue reading)

From Boy Geniuses to Mad Scientists: How Americans Got So Weird About Science

In her 2016 book, “Innocent Experiments: Childhood and the Culture of Popular Science in the United States,” published by the University of North Carolina Press, historian Rebecca Onion explores American ambivalence toward science education over the last two centuries. As she delved into her research, Onion observed that even during the times that adult scientists have been eyed with suspicion, Americans have always loved the idea … (continue reading)

Hippies, Guns, and LSD: The San Francisco Rock Band That Was Too Wild For the Sixties

George Hunter of the Charlatans never shot Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, not even once. But in the spring of 1966, on the grounds of Rancho Olompali just north of San Francisco, Garcia had reason to believe Hunter was gunning for him, causing the great guitarist to royally freak out. The misunderstanding unfolded when Hunter decided to drop some LSD and bring a loaded .30-30 Winchester rifle to a … (continue reading)

Prop Master: How a “Star Wars” Superfan Scoured the Earth for Space Debris

Brandon Alinger has a movie-prop collection that would make any Gen-Xers’ head explode: He owns an authentic “Ghostbuster” ghost trap with the slide-out cartridge, a “Star Wars” rebel pilot helmet, and the lightsaber that Luke Skywalker carried in “Return of the Jedi.” Alinger’s ownership of all these holy grails of 1980s cinema makes sense when you realize that for the last 10 years, the 34-year-old has made a career … (continue reading)

The Gay Old Days: If You Really Want To See San Francisco’s Future, Go Back to 1957

This year, senior citizens around the San Francisco Bay Area are celebrating the 50th anniversary of a three-word phrase coined in a 1967 press release. From April through August, you’ll find many of these former hippies, their flowing gray hair an incongruous contrast to their brightly colored tie-dye, shuffling through the normally serene galleries of the De Young Museum, where they pause to admire indecipherable concert … (continue reading)

When Medieval Monks Couldn’t Cure the Plague, They Launched a Luxe Skincare Line

Long before the modern deluge of organic soaps, herbal remedies, juice cleanses, and lifestyle brands like Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP, the mindful crowd had a medieval-era source for all-natural panaceas: the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. Roughly translated as the “Perfume-Pharmaceutical Workshop of New Saint Mary’s Church,” this world-renowned cosmetics and pharmaceutical company began its illustrious life as a community health clinic at a 13th-century Florentine monastery. Whether … (continue reading)

Self-Righteous Devils: What Ozark Vigilantes of the 1880s Reveal About Modern America

When I was 7 years old, in 1983, my family took a road trip from Stillwater, Oklahoma, to Branson, Missouri, a family-oriented resort town deep in the Ozark Mountains. Our destination was Silver Dollar City, a Christian-owned theme park that is like Disneyland reimagined as a 19th-century mining village, all built around a cave that was a bat guano mine in the 1880s. My … (continue reading)