Understanding puzzles as agents of disorder runs counter to a common interpretation that associates puzzles with the quest for and ultimate affirmation of order.

Commemoration, commerce, and complex social connections combined to dictate the paths and diversions of this obscure object and others.

What happens when we place furniture into a context of lively and fraught interaction?

“The life of a citizen,” they reminded the all-male jury, “lies in the hands of woman.” The result made prosecuting sexual assaults among acquaintances all but impossible.  

The Quaker spiritual journey, often invisible due to its silent, humble and individual nature, is illustrated in this map.

By making pirate stories dramatic and exciting, Ellms transformed pirates from news objects and historical actors to distinctly literary characters.

Confederates’ quest for bones thus connects to a bizarre history of the use, and misuse, of human remains. Bones from the Bull Run battlefield were taken as acts of domination and displayed as trophies of war. However macabre, human remains became part of the deeply variegated material culture of war.

Morton and his skull measurements have long been part of the scholarship on American racism, but what happens when we draw Audubon into the racial drama?

Arnold’s unceasing efforts to elevate himself in society through marriage and professional work can be viewed through the lens of the houses he bought or built throughout his life.

The set of 552 images is impossible to describe as a single body of work, but the illustrations cohere.