Little House of Propaganda: Homesteading Myths and the Sentimentality of Self-Reliance
Co-published with Literary Hub. Alissa Quart on the bootstrap narratives of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
How the Horatio Alger Lie Helped Shape the Myth of American Upward Mobility
Co-published with Rolling Stone. An exclusive excerpt from the new book Bootstrapped explodes the fantasy at the heart of the American dream.
Bootstrapping Has Always Been A Myth. The New American Dream Proves It
Co-published with TIME. Relentless individualism has been part of America's ethos. Not anymore, writes Alissa Quart.
We All Depend on Someone. Let’s Celebrate That.
Co-published with The New York Times. Americans are taught that they have to go it alone. That’s a dangerous myth.
How This Subway Dancer Carries On The “Litefeet” Legacy In NYC
Co-published with Buzzfeed News. In an illustrated essay, Molly Crabapple talks to Sony Jayy, one of the many New York City hip hop dancers behind “showtime” on the …
A Museum for the Working Class
Co-published with Dissent. The Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art offers a place for working-class art without tokenizing or empty gestures of representation.
Natural Beauty Products: What Does the Label Really Mean?
Co-published with Teen Vogue. Keywords is a column that decodes the lingo of American politics and media.
Get-Rich-Quick Schemes Drained My Town’s Wealth. At a Christian Conference, Their Legacy Lives On
Co-published with The Guardian. Life Surge, where speakers include Tim Tebow and a Duck Dynasty star, ties together faith and financial planning.
Against ‘Poor’ Reporting
Co-published with Columbia Journalism Review. As a new recession looms, our industry would do well to at least start to correct its legacy biases around coverage of …
Let’s Make Journalism Work for Those Not Born Into an Elite Class
Co-published with Columbia Journalism Review. The piece also addresses our forthcoming initiative Working Sources, an online archive of experts that go beyond the typical think tank usual …
The Poetry of Labor: On Rodrigo Toscano and the Art of Work
Co-published with Literary Hub. Rodrigo Toscano's poetry engages with the world of work, including its impasses and oppressions.
Her Name Was Shirley: The Story of Gordon Parks’s ‘Colored Entrance’ Photo
Co-published with Esquire. The photo has been used to exemplify an America that once was—but the story of its subject and the dreams she once had is …