August 13, 2013
Hollywood’s Bathing Beauties
Mack Sennett anticipates Hollywood’s taste for window dressing.
Read MoreRoundtable
Opinions and analysis from Lapham’s Quarterly writers and editors.
May 5, 2025
August 09, 2013
Terror on the Jersey Shore
The turn-of-the-century origins of shark hysteria.
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August 08, 2013
The Ladies’ Cabin
Sea travel became a more prominent part of a woman’s life in the nineteenth century, but was it an acceptable place for a lady?
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August 05, 2013
A Painted Ship Upon a Painted Ocean
On the high seas, the doldrums are a place where ships linger, unable to push forward through the too-calm sea. In literature, doldrums become synonymous with a particular kind of inert malaise.
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August 02, 2013
Underwater Impressions
Leni Riefenstahl’s final film was a wordless, undersea documentary—and her only film after the fall of the Nazi regime.
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July 28, 2013
The Fantastical Allure of the Space Whale
During the mid-twentieth century, the twin concerns of space exploration and environmentalism found a curious mascot: the space whale.
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July 14, 2013
Widow’s Walk
Whalers left Nantucket and Cape Cod in droves in search of the next big catch—what of those who stayed behind?
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July 13, 2013
The Man Before the Mast
When Herman Melville began to write Moby Dick he was chasing his own literary white whale: Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast.
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July 03, 2013
Helpful Hints for Amputations
Civil War amputations were a grisly affair; luckily, there were instruction manuals for busy or inexperienced surgeons.
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August 07, 2023
Monumental Mistakes
2023:
Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.
c. 1850:
Thompson of Sunderland makes his mark on Pompey’s pillar.
May 22, 2023
Revolutionary Lovebirds
2023:
Writers on strike search for romance at the picket line.
c. 1945:
Young communists engage in party matchmaking.