Main Page
Articles
Display More
We’re building a guide for everyday life, where experts will educate you about our world.
Author Spotlight
Ed Simon is the Public Humanities Special Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University and editor-in-chief of Belt Magazine.
Latest:
Vincent Carretta is a professor and author specializing in 18th-century literature.
Latest:
LeesaMaree Bleicher advocates using trauma-informed therapeutic approaches.
Latest:
Ned Pennant-Rea is a London-based editor and writer.
Latest:
Carter Dillard is the policy adviser for the Fair Start Movement.
Latest:
Cameron Edwards runs Still Water Microsanctuary, a small-scale rescue for birds and tropical fishes.
Latest:
Cherene de Bruyn is a South African–born archaeologist investigating the location of clandestine graves using forensic ecology and remote sensing approaches.
Latest:
Suren Moodliar is the editor of the journal Socialism and Democracy and coordinator of encuentro5, a movement-building space in downtown Boston. He is the coauthor of Dying for Capitalism: How Big Money Fuels Extinction and What We Can Do About It (Routledge, 2023).
Latest:
Eric Laursen is an independent journalist, historian, and activist. He is the author of The People’s Pension, The Duty to Stand Aside, The Operating System, and Polymath.
Latest:
Lorenzo Hofstetter is a cultural/world history researcher and co-creator/COO of the Phersu Atlas database.
Latest:
Guides
Our financial system originated in Mesopotamia, where it was designed to ensure economic stability for a community. Over time it has transformed into something much more predatory.
editorsourceareaWhy do some authors pretend to be someone they are not? Why do they claim experiences that they don’t have? What drives them to create texts and claim that they are ancient? By examining some examples of literary fraud from the modern era, we can gain insight not only into a fraudulent writer’s perspective, but also into readers’ expectations, publishing practices, and what kind of story a culture values.
editorsourceareaThe Observatory’s Guide to Animals in Science and Research examines the role of nonhuman animals in scientific experimentation and biomedical development. It explores the ethical, regulatory, and scientific debates surrounding animal testing, including concerns about welfare, transparency, and the limits of animal models in predicting human outcomes. The guide highlights practices involving primates and laboratory animals, as well as growing calls for reform, improved oversight, and the development of alternative research methods. By connecting policy, science, and ethics, it offers a clearer understanding of how animals are used in research—and what a more humane and effective system might look like.
editorsourceareaThe guide will help readers understand the global plastic crisis from multiple angles, including the impact of plastic on human health, wildlife and the environment, the upstream forces in the lifecycle of plastics, the complex reality of recycling plastic, the unique threat posed by tiny plastic particles called nanoplastics, and how two similar cities have handled the plastic issue in different ways.
editorsourceareaThis guide examines the challenges facing vulnerable youth in America and the role communities, institutions, and public systems play in protecting—or failing—them. Drawing on research into child welfare, poverty, health, justice, and systemic inequities, the series explores how overlapping crises—from hidden abuse and neglect to the criminalization of childhood and the long-term effects of economic instability—shape young lives and limit opportunity.
editorsourceareaThe first article explores America’s hidden crisis in child welfare, revealing how children in foster care, detention, and institutional settings often experience neglect, exploitation, and harm. The second article examines how the justice system criminalizes rather than protects vulnerable youth through punitive detention, weakened labor protections, and systemic inequities that push children toward incarceration instead of opportunity. The third article focuses on the relationship between poverty and youth health, arguing that inadequate healthcare, pollution exposure, malnutrition, and environmental inequality undermine children’s ability to learn, grow, and participate fully in society.
The fourth article shifts from diagnosis to possibility, exploring how communities might coordinate education, healthcare, mentorship, enrichment, and meaningful work opportunities under a shared developmental framework. Drawing on existing civic-service and workforce-development models, it argues that resilience is not simply an individual trait, but the product of sustained social investment and consistent support.
The fifth article broadens the lens further, asking why societies so often normalize harm to children across war, poverty, environmental contamination, displacement, and public policy. Drawing on developmental science, civil rights history, and international child welfare, it argues that protecting children requires more than compassion or legal commitments. Instead, it calls for stronger accountability, sustained prevention, coordinated institutions, and renewed community responsibility at every level of society.
Future installments continue the series by turning from systems back to people, exploring the responsibilities of the adults who stand closest to children and the communities that support them. Taken together, the series asks readers to confront not only how children are harmed, but also what kinds of communities, institutions, and moral commitments are required to help them thrive. Readers are invited to reflect on a central question: Does your community care about children?The Guide to Changing How We Relate to Animals explores how human perceptions, language, and belief systems shape our treatment of nonhuman life. It examines growing scientific understanding of animal intelligence, emotion, and social complexity, alongside philosophical and cultural frameworks that influence moral consideration. By questioning long-held assumptions about hierarchy, consciousness, and value, the guide highlights how attitudes toward animals are evolving. It also considers how shifts in awareness can lead to changes in behavior, policy, and everyday interactions. Together, these perspectives invite a more expansive, reflective, and ethically grounded relationship with the living world.
editorsourceareaThis guide will take you through examples of the regenerative, moneyless economy that is sometimes called “collaborative consumption.” The moneyless, sharing-based economy creates the opportunity to opt out of the mentality of disposability and the idea that “more is better,” both of which many of us are bombarded with from birth. The regenerative, moneyless economy provides an avenue for anyone to move away from the hoarding nightmare that has led to over-full garages and seldom-visited storage sheds, continent-sized trash islands, and enormous heaps of human waste. It does this by way of peer-to-peer systems set up for people to rent or borrow goods rather than buy and own them individually. It involves collaborative systems that supply people with the things they need, when they need them.
editorsourceareaFood production shapes the health of ecosystems, communities, animals, and the climate. Yet many modern agricultural systems rely on practices that contribute to soil degradation, biodiversity loss, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and animal suffering. As concerns about the environmental and social costs of industrial agriculture continue to grow, farmers, researchers, Indigenous communities, and advocates are developing and refining alternative approaches.
This guide explores a range of alternatives to industrial agriculture, including organic farming, small-scale farming, regenerative agriculture, carbon farming, veganic farming, Indigenous land stewardship practices, and emerging innovations such as agrivoltaics. Together, these approaches offer different pathways toward producing food while protecting ecosystems, improving soil health, supporting biodiversity, reducing environmental impacts, and building more resilient agricultural systems for future generations.
editorsourceareaHumans have long used language, writing, and storytelling to make sense of the world—and to shape how it is understood. Writing takes many forms, extending from literature and journalism to scholarship, personal reflection, and everyday communication. Together, language and writing help develop our critical thinking, awareness, and curiosity.
The Observatory Guide to Language Arts and Writing explores how language and storytelling shape the human mind, foster empathy, and serve as tools for understanding ourselves, connecting with others, imagining new possibilities, solving problems, and questioning the status quo. Drawing on literature, history, psychology, neuroscience, and the social sciences, the guide highlights how writing and narrative shape not only expression, but perception, meaning, and action.
editorsourceareaThe Guide to Factory-Farmed Animals examines the conditions, systems, and consequences of industrial animal agriculture. It explores how billions of chickens, pigs, and cows are raised in confined environments, often with minimal legal protection and significant welfare concerns. The guide connects animal suffering to broader impacts on human health, labor conditions, and the environment, including pollution and disease risk. It also addresses how cultural narratives and industry practices shape public perception of meat and dairy. By bringing together reporting, analysis, and ethical inquiry, this guide offers a clear, grounded understanding of factory farming and the forces sustaining it.
editorsourceareaNew Additions
As keyboards and touchscreens replace pens and pencils, the decline of handwriting raises questions about cognition, culture, and creativity.
By: Danica Tomber
A 19th-century hyperpolyglot reported to have known up to 72 languages, the biography of Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti explores the boundaries of how we characterize multilingualism.
By: Michael Erard
Before Freudian psychoanalysis became the dominant approach to psychotherapy, physician Morton Prince pioneered influential ideas about dissociation, hypnosis, habit formation, and talk therapy that helped shape the early development of American psychotherapy.
By: George Prochnik
Humanitarian organizations invest in education to promote safety, resilience, and social cohesion, but researchers continue to debate its long-term impact on conflict and human well-being.
By: Chloe Bruce
Buraq, the winged steed associated with the Prophet Muhammad’s Night Journey, evolved from a briefly described figure into a richly imagined symbol through Islamic literature, visual art, philosophy, and centuries of religious and cultural interpretation.
By: Yasmine Seale
Was it their mastery of the horse and chariot, or a revolutionary social structure that allowed them to absorb their neighbors so effectively?
By analyzing the landscape where the Onon and Kherlen rivers form, we are hunting for the site which was allegedly altered to hide the Mongol Emperor forever.
Was Alexander the Great swallowed by the rising tides of the Mediterranean, or perhaps hidden by a populace protecting their god-king from religious fervor?
Classics
From Wikisource:
- “Ten Days in a Mad-House is a book written by newspaper reporter Nellie Bly and published by Norman Munro in New York City in 1887. The book comprised Blyʼs reportage for the New York World while on an undercover assignment in which she feigned insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Womenʼs Lunatic Asylum on Blackwellʼs Island.”
By: Nellie Bly
From Wikipedia:
- “Woman in the Nineteenth Century is a book by American journalist, editor, and women’s rights advocate Margaret Fuller. Originally published in July 1843 in The Dial magazine as ‘The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women,’ it was later expanded and republished in book form in 1845.”
- “The basis for Fuller’s essay is the idea that man will rightfully inherit the earth when he becomes an elevated being, understanding of divine love. There have been periods in time when the world was more awake to this love, but people are sleeping now; however, everyone has the power to become enlightened. Man cannot now find perfection because he is still burdened with selfish desires, but Fuller is optimistic and says that we are on the verge of a new awakening. She claims that in the past man, like Orpheus for Eurydice, has always called out for woman, but soon will come the time when women will call for men, when they will be equals and share divine love.”
This 1847 memoir was written by prominent activist and writer William Wells Brown to support the abolitionist movement. It chronicles Brown’s cruel treatment as an enslaved man, the horrors that he witnessed, and his multiple escape attempts for freedom.
Note: This book is part of a historical collection and may include offensive language.
From Wikipedia:
- “A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South is the first book by American author, educator, and activist Anna J. Cooper. First published in 1892, the book is widely viewed as one of the first articulations of Black feminism. The book is divided into two parts, ‘Soprano Obligato’ and ‘Tutti Ad Libitum.’ Each section contains four individual essays. This book led to the term ‘Cooperian’ being coined when speaking about Anna J. Cooper. It is considered one of the first, full-length Black feminist texts.”
- Overview
- “A Voice from the South compiles a series of essays that touched on a variety of topics, such as race and racism, gender, the socioeconomic realities of Black families, and the administration of the Episcopal Church.”
- “The book advanced a vision of self-determination through education and social uplift for African-American women. Its central thesis was that the educational, moral, and spiritual progress of Black women would improve the general standing of the entire African-American community. She says that the violent natures of men often run counter to the goals of higher education, so it is important to foster more female intellectuals because they will bring more elegance to education. She noted Black women whose accomplishments could rival those of men, including Phillis Wheatley, Sojourner Truth, Fanny Jackson Coppin, and Edmonia Lewis. Cooper advanced the view that it was the duty of educated and successful Black women to support their underprivileged peers in achieving their goals. Through this view Cooper’s style was deemed ‘Cooperian,’ as a direct comparison to other male canonical theorists. …”
- “A Voice from the South was published during a period that saw a burst of intellectual publications by Black women. Cooper’s book was published the same year as Lucy Delaney’s From the Darkness Cometh the Light; or, Struggles for Freedom, Ida B. Wells’s Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted.”
By: Anna J. Cooper
A survivor’s perspective on what it was like to be on the Titanic as it sank, with detailed accountings of his and other passengers’ accounts.
This article on "the woman question" of the right for American women* to vote appeared in Popular Science Monthly, Volume 49, in June 1896. Two months later, Popular Science Monthly's editors attacked Tweedy's argument in an Editor's Table section titled "Women and Politics," reproduced below for historical context depicting the attitude of most men (and some women) of Tweedy's time:
"The Monthly has lately given place to two articles on the subject of the demand which is now being made by some women on behalf of their sex to be allowed to participate in political life on a footing of perfect equality with men. One of our contributors [George F. Talbot, 'The Political Rights and Duties of Women'] has tried to show cause why the demand should not be granted, taking the ground that the change would be injurious to society as a whole and particularly injurious to the female sex. The other [Tweedy, below] treats the arguments of the first with scorn, and, if we are not mistaken, betrays not a little of that 'antagonism of the sexes' which nevertheless she declares to be 'unnatural and vicious.' The question is one which ought to be discussed with complete dispassionateness; and we think that on this score there was no fault to find with the earlier of the two contributions, that by Mr. George F. Talbot, in our May number."
The editors go on to dismiss Tweedy's argument because "As long as men alone do the voting, they are supposed to represent the non-voting sex. Every man has or has had a mother, most have one or more sisters, and a very large proportion have wives. Every man's vote, therefore, … ought to express his consciousness of and respect for the family tie." They continue, "What is mainly needed, in our opinion, is the deepening of the sense of trusteeship in men." Nevertheless, the "women agitators," described below by Tweedy, fought on until women won the right to vote with the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment.
✲ It should be noted that the public debate at the time often considered the voting rights of only white women. While women gained the vote in 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, it was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the right to vote for Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color was guaranteed.By: Alice B. Tweedy
This is a speech by Frederick Douglass given on Monday, July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York. The oration was published as a pamphlet the same year. Annotations were provided by the Wikisource community.
The famous novel about government and business corruption in the early 20th century by muckraker author Upton Sinclair.
From Wikisource:
- “The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by author and socialist journalist Upton Sinclair. It was written about the corruption of the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century. The novel depicts in harsh tones the poverty, absence of social programs, unpleasant living and working conditions, and hopelessness prevalent among the ‘have-nots,’ which is contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption on the part of the ‘haves.’”
By: Upton Sinclair
This two-volume book is an “exposé about the Standard Oil Company, run at the time by oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, the richest figure in American history.” More from Wikipedia:
“Originally serialized in nineteen parts in McClure’s magazine, the book is a seminal example of muckraking, and inspired many other journalists to write about trusts, large businesses that (in the absence of strong antitrust laws in the 19th century) attempted to gain monopolies in various industries.”
“The History of the Standard Oil Company is credited with hastening the breakup of Standard Oil, which came about in 1911, when the Supreme Court of the United States found the company to be violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.”
“The original book was a two-volume hardcover set. An abridged paperback edition was released later.”
By: Ida M. Tarbell
In this memoir, Frederick Douglass chronicles life as an enslaved boy in the American South, his eventual escape, and his new beginnings as a free man and abolitionist.
Note: This historical memoir may include outdated and offensive language.
Retrieved from "https://observatory.wiki/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&oldid=26269"