As our current public health crisis rages, the importance of carework comes into focus more clearly than ever before. As social theorist Nancy Fraser put it in a recent interview, COVID-19 “puts the spotlight on people’s interior lives and what it takes under these conditions to keep a household running.” Work that was previously overlooked…

The fashion and clothing industry answered the call. At the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis in New York, when it was clear that there was going to be an alarming shortage of personal protective equipment for healthcare workers, designer Christian Siriano responded directly to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plea for private businesses to help…

With the spread of COVID-19, the world is settling into a new reality of social distancing and quarantine and relying on technology to retrofit the activities that were previously conducted face-to-face in the classroom, the boardroom, the gym, and the neighborhood café. Videoconferencing and FaceTime calling help fill the void and allow us to connect…

Editor’s note: Back in March, historian Nina Harkrader joined us at the Center for Women’s History for a salon conversation based on her forthcoming book about women-only residential buildings in New York City. In today’s post, Dr. Harkrader shares this story with Women at the Center, tracing the rise and fall of single-sex housing for the…