April 05, 2022

A NEW HISTORY OF WOMEN  The Places Women Built When newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst hired Julia Morgan to design his opulent California castle in 1919, she was one of the few women with an architect’s license. While Morgan was undoubtedly a pioneer in her field, women have been designing buildings and landscapes for a long time—though many of their contributions went unrecognized and uncredited. Luckily, that’s starting to change. From a solemn monument dedicated to the American civil rights movement to a Swiss library reminiscent of the country’s cheese, these are a few of our favorite architectural works that wouldn’t be here without women. READ MORE → SADDLE UP FOR THIS STORY Horseback Librarians The Pack Horse Library initiative was part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA), created to help lift America out of the Great Depression, during which, by 1933, unemployment had risen to 40 percent in Appalachia. These librarians were known as the “book women.” They would saddle up, usually at dawn, to pick their way along snowy hillsides and through muddy creeks with a simple goal: to deliver reading material to Kentucky’s isolated mountain communities. READ MORE → MUNICH, GERMANY Wolfsbrunnen Under the shade of a maple tree on a Munich street stands a tall, white, granite monument. It’s topped by a bronze sculpture of a young girl encircled by a large wolf, whose fanged smile and guileful posture seem to belie unwholesome intentions. This is, of course, a depiction of “Little Red Riding Hood” (“Rotkäppchen” in German). However, there is more to this sculpture than meets the eye, as it also immortalizes a once-powerful Munich family. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA COURSES Natural Dyes: Plant-Based Palettes Onion skins have a secret. They, like many kinds of plant matter, can be transformed into a palette of brilliant colors—dyes ranging from copper to deep mustard. In this three-part online course, you’ll learn how to create natural dyes using everything from kitchen scraps to foraged plants. Starts tomorrow! ENROLL NOW → WALL TO WALL COVERAGE New England’s Stone Walls Walk into a patch of forest in New England, and chances are you will—almost literally—stumble across a stone wall. Thigh-high, perhaps, it is cobbled together with stones of various shapes and sizes, with splotches of lichen and spongy moss instead of mortar. Robert Thorson, a landscape geologist at University of Connecticut, estimates that there are more than 100,000 miles of old, disused stone walls in the forests of rural New England, or enough to circle the globe four times. READ MORE → WOODSTOCK, NEW YORK Overlook Mountain House Ruins From the 1820s through the 1920s, New York’s Catskills region was the premier resort destination in America. Romantic painters and poets flocked to the unspoiled and inspiring landscapes, and wealthy American tourists soon followed suit. One of the foremost of these resorts was the first-class Overlook Mountain House, built in 1833. But the Overlook Mountain House eventually fell into ruin, and today the concrete skeleton rises out of the overgrown woods. READ MORE → HOOKS AND CROOKS Pirate Busters In early-17th-century Ireland, a uniquely organized “pirate alliance” preyed on ships laden with cargo and treasure throughout the North Atlantic. They met their demise in 1614, following a devastating attack by a Dutch fleet guided by a leeskarte—a set of navigational instructions with charts of the Irish coastline, including the locations of pirate havens. This ‘treasure map’, however, is still relevant today—it could potentially help identify other pirate-related locations, including archaeological sites. READ MORE → SAN FRANCISCO It’s It What’s so delicious that everyone exclaims it’s “IT!”? It’s an It’s It, of course. These ice cream sandwiches, featuring two old-fashioned oatmeal cookies dipped in dark chocolate, have been a San Francisco Bay Area classic since 1928, though they’ve since expanded across the country. In 2011, It’s Its sold a reported 14 million sandwiches, despite spending no money on advertising. READ MORE → ATLAS OBSCURA TRIPS Track Wolves in the Forests of Sweden Deep in Sweden's boreal forests, the haunting howl of the European grey wolf can be heard at night, echoing through the towering pines and curtains of moss. Join us on a six-day adventure where you'll have the chance to accompany experienced wildlife guides as they track the grey wolf and witness its otherworldly call. In partnership with Tastemade.