The House that Came in the Mail Again

Billions of state quarters disappeared from circulation...and that was exactly the plan. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. H ...  Show more

In this episode, Roman and historian Imani Perry follow the Webster Blue Back Speller from the early days of the United States, to the heart of Black intellectual life. Through the lives of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois, Roman and Imani uncover how a single object bec ...  Show more

Both companies started as innovative retailers-- shops without storefronts. But is Amazon unintentionally following Sears' path 100 years later? Will and Mango explore the genius and pitfalls of the early Sears business, while sorting through the weirdest products in the celeb ...

At the end of the year, it's become something of a tradition for people in all corners of the Internet to review the last 12 months and take a look to the future with a sort of "micro-forecast." The original idea of an "Ins and Outs" list began at the Washington Post in the 1970s ...  Show more

Louis Sullivan was an architect working in Chicago at the dawn of the skyscraper. He sought to define a new, bold style of design in the U.S., and was deeply frustrated when his peers didn’t do the same. 

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Some say the Montgomery Ward shopping catalogue is one of the most influential books in US history. It transformed the middle-class way of life in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Ward struggled to get people to understand mail order shopping. His prices were so low, peopl ...  Show more