American Icons

American Icons: ‘The Migration Series’ by Jacob Lawrence

Jacob Lawrence’s epic series of paintings shows the northward journey of millions of African Americans from the Jim Crow South to cities in the North.

American Icons: ‘The Migration Series’ by Jacob Lawrence

American Icons: ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’

American Icons: ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’
Flowers are seen on the star of late singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez after it was unveiled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, California, on November 3, 2017.

What Selena’s life and legacy tell us about Latinx identity today

What Selena’s life and legacy tell us about Latinx identity today

American Icons: ‘12 Angry Men’

American Icons: ‘12 Angry Men’

American Icons: ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ — Part Two

American Icons: ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ — Part Two

American Icons: ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ — Part One

It’s HAL’s world — we just live in it.

American Icons: ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ — Part One

American Icons: The ‘Ripley’ novels

Decades before such problematic protagonists as Don Draper and Walter White reinvented themselves, there was Tom Ripley.

American Icons: The ‘Ripley’ novels

American Icons: ‘My Ántonia’

Setting the record straight on Willa Cather’s misunderstood 1918 masterpiece.

American Icons: ‘My Ántonia’

American Icons: The tales of Edgar Allan Poe

These are the stories that introduced America to its dark side.

American Icons: The tales of Edgar Allan Poe

American Icons: ‘96 Tears’

How a group of Mexican American teenagers in the 1960s may have spawned punk rock.

American Icons: ‘96 Tears’

American Icons: ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’

How an epic flop became the longest-running theatrical release in U.S. movie history.

American Icons: ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’

American Icons: ‘The Searchers’

The complicated legacy of John Ford’s problematic masterpiece starring John Wayne.

American Icons: ‘The Searchers’

American Icons: ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’

How Maya Angelou’s first book came to be loved — and banned — so much.

American Icons: ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’

American Icons: Jimi Hendrix's ‘Star-Spangled Banner’

This is the sound of a nation breaking at the seams.

American Icons: Jimi Hendrix's ‘Star-Spangled Banner’

American Icons: ‘Mad Magazine’

This is the magazine that made America snarky.

American Icons: ‘Mad Magazine’