In the 1960s, two landmark statutes--the Equal Pay and Civil Rights Acts--targeted the long-standing practice of employment discrimination against U.S. women. For the next 15 years, the gender gap in median earnings among full-time, full-year workers changed little, leading many scholars and...

"Daniel Platt's intriguing book details how American culture engaged the moral implications of debt from the Gilded Age to the New Deal era. Debt was once an unequivocal marker of failure and untrustworthiness, and those who carried debt were seen as spendthrifts, unable to control their...