As Americans gather round the tv, settle into their couches, and devour unhealthy amounts of wings while encouraging concussion culture watching football, the world of early American history news moves on. Let’s hit the links!

Speaking of contact sports, Obama delivered his State of the Union Address, which prompted lots of discussion on executive orders. Jon Meacham oddly argued that previous presidents like Lincoln and FDR didn’t execute similar actions, but then later offerd an apology for the mistake—which, ironically, actually is something FDR never did.

Over at The Beehive, MHS’s excellent blog, Dan Hinchen explains the important and useful relationship between the librarian and the researcher. And speaking of crossover, Merlin Chowkwanyun and Karen Tani have a thoughtful take on the possibilities of dual degrees as we (re)consider expanding PhD usefulness.

In another case of historians thinking streets ahead, the American Historical Association announced the full list of historians that will serve on the Committee on Professional Evaluation of Digital Scholarship by Historians. I’m assured that The Junto will be the gold standard for any qualitative rubric. (For the other end of the rubric, Wynken De Worde shows why the recent trend in history pics are actually streets behind.)

If you are into history (as we all are) and in the Boston area (which we all wish we were), this looks fun.

In a physical feat that will rival anything Richard Sherman does on the field today, John Fea survived a marathon writing weekend where he pounded out 31,000 words, and wrote some reflections. My respect for him fell, however, when he refused to turn over 10,000 of them for my own dissertation. (My respect for him rose again, though, when he gave a nice plug for our most recent JuntoCast.)

And finally, new issue of Common-Place is hot off the (digital) press, and is all about the memory of the Civil War.

See you next week!