In February 2017, The Junto sent out a call to historians working outside the professoriate to join us in a conversation about career diversity for early American history PhDs.[1] The response was exciting and full of interesting conversations with curators, scholars, archivists, librarians, and public historians who have chosen to pursue their passion for research, writing, and teaching in a variety of settings and occupations.
Starting tomorrow, and over the coming weeks, The Junto will feature Q&A’s between Columbia University PhD candidate and Public Historian Katy Lasdow, and a range of participants.
Marisa J. Fuentes is Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archives is her first book. Casey Schmitt previously reviewed 
The latest volume of 
Welcome one and all to the 5th annual Junto March Madness (#JMM17). This year’s tournament will cover books in early American history (broadly defined) published since 2014. There are, however, a few key differences from past years. First, this year’s tournament will feature 32 books rather than 64. Moreover, we have decided to forego the open nomination process. The 32 works in the bracket below were selected by the 25 members of the blog. Before voting begins, let me also offer our usual disclaimer: JMM is meant to be fun and to expose more people to excellent recent scholarship on early America. It is not meant to determine the “best” book on early American history since 2014 but to show the favorites of our readers. As always, we encourage participants to use both the comments here on the blog and our hashtag (#JMM17) to discuss these works. With that out of the way, here is this year’s bracket (click for full-size): 
arly on a cold, frigid morning in Washington, D.C., my husband and I stood at the tail end of a long, winding line to get into the Museum of African American History and Culture. It was too cold to walk around to view the architecture so we hustled over to the entry line as soon as we exited the cab. As we waited, clutching our prized full-page sized passes, we watched a line of yellow school buses deposit kids from elementary, middle, and high schools into the bright frigid air. Their peals of laughter and rambunctious playfulness resisted the cold air. Their faces, hues of browns and tans bundled in colorful puff jackets, were filled with excitement. In line, a group of about six or seven women of African descent stood behind us. This group was from Los Angeles, California and had centered their annual get together around the visit to the Museum. They also were uncomfortably cold yet visibly excited about being here, particularly at this moment of our political lives. I wanted to find out more about them, but because it was so cold or the line was already so long at 10:00 a.m., the Museum staff diverted half of our line to another entryway. We lost contact with them and the children as we sped down the plaza to a much shorter line and before we knew it we were inside the Museum.
Following on from yesterday’s review of 
The Junto 