Evolution of an Article

TypingIn summer 2010 I sat in the house furnished by Rhys Isaac in Colonial Williamsburg, and attempted to write my first dissertation chapter. I’d just finished my first research trip, to Library and Archives Canada, in Ottawa, and was in the middle of my second, at the John D. Rockefeller Library. I was trying to follow advice I’d read to write as I researched. There was no Wi-Fi in the house, which was a curse and a blessing. I couldn’t get distracted, but I also did not have instantaneous access to articles and books, which meant I couldn’t check basic facts and chronologies, which, turns out, tend to be missing from your research! Continue reading

Junto March Madness Round 1 Results

JMM16It was an interesting first round, everybody. 168 of you voted, which, as you’ll see, was a real problem in one of our brackets. Upsets occurred in every category, and we had our first ever March Madness tie. Read on for your results! Continue reading

Junto March Madness 2016: Round 1 Voting

JMM16You nominated, we bracketed, and now, it’s time for voting to begin! Upsets will happen. Top seeds will fall. Tears will be shed (maybe). Most importantly, articles you’ve not read will rise to the top of your to-read list (we hope!). Continue reading

Junto March Madness 2016: The Unveiling of the Brackets

JMM16The brackets are here, the brackets are here! During the next month, prepare for a supreme nerd-fest as historians vote for the articles they think have shaped early American history. This year, the bracket is focused on articles. Continue reading

March Madness Call for Nominations

JMM16It’s the most wonderful time of the year here at The Junto, or the month of March Madness! As faithful readers will know, each year we engage in a spirited tournament of voting in some category related to early American history. Last year, it was primary sources. Find out what this year’s theme will be after the jump. Continue reading

An Interview with Ted O’Reilly, New-York Historical Society

Ted at Work

Ted O’Reilly is Head of the Manuscript Department at the New-York Historical Society, where he has worked since 2004. He holds a B.A. in history from the College of the Holy Cross, an M.A. in Irish Studies from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and an M.L.S. from the Palmer School, Long Island University. Today he speaks with The Junto about the New-York Historical Society’s accessioning of a new collection—its own Institutional Archive.

Continue reading

Guest Post: How We Love to Hate Puritan New England

Guest poster Mark Mulligan is a graduate student in history at the College of William and Mary. His research interests include American religious history, the history of the British Atlantic, and colonial New England history. This post also contains some mild plot spoilers.

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It appears that as an early Americanist and a horror fan, I am in good company. News of the push back of a sequel to The Ring franchise from April to October recently devastated me. Admittedly, a Halloween release will fare better at the box office, but Paramount Pictures turned my comps carrot into a prospectus carrot.[1] But the genre offered compensation in the form of a horror film that takes place in seventeenth-century New England, where I intend to locate my dissertation. As such, I am delighted that the Junto invited a conversation on the film The Witch. Continue reading

Guest Post: Discovering Witches

Alexandra Montgomery is a PhD Candidate in history at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies Indigenous and European boundary-setting and colonization schemes in the far northeast during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The following review contains some very mild thematic spoilers.

imagesAs both a horror nerd and an Early American historian, I have been excited about writer/direct Robert Eggers’ debut feature The Witch for quite some time. Excited might be a bit of an understatement: the first time I saw a poster in a theatre I shrieked, and I have been faithfully following the strangely endearing and decidedly bizarre Twitter of the film’s sometimes-antagonist goat, Black Philip, for several months. So, naturally, I was thrilled when my friend and fellow Early Americanist Lori Daggar offered to take me and Kelsey Salvesen to a press screening of the film (the film will be released officially on February 19). Continue reading