Iron Yoke Slave Collar
John A. Andrew Artifact Collection, MHS
Questions first ignited in a comprehensive exam room have an electric way of rippling through your whole career, whether you’re teaching in a university classroom and/or in the realms of public history. Take, for example, a standard query about nineteenth-century material culture: How would you tell a history of the American Civil War in five objects?
Constitution Day Edition.
How did you celebrate Constitution Day on Wednesday? If you’re a politician on Capitol Hill, and didn’t answer either “by showing off my pocket-sized edition” or “standing near an oversized facsimile of my favorite amendment with text selectively crossed out to illustrate the imagined dangers posed by my political opponents,” then shame on you. Speaking of those pocket-sized editions, the Washington Post profiled Zeldon Nelson, the Idaho farmer and chief executive of the National Center for Constitutional Studies who sells them for just over a dollar a piece. Continue reading
Let them eat links!
Savor summer’s finale weekend with an extra side of early American history news. Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I dropped my iPhone in water. If you were wondering, those things do not float. As I pulled the phone out and dried it as best I could, all I could think about was my dissertation. I was in the throes of finishing a chapter, and I had a lot of really good ideas on that phone. In this post, I want to explain why my phone has become so important to my scholarly life. Continue reading
We begin this Week in Early American History with James Oakes’ powerful and timely reflection on white abolitionism. “The Real Problem with White Abolitionists,” Oakes argues, is that “even the most radical abolitionists betrayed a blind faith in the magical healing powers of a free market in labor. Scarcely a single theme of the broader antislavery argument strayed far from the premise.”
Continue reading
Here’s the weekly review of early America in the news: Continue reading
After a few quiet weeks in early American history, we’re back with your breaking headlines. To the links! Continue reading
Like many academics, I’ve spent many hours this summer in conference rooms with fluorescent lighting and insufficient air conditioning. For the most part, this has been a real pleasure—after a year of teaching, it is always invigorating to hear others present their research and engage in fruitful conversations. But one part of the experience always fills me with dread: the comment. Continue reading
Hello and welcome to another slightly belated Week in Early American History!
The Junto 