After enjoying the festivities of the Fourth, why not make it a whole weekend of early American history research? The Junto asked Barbara Austen, Archivist at the Connecticut Historical Society, to introduce the institution’s collections and digital projects. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Interview
The “Extra-Illustrated” Man: NYPL’s Emmet Archive
When more than 10,000 early American documents find new life in the digital world, we at The Junto want to know more about the challenges and opportunities of the project. Thomas Lannon, Assistant Curator of the Manuscripts and Archives Division at the New York Public Library, kindly took our questions on Thomas Addis Emmet’s extra-illustrated archive. Continue reading
Some Thoughts on Teaching: An Interview with James H. Merrell
I first met Jim Merrell in the spring of my sophomore year at Vassar College, when I registered for his Revolutionary America class. Over the next two and a half years I took several more courses with Mr. Merrell (professors at Vassar go by “Mr.” or “Ms.,” rather than “Dr.” or “Professor”), where I received multi-page responses to my essays, and comments on my research papers with words like “Huzza!”
Eventually, I began work on my senior thesis, which he kindly agreed to supervise. During the course of that year he met with me weekly to check on my progress with research and writing. His feedback was thoughtful but tough—after receiving his comments on the first full draft, I recall needing to go to the gym to run, lift, and then swim before being able to read them calmly. His assurance “that the draft gets critical treatment that is closer to graduate school than to first or second year college. (Huzza, sez you!)” should indicate the substance of his remarks [1]. Continue reading
Early America, with a Brooklyn Accent
Last week, we asked how digital projects are transforming our study of early American life and culture. Here’s the first in a series of interviews with historians who tell us what worked, how digital tools shaped the narrative, and where they want to go next on the digital frontier. This week, we asked the Brooklyn Historical Society for a peek at the making of a special digital exhibit on the Lefferts family of New York. As Breuckelen becomes Brooklyn, readers can link to local sites where the Lefferts family lived and worked, including the Lefferts Historic Homestead in Prospect Park (shown here: Historical re-enactors gathering on the front steps in 1938). The Leffertses were influential landowners, politicians, historians, financiers—and also one of the county’s biggest slaveholding families. Their letters, farm accounts, and recipe books offer a new and very personal window on New York’s development.Our thanks to Jacob Nadal, the Director of Library and Archives, and Julie Golia, Public Historian and Curator, who kindly took our questions on bringing nearly four centuries of Brooklyn to digital life. Continue reading
Interviews with Historians: Edwin G. Burrows
Note: This post initiates one of our first special features, “Interviews with Historians.” The series is meant to give established historians a chance to discuss their work and share their thoughts on a range of topics with the next generation of early Americanists. The Junto would especially like to thank Ted Burrows for agreeing to be the subject of the series’ first interview.
Edwin G. Burrows is the Pulitzer-Prize winning co-author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, a narrative history covering the city’s founding by the Dutch through consolidation. After receiving his BA from the University of Michigan in 1964, Burrows received his PhD from Columbia University in 1972, where he worked with Eric McKitrick. Soon thereafter, he took a position in the History Department at Brooklyn College, where he has remained for the last forty years. Over the course of two decades, he co-wrote Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 with fellow Columbia PhD, Mike Wallace, which won them the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1999. In 2008, his second book, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War, was published by Basic Books and won the 2009 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award for the best book written each year on the American Revolution. In the interest of full disclosure, Ted served as my “faculty mentor” in the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies. Continue reading
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