Have said this before in other forms, but will reiterate it here: if you're doing long-form writing of any sort, reading the words aloud into a microphone is a completely unparalleled cheat code. It's free, easy, and so effective it feels like it shouldn't be allowed. I do it in a few stages...
This hybrid talk is tonight at 7 PM! Can't wait to share my work under the generous dome! 🗃️ #skystorians @uncpress.bsky.social
I'm excited to share great job news: I started this week as Executive Director of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation (a Preservation Virginia site)! Everyone has been very kind, welcoming, and, thankfully, patient this week.
Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America.
“The Voice of the Institute announces that the Meriden, CT, Young Men’s Institute will be publishing a paper that is “entirely original, racy, and well filled,—devoted to the interests of Meriden, the welfare of the young, and “the great principles of ‘93.”
Have any #skystorians come across the phrase “principles of ‘93?” An 1854 announcement for a Connecticut Young Men’s Institute newspaper described it as devoted to those principles. Is it Jeffersonianism?
100%.
There's one thing that I wish AI promoters could understand: writing is not a means a product.
I write to learn something, to experience something, and to come to know more about myself in the process. It doesn't matter what I produce - what matters is how I got there. 🗃️
I’m thrilled to be joining the @theitps.bsky.social as a visiting Scholar in Residence for the next 2 years. I’m looking forward to working with ye ITPS to advance its public history initiatives while remaining @inpursuitusa.bsky.social of the American experiment.
open.substack.com/pub/itps/p/p...
I would love to think along side any historians working on preserving historical memory, records, and archives in the age of AI.
When mass manipulation of info is possible, how do we make sure the records we have can be authenticated, traceable, and withstand multiple chain of custodies? 🗃️
You will be the only one marketing your book, so have a website and social media platform ready to go.
A few questions while I'm revising an essay.
1/ Has the term "alternative facts" stayed in the US - or have right-wing politicians used the term in other languages elsewhere? 🗃️ Thanks in advance!
One more try here - does anyone know if USD was circulating widely in the Caribbean in the 1870s? Dominica had only irregular steamship commerce (mostly resale from Barbados and Martinique). But maybe it was a dominant currency, as most imported food was of US origin? Guesses welcome! 🗃️ #skystorians
He just wanted some of that cold, hard cash!
I'd like to order some scans of early eighteenth-century merchant letters from the Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, but they can only do it for people living in the UK. It will be £40.25. Do I know anyone willing to do me this favor? I would pay it through Wise or Paypal, of course.
My essay “Slouching Towards Arlington House” is out now in a special issue of the Journal of the Civil War Era, featuring “Historians of Crisis in a Moment of Crisis.” The whole issue is open access this month, thanks to the good folks at @uncpress.bsky.social.
The new @inpursuitusa.bsky.social project launches today for #PresidentsDay with articles on George & Martha Washington.
George W. Bush on George: www.inpursuit.org/lessons/for-...
@kawulf.bsky.social on Martha: www.inpursuit.org/lessons/befo...
🗃️
outside of the Mount Holyoke library building in the snow
inclusive welcome signs on a table in front of a window at the entrance to the archives
I’m volunteering on (and receiving travel funds for) a digital portal project for the Frances Perkins Center. first stop: Mount Holyoke
We cannot separate the history of the nation from the history of slavery.
George Washington was an enslaver. As President he brought enslaved people to Philadelphia, and rotated them out to evade a Pennsylvania law that promised emancipation after six months in the state. /1
Image of Martin Van Buren getting a little tipsy on champagne!
To steal a line from our friends at Friends of Lindenwald and Martin Van Buren National Historic Site, let's party with Marty on this Presidents' Day!
Flyer with info on this evening's Cynthia Van Buren Lecture
Two particular donors deserve mention. Bob & Pam Black made the initial donation to get PMVB off of the ground, & Cynthia Van Buren left an estate gift that funds the lecture series named in her memory & provides funding for our student internships.
We also want to thank past and present members of our advisory board for their advice and support. vanburenpapers.org/about-projec...
and the Tennessee General Assembly), our editorial staff (James Bradley, Erica Cavanaugh, Katie Blizzard, Andrew Wiley, David Gregory, Katie Hatton, Aaron Crawford, Max Matherne, Cole Nichols, Ed Bradley, and Maggie Baldwin), and our students and volunteers: vanburenpapers.org/about-projec....
Over the past ten years, our work has been made possible by our sponsors and partners (Cumberland Univ., @nehgov.bsky.social, the NHPRC, the Center for Digital Editing (centerfordigitalediting.org), the Van Buren Family Foundation, the Watson-Brown Foundation, the Heller Family Foundation,
Photo of original PMVB staff members
Today marks ten years since the Papers of Martin Van Buren officially launched at Cumberland Univ. Our project has built on the solid foundation provided by the original PMVB project @ Penn State Univ. (1969-87), transforming its microfilm edition into a more accessible 21st-century digital edition.
Hogan's Heroes and Postwar America video/podcast Kickstarter campaign is officially launched!! Please consider backing us. If you haven't done a Kickstarter before, if we don't meet the campaign goal, no money moves. Pledges above the goal will continue to flow.
www.kickstarter.com/projects/lee...
Last night, I was awarded the 2026 Outstanding Educator of the Year from the Daughters of the America Revolution. To be honored this early in my career is a testament to the dedication I’ve tried to put in the last five years. This award is dedicated to all my students: past, present, and future.
Anyone have any recommendations for finding statistics about the changing demographics by gender of moviegoers, especially in the U.S., especially from 1930-1970? #HATM Again, I'm not interested in the demographics of people involved in the industry for these purposes but those attending the films.
An assortment of city names and dates written in cursive. If you can read this and can visit New Haven, CT on my behalf, please reach out!
Can someone recommend an independent researcher that can visit an archive in New Haven, CT? I really need someone ASAP. I would prefer someone experienced, but in theory anyone that can read these city names and dates in cursive could be fine. It should take 4-6 hours. 🗃️
Help! Can anybody more skilled than I in reading crabbing Tudor hands help me read what it is that the 100 oaks were cut down to make (the last word underlined)? [TNA, C 154/1 no. 3] #palaeography #skystorians
it's literally impossible for an LLM to do a historian's job
it's not even LLMs sucking it's that they need data input to do anything and where's that data supposed to be coming from without historians
never met a computer that can dig through a thousand year old book in a library
Yet another crucial point: the vast majority of the world’s historical archives have not been digitized and are thus totally invisible to LLMs/AI.
bsky.app/profile/jcte...
