Rob is being polite here. Mystery data, vibes data?

It would be nice if, at a moment when academia is under brutal assault from outside forces that are opposed to the very core of its mission, academics weren't so obsessed with self-flagellation.

We talked about George and Martha as products of 18th century Virginia elite, about what the textual and material record of their lives tells us, about how we understand her as someone who fully expected to own people, but not to be the First Lady of an unimaginable new nation. Hope you'll listen!

Excited to be part of this project! Talking about Martha Washington and why she matters.

And will be listening tomorrow like this 😬 bc dear god my voice! I can never believe that I really sound like this I can't be the only one.

Hey this is right now! You can still jump online to hear from Tyson about this great work. Foreign meddling, anyone?

Huzzah! Very excited for your book.

The destructive impulse would be fascinating if it weren't also so horrifying.

I know that the only way is to accept that I will never ever be on top of my inbox.

Oh would love to hear more! Working on single moms and their babies in 18th c British America, essay coming out later this year on some Massachusetts cases now loking at Virginia.

Looking down into a box of packed and stacked papers, can just see how they are tied bundles barely noting a label for 1800.

Oh I hope so! This one qualifies as chaotic good-- beautifully organized albeit in the 18th century.

Looking down into a cardboard box full of 18th century papers. Wholly and deliciously disorganized. One date apparent, 1744.

Someone just sent me this picture as I plan for a couple of quick research days in the fall.

Oh, the state of the world. So much else. But this is anticipated intrigue and brain joy.

A frog in a rowboat reading a book while a fish in the water is also reading a book. The caption at the top reads "It's a Whole Great Big Fun Thing"

A fifteen drawer card catalog with some drawers pulled out and Library of Congress literature in the drawers and on top.

It is National Library Week and the Library of Congress has done a cute nationwide thing with old card catalogs highlighting a lot of their core programs. I'm partial to their "Free to Use and Reuse Sets" but I'm sure we've all got our faves. 📚

newsroom.loc.gov/news/library...

The Vision of the Founding Fathers America 250 online event with Emily Sneff, Colin Calloway, and Lou Masur. Register now.

From Washington to Hamilton and everyone who came before, join historians and Oxford authors Emily Sneff, Lou Masur, and Colin Calloway as they discuss the vision of the Founding Fathers and how it lives on.

Wednesday April 22nd; click to register. oxford.ly/4sH5bVV

Congrats to our RI Sec State Gregg Amore and team!

Better than a lot of recent analyses!

All of a sudden 259 is everywhere - after all this planning and work! In Richmond I saw 3 exhibits yesterday alone

Just today! 2026 is mad! Hope you enjoy - so much percolating in the city.

Have been in a connection challenged couple of days (hotel WiFi blindly, cell service poor) and if it had been a little better it would gave been maddening; instead it was just bad enough to be good to be semi-unplugged.

Screenshot of roundtable public history and the American Revolution at 250 w a fancy 250 logo for OAH sessions about the semi quincentennial

It’s weird to fly from Richmond to DC but that’s how we get to Philly this morning. 🙃 looking forward to a cool OAH session conversation about public history at the semi quincentennial - following on last nights plenary w Lonnie Bunch and @oah.org Pres. @agordonreed.bsky.social on public history!

Absolutely this.

also, the focus on "majors" is a way to cut programs that actually enroll fine, but students pick other things because they are told to by ... their parents media advisors admin college counselors general vibes ... but they still take the classes because they actually want to learn.

Huzzah! So happy this wonderful project is on its way! 🎉

💯

Image from museum exhiit with a text of an article about early 20th c textbooks and annotations inc to the president of the UDC noting that any textbook that "speaks of the slaveholder of the South as cruel and unjust" should be rejected.

In Richmond briefly and dashed over to see the "Expanding Freedom" exhibit at the newly opened Shockoe Institute, right here in the heart of Virginia slavetrading. An excellent section on the UDC's interest in controlling textbooks. I mean so much scholarship I know but this was 💯 pithy!

Yes! It’s summer without spring!! 😄

Headed to Richmond and then Philly. 90s and 80s. No, it's not too soon to discuss heat and humidity-- ALAS.

Jefferson on Race: A Reader, edited by Annette Gordon-Reed, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

Jefferson on Race, edited by @agordonreed.bsky.social, is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Thomas Jefferson’s conflicted attitudes—& the impact of race & slavery on American history.

Out March 31 (26 May UK pub).

Learn more: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

💯 because it shows the process --which in so many ways is as important as the product. If we want people to understand history we need them to understand the process by which we understand history!

In addition to the importance of snark (ask me!), footnotes also tell me how you did your research, whom you are citing, whether you really have evidence for what you claim. Also a great teaching tool. Put them on the page with the text!

Who Gets Guggenheims? - Public Books Unfortunately, 100 years of data show that those whom such fellowships might represent the greatest departure from their everyday experience—that is, those not at elite institutions—are least likely t...

Woohoo, here's my essay with my fav co-author on 30,000 fellowship wins across the Guggenheim, Stanford CASBS, NAEd, National Humanities Center, RSF visiting scholar, and Harvard Radcliffe.

Spoiler: it's the people working at prestigious universities

www.publicbooks.org/who-gets-gug...