The Western History Association just posted the CFP for its 2027 conference in San Francisco. Submissions open September 1 and the deadline is December 5.

I want to add a movie into my Modern US Survey (1877-2016ish). I was thinking Dr. Strangelove, but would love other ideas, too! 🗃️

I’ve had pretty good results bringing Soylent Green (1973) into my class on the early environmental movement (+fears of overpopulation/population control) and The Day After (1983) into the class when we cover the Nuclear Age/late Cold War.

I am very honored to share that I’ve won a research fellowship from the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library!

This funding will support a one-week trip to Ann Arbor for intensive research, which will benefit both my book project and my Great Lakes Fire History Digital Archive.

This really cuts deep considering I literally just finished writing my lecture on conservative environmental politics since the 1960s this morning…

Happy Earth Day next week!

I believe it’s “The Continuing Revolution of Reconstruction History” from 1989.

I really liked Eric Foner’s article in the OAH Magazine of History, which I’ve assigned in my undergrad intro classes. Not sure what it’s titled exactly, but it’s on JSTOR.

A week from today! Come learn about forestry as a grassroots effort initiated by various interest groups in the late-nineteenth century Upper Midwest in conflict with logging companies. This research de-centers forestry from eastern elites, looking at the local and regional alongside the national.

How has your scholarship been impacted by a decision not to travel to the United States? Want to write about it for our Tracking the Effects: Environmental History and the Current United States Federal Administration series?

niche-canada.org/2026/02/26/p...

#envhist #envhum #cdnhist

One of the most terrifying graphs you'll see today

Spending Sunday afternoon grading with The Masters in the background. Seems like at least half of the commercials are about AI (its benefits, uses, inevitability, blah, blah, blah). Really ruining my zen golf-watching afternoon.

I think I might have just found the most succinct encapsulation of the Civil War’s causes by an unexpected source.

“The Civil War was fought to decide whether the slaveholders of the South or the capitalists of the North should exploit the West.”

-Helen Keller, “Strike Against War,” Jan. 5, 1916

Still there (or a different turkey?)

A big male turkey standing on a grassy strip next to a sidewalk.

Here’s a turkey in the middle of St. Paul (at the Minnesota History Center) to brighten your day.

“What one begs the American people to do, for all our sakes, is simply to accept our history.”

-James Baldwin, in the Baldwin-Buckley Debate, 1965

Also, if you like this episode, or any of the Minnesota Unraveled episodes, please fill out this survey to let us know what you think! Your thoughts are tremendously helpful (particularly in providing data to help fund the continuation of the podcast), and you could win a $25 gift card.

Beaver Tales: From Minnesota’s Ice Age to Today

It’s #NationalBeaverDay and, as such, I’d invite you all to check out the Minnesota Unraveled episode “Beaver Tales: From Minnesota’s Ice Age to Today,” featuring Nicole Dzenowski (Bell Museum), Michael Waasegiizhig Price (GLIFWC), and myself as guest experts.

Ah, the good ol’ WWI dynamite surplus. The sap in the pine stumps helped preserve it from natural decay unlike a lot of hardwoods. Some WWI veterans came back to the area after the war and drew similarities to the bombed-out landscapes of France.

#envhist #environmentalhistory #forestry #foresthistory #midwesternhistory

I know, I know. Very strange to see an AI-generated image of yourself put onto the interwebs and having had no say in whether or not such a monstrosity would be used to promote your own talk.

And please disregard what looks like an AI-generated image that they’re using to promote the talk, which they did without my consultation or permission.

The talk will be covering a lot of new research that I’ve done post-PhD as I transition my dissertation into a book.

I’ll be giving a virtual talk on “The Midwestern Roots of Forestry: Industrialization, Indigenous Lands, and the Environment, 1867-1933” on April 22 from 12:00pm-1:15pm (eastern) for the Grey Towers Heritage Association.

For more info and to register:

Excellent 🧵 contextualizing the longstanding practice of the U.S. military to commit war crimes and other such atrocities in the name of “civilization.”

Ooh! I’ll have to keep an eye out for that and, hopefully, I’ll be able to make it down!

“Latin America is the region of open veins. Everything, from the discovery until our times, has always been transmuted into European—or later United States—capital…our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others” (2).

Not sure if “angry” is the best way to describe his writing, but it made me angry to read.

Which author outside of your field had the most influence on your scholarly development? I took a Latin American History course during my MA @umontana.bsky.social and came across Eduardo Galeano. I appreciated how direct and to the point he was, and how “angry” he wrote.

Was the hops industry mostly by the Dells/south-central WI? As a Wisconsinite whose research interests are also Wisconsin history, and as one who likes beer, I’m very much looking forward to picking this up and the events associated with the book’s release!