I’m hosting a watch party for all six nights of Ken Burns’ “American Revolution” at CMU. In all 12 hours how much smallpox will there be? My guess is not enough!

The place where I learned to love early American history is hiring! I’m sure they’ll have their pick of too many amazing candidates.

Our first Razorback game in over a decade! Go hogs!

sometimes an Oxford comma can make all the difference

Would anyone with access institutional access to Early American Imprints Series II (180-1819) be willing to send me a pdf copy of "An Account of Rose Butler: Aged Nineteen...whose execution I attended..." by Dorothy Ripley (New York, 1819)? It's for a student research assignment. Please and thanks!

The #1 lesson from yesterday’s blowout: Humanities majors killed on the job market 1) Mamdani- Africana Studies 2) Spanberger -French 3) Sherill - Global History

I truly believe that we cannot dig ourselves out of this anti-vax hole without getting to the root of how and why it started, how and why it spreads, and how and why it's so tempting to believe.

And John Adams (among many others) couldn't believe anyone was opposed to inoculation in 1764! He wrote to Abigail, "I should think my self, a deliberate self Murderer... if I should only stay in this Town and run the Chance of having it [smallpox] in the natural Way [rather than by inoculation].

My 11 year-old declared that he's going AImish (eschewing AI in the way that the Amish avoid certain technolgies). He was frustrated that some kids don't know how to use a calculator, even, because they're over-reliant on AI. To course correct, he's been teaching himself to use a slide rule.

This is a good start, but people should also be free to drive on whatever side of the highway feels appropriate to them.

A plate from “Engravings, Explaining the Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles, and Joints” by Scottish surgeon-anatomist John Bell FRCSEd, published in 1794. Bell illustrated his own works based on dissections he carried out in his Edinburgh anatomy school.

Bahahaha RFK: Tylenol causes autism. Tylenol: Do you have evidence? We can sue you. RFK: Tylenol doesn't cause autism. www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

The real tell is that they never ever work with patient or provider groups on their plans. Obama spoke at the AMA annual conference and published in the NEJM. You can’t even imagine Republicans (let alone Trump) meeting with say the American Cancer Society to develop their plans.

5 years ago today Biden gave his best campaign speech at Warm Springs, GA. It has been wrongly forgotten. "The insidious virus. Economic anguish. Systemic discrimination. Any one of them could have rocked a nation. Yet. we've been hit by all three at once." www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/re...

In spite of the headline, there is the pesky legal matter that neither billionaires or anybody else can “give” money to “pay troops” or anything else. However, a great compromise would be for billionaires to pay more money into the general treasury through “taxes.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/u...

It is impossible to imagine people allowing this to go on (or even participating in it within the government) if he was ordering the murder without any process of French citizens or Brits or Australians on boats no matter what they were alleged to be doing.

Just a thought: How about we stop shaming the poor for buying things that may not be essential, and start shaming the rich for making a profit off things that are essential?

My old college quizbowl teammate at the University of Arkansas Dargan Ware made quite the first impression on Jeopardy! today! Woo Pig Sooie!

My old college quizbowl teammate at the University of Arkansas Dargan Ware made quite the first impression on Jeopardy! today! Woo Pig Sooie!

When Sprite is really focused on his game, he sticks out his tongue while still in complete control of the ball. He thinks he’s the Michael Jordan of fetch.

Even kings are smart enough not to say stuff like this.

A really excellent Open Letter to Students on using GenAI, which I came across over on Mastodon: librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2025/10/10/a...

“Sir, nobody is buying these John Adams costumes!” “Ok. Here’s what we’re gonna do. Call ‘em plus size Jeffersons.”

I’m currently reading through the wonderful essays in @theatlantic.com’s “The Unfinished Revolution.” The editors included this image of an inoculation certificate, but there’s no essay on the legacy of the Revolution on vaccination and public health. *ahem (I did send in a pitch…so we’ll see?)

My kids are both in 8th grade US history this year. Learning about U.S. history during a government shutdown and presidential abuses has them rooting for AOC (Articles of Confederation) in 2028. “No executive branch and no federal budget!). Where’s the NYTimes story about our anti-federalist youth?

full episode on Doctor Doctor Willard Bliss or we riot

Oct. 9, 1775: “It clearly appears that [British] Administration is determined upon the most sanguinary & violent Measures,” Rhode Island’s delegates to the Continental Congress write home. “We ought to be prepared for the worst.”

Hey bookshop.org has FREE Shipping today! catch my book at at a discount AND free shipping: bookshop.org/p/books/push...

My son turned his “Quaker Life Notes” from his 8th grade U.S. history class into “Quaker Otes” He gets an A in my book.

It took me most of the weekend to track down one reference that I knew I had read but inexplicably did not save or put in my notes. All that is to say that writing on the new book has officially begun.

Political violence, post-pandemic one-party rule, vast economic inequality, and immigration backlash? The 2020s are the 1920s all over again--and that may show us a way out. Adapted from my book, to be published next week. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/o...

My book, The Contagion of Liberty is coming out (in January) in paperback, and I got some preview copies of this cheaper, more flexible version with new blurbs on the cover! For the 250th anniversary, it argues that American independence was only achieved through inoculation and public health.

The year before I got my current job at CMU, I was a finalist for a tenure-track U. S. history position at New College of Florida. It was an incredible, unusual place. It's such a shame how it has been intentionally damaged and dismantled.

Let’s be clear on this: republicans don’t want kids to have guaranteed free meals

Recall RFK's claim that doctors & scientists were "on his side" at his last hearing? Wanna prove him wrong? I'll be ordering post cards soon, so if you're local to me, I can pass some along. I can also send them on your behalf (DM me your info for that). Or do it yourself--info @ link below.

It's the most measles cases in the U.S. (by far) since 1992 and currently has a 12% hospitalization rate.

Can I take a moment to appreciate that the subdomain for the recommender portal for Central Michigan is fireup.cmich.edu

Whether they're blaming vaccines and Tylenol, or selling dubious "remedies," what they're really doing is promoting the perception that families (and especially mothers) can prevent and treat Autism. And thus also the perception that people with Autism and their families don't need social support.

My incredible 13-year-old autistic son wants RFK Jr. to read these pages, especially the parts he highlighted, from the wonderful book Welcome to the Autistic Community.

Thomas Jefferson on vaccines in 1800: “every friend of humanity must look with pleasure on this discovery, by which one evil the [more] is withdrawn from the condition of man.” Trump on vaccines in 2025: “It’s too much liquid. Too many different things are going into that baby at too big a number.”

Speech, occupational, and physical therapies cost insurers and therefore corporations a lot of money. Blaming Tylenol and naming a different drug as treatment will justify stripping insurance plans of more expensive therapies and effective forms of support.

This is infuriating. Yes, my son used to cry and get angry when he couldn’t speak. But thanks to access to good therapists and good insurance, he started speaking full sentences at 5 and is now perfectly understandable, smart and funny. This will only serve to stigmatize and reduce care for kids.

On November 13, 1827, in a meeting of the Boston School Committee, the committee established the first (that we know of) school vaccination mandate. But they didn't call it that. The language used, I think, shows us something about the broad acceptance of vaccines that is sadly slipping away.

Kennedy & co “are testing the waters, but they’re also accustoming the public both to the idea of fewer vaccines and to the routine of doubting vetted immunizations…Whether vaccine infrastructure disappears by erosion or rapid demolition, the end result will be the same: a nation far less protected”

“The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” Samuel Johnson, born on this day in 1709

I saw Spinal Tap II over the weekend. If the original Spinal Tap is the Beatles of mockumentaries, then SPII is Wings—not without its moments, pretty tame, and kind of pointless. But it’s still fun to see/hear Paul McCartney.

The innate seed theory is back?

There’s no record of any enlisted soldier refusing to be inoculated. There were uniformly eager and grateful for the opportunity to receive an otherwise expensive procedure. Washington did pressure reluctant governors and officers to inoculate and had famously low tolerance for insubordination.

A thing that has already made my semester: a student told me that he changed his major to history (from broadcasting) and is taking my class this semester because he heard me give a lecture on campus last spring on the history of vaccination. Huzzah for small victories!

If *your department head and your dean* can be removed for supporting your colleague in teaching in their area of expertise, then you have no academic freedom. In a functional sense, you don't work at a university at all.