It is Martin Van Buren's birthday. The Little Magician aka Martin Van Ruin aka Old Kinderhook aka Little Van aka the Red Fox of Kinderhook aka Mistletoe Politician appears on this tow boat company note that also has a lovely whaling vignette. Hudson Tow Boat Co., Hudson Print Works, NY, $2, 18--.🗃️

On this date in 1782, Martin Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, New York. He would serve as the 8th president of the United States. You can learn more about his life at vanburenpapers.org

It was a real treat to talk about my new book— Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis—with Miranda Melcher at @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social. Thanks for having me on the show! 🗃️https://newbooksnetwork.com/opium-slavery

Interested in learning how to incorporate Martin Van Buren's documents into your high school classroom? Join us on May 19, 2026, to learn how! centerfordigitalediting.org/events/may-w...

A top notch mail day!! uncpress.org/978146969352...

You ever think the guy with the Tiny Desk just wants to get back to work?

I named my fists Common and Sense because I'm about to bring the Paine

I named my fists Adam and Smith cause these hands are invisible, baby, you’ll NEVER see them coming.

Some great books and articles on archives and libraries that came out in 2025. In no specific order. 🧵

My book is about drug addiction in the U.S. from 1776 to 1914, when it was (generally) legal to sell addictive drugs. Addiction increased rapidly, but people didn't associate drug addiction with crime. global.oup.com/ushe/product...

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You know what we won't need once handwriting recognition software has done its thing? Archivists, curators, conservators, catalogers, codicologists, or paleographers. We won't need archives either. We won't need diplomatics, editorial theory, book or media history, or material culture studies 🗃️🧵

Looking for a good book about President James Garfield? The James A. Garfield National Historic Site has you covered. 🗃️#NationalParks

19th century people… Is the a definitive (or preferred) unabridged edition of Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America?”

Meet the AI workers who tell their friends and family to stay away from AI

An interview with a historian who set out to weave a textile of the type that would have been sold to plantations for use by enslaved people, using period equipment. www.publicbooks.org/cloth-and-co...

Anyone know of research on the 50-year commemoration of the U.S. Constitution in 1837? All I have found so far is Milton Klein's 1995 article “Mythologizing the U.S. Constitution.” I am working with a high school teacher who wants to use Van Buren's inaugural address to analyze the commemoration.

James K. Polk did it better.

“The University of Georgia Press is delighted to welcome a new editorial team to our Race in the Atlantic World series: Ana Lucia Araujo, Toby Green, and Brooke Newman.” ugapress.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/t...

The publication date for my book on the history of policing American slavery has been moved up a month! Now available May 12, 2026! Thanks so much to those who have preordered! The Press is offering 30% off with the code, 01UNCP30 uncpress.org/978146969484...

7/ He was a fascinating man who led a fascinating life full of sweep and drama and, of course, many startling turns. I'm calling the book THE GREAT APOSTATE. If all goes as planned, it will be published in the fall of 2027.

6/ He advocated nullification after the 1828 tariff law. He wrote prolifically on trade and tariffs, economic theory, politics, and history. He pushed for a militant South. In many ways he was the intellectual godfather of secession.

5/ In 1820 he joined the faculty at South Carolina College. There he entered the most fateful period of his life. The former abolitionist was now an enslaver himself and unabashed defender of the institution.

4/ Jefferson, who thought he was "the greatest man in America," wanted him president of his new institution, the University of Virginia. Once again the state's religious leaders objected, dooming his dream job

3/ He settled in Pennsylvania and became a land commissioner and judge before his battles with organized religion led to his removal. He then entered academia, teaching chemistry at Dickinson College

2/ who, fearing arrest in UK, fled to the US in 1794. But this bitter critic of John Adams was arrested and tried for sedition here and imprisoned in 1800, making him a martyr and hero to Jeffersonians, including Jefferson himself

1/ an English-born radical, supporter of the French Revolution, and fervent opponent of slavery; a brilliant Oxford-educated polymath ...

I'm thrilled to announce that my next book, a biography of Thomas Cooper (1759-1839), has been accepted by LSU Press as part of its distinguished Southern Biography Series. Cooper was ...

Oh wow! This is what happens when you're photographing MSS & don't capture the text in the inner gutter. 1st, here's the photograph (made about 100 yrs ago) of the Codex Salernitanus, f. 82ra. Although that big tear of the page is obvious, the inner gutter hasn't been fully captured in the photo.

I’m working on a new episode with Jessica Lepler. She wrote a fascinating book called Canal Dreamers. It’s about the quest of early Americans to build a interoceanic canal across present-day Nicaragua. * This is an affiliate link. If you purchase you support local bookstores & @bfworld.bsky.social

I am absolutely over the moon that my book “The Republican House Divided: Civil War Memory, Civil Rights, and the Transformation of the GOP” is officially published TODAY! After years of hard work, I am incredibly proud. Thank you to everyone who has made this possible 📚🐘🗃️ @uscpress.bsky.social

I need to build a list of online primary source databases and digitized archival collections for post-1877 Native American History. Please post your favorites in the comments. Or, if you already have a list I can build from, please send me a message! 🗃️

Happy birthday to the GOAT, Calvin & Hobbes! I thought it'd be a good time to reshare this piece I wrote during the first year of SKTCHD all the way back in ye olden days of 2015, that time for the 30th anniversary of Bill Watterson's creations debuting. It's a fun one.

Spent part of my morning listening to one of my favorites talk about her writing process. Loved every minute! Listen to @jlepler.bsky.social and then go out and buy Canal Dreamers! draftingthepast.com/podcast-epis...

Extraordinarily honored to receive the American Society for Legal History’s Craig Joyce Medal for service to the Society for my work as editor of @lawandhistrev.bsky.social. Also this replica premier league trophy with Law and History Review regalia! #ynwa #upthereds #legalhistory

The 2025 Margaret Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize goest o Alison M. Downham Moore for her book, The French Invention of Menopause and the Medicalisation of Women's Aging. global.oup.com/academic/pro... #HSS2025

‘We don’t even know all of what we have.’ Howard University fights to preserve Black newspapers. www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/... Last year, during a move, workers found two whole boxes of Frederick Douglass’s’ The North Star’s first year of publication.

For no particular reason, a thread of books on presidential power that I recommend. 🧵📚

If you're interested in ordering Who Is James K. Polk? or other fine @univpressofkansas.bsky.social books, UPKansas is running a 40% off sale with free shipping over $75. kansaspress.ku.edu

IOW, the US government has stopped making cents.

I will never not be irritated by academic books that use short form endnotes tied to bibliographies that divide listings into primary, secondary, unpublished, online, government reports, or whatever. I want to read efficiently, not play the world's worst game of scholarly Where's Waldo 🗃️

update: what do we think this (early 17th century) marriage ban reads? best guesses on the names and the text to the right v. welcome! www.archivesdepartementales76.net/ark:/50278/b... 🗃️

To celebrate my YouTube channel hitting 10k subs(!), & to corral my various videos, essays, interviews, & etc in one place, I: 1) started a newsletter on Kit that will compile things into a semi-frequent email, and 2) will send a signed copy of AMERICAN ZION to one subscriber in the 1st week.

Anyway, AI doesn’t have any value for me in anything I do. I understand this says something about *what* I do. But also? It’s only practically existed for maybe 18 months. I loved and worked almost 45 years without it so yeah, I’m cool.

If you haven't seen this incredible historical data project yet, make it a priority! Mapping Deportations: Unmasking the History of Racism in U.S. Immigration Enforcement. mappingdeportations.com

Congratulations to historian Doug Egerton on winning this year's John Andrew Book Prize, which is awarded annually by the Union Club of Boston. I am looking forward to interviewing him tonight during the awards dinner. 🗃️

Congratulations to Edda L. Fields-Black, winner of the Tom Watson Brown Book Award for COMBEE. #2025SHA

#2025SHA Awards presentation is beginning now!