PLEASE KEEP YOUR ARMS AND LEGS INSIDE THE RIDE AT ALL TIMES Laces maker with a central cord at the Passementerie Mill, Chicago!

Good morning steamer lane. 🏄‍♂️🌊

Since February, according to my latest analysis, almost 600,000 Black women have been economically sidelined. The November 20, 2025, Jobs Report makes clear this isn’t a blip. It’s a structural crisis. That is not a recovery. It is a redistribution of opportunity.

Some incredible details in this piece *one DOGE faction was planning the future of the US government at a venture capital firm *illegally communicating on Signal to avoid transparency laws was deeply embedded into organizational culture to be taken for granted

"Guys, seriously, get your own lawyer if you need it. Elon’s great, but you need to watch your own back.” What happened to DOGE after Musk left. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

I used to handle interlibrary loans for a public library. ILL is a magnificent expression of the idea that readers deserve books, and books deserve readers. It’s libraries everywhere pooling their resources for the benefit of everyone. Killing IMLS could have killed ILL. This is great news. 📚

What a great interview! A window into this really important research on textiles and slavery, and the ways the researcher’s body in motion can figure things out that might otherwise elude us. It’s also such a good example of how research and teaching can build each other up.

Learning new things absolutely wails A Lager Darkly — In Search of Culmbacher, One of America’s Great, Extinct Beers — Good Beer Hunting share.google/6u1JNSiVzoB3...

Just sharing the copy edit version of the table of contents of my forthcoming book which now officially has an ISBN number…. 🍻📖🌿

This is an interesting finding about the long-term presence Lyme disease and deer ticks. Makes sense that their changing abundance in the last century is closely related to white-tailed deer populations in the eastern and midwestern US. medicine.yale.edu/news-article...

A request to my property and geography friends: is there a list of county assessors' offices with APIs?

@moreorloess.bsky.social @chaseprairie.bsky.social do you know if there were already ticks in Wisconsin in the 1860s? Dog ticks did not arrive until 1965, curious if there are species that have been here a long time?

Copy edits have arrived! At the busiest time of the semester! Publication date for this book on hops is Oct. 20, 2026. 🍻🌿⚓️

Hard to overstate Siebel's impact on the US brewing industry. It was founded in 1868 and has trained literal generations of US brewing talent. Survived Prohibition by teaching baking and other adjacent trades. If your favorite brewer didn't go there, their favorite brewer did. An immeasurable loss.

And now I hear that the Siebel Institute is leaving Chicago, its home of over 150 years, for Montréal. Oof, a sad day for beer news. Siebel embodies much of the US beer industry's historical growth. Even if it's not ending, this departure feels symbolic and dreadful.

NEW: ProPublica has identified dozens of instances in which the Trump administration’s DOT has moved to cut, weaken or delay safety regulations for cars, trucks, planes, trains and even oil pipelines. Experts say the changes will cost lives.

The people who make Shein's clothes labor for ten to twelve hours per day (in violation of China's labor laws), some up to seven days a week, and earn as little as 15 to 30 cents per t-shirt.

This was my suggestion too. This book changed my life. I was reading it on my honeymoon in Maine, when my dad had a stroke across the country that killed him a week later. The book taught me how to care for the dying and the living, and how to live with happiness and sorrow all mixed together.

There we go, GTFO.

An absolutely wonderful review of my work from genealogist @chiddickstree.bsky.social ✍️🏻 It's lovely that my work strikes a chord with people. I work incredibly hard, and reviews like this make it all worthwhile 📚 ⬇️ chiddickstree.substack.com/p/the-chiddi... #Wales #History

“with your permission…” I mean, did he actually ask for their permission? What if he doesn’t in fact have their permission?

Looks like I'll be teaching a seminar on Chicago's Lager Beer Riot for the Newberry Library next spring. Taught it before, but not for a couple years. Plus I have some new material for this time.

When will my husband return from sea?

UW-Madison is hiring a Professor of History who work in the history of science with a focus on water For full consideration, all materials must be received no later than 11:59pm on December 31, 2025. jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/profess...

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Owámniyomni Okhódayapi just announced the Dakota-led design for the restoration of five acres at Owámniyomni (St. Anthony Falls), adjacent to the Upper Lock on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Project construction is targeted to begin in spring 2026. Very exciting! owamniyomni.org/design/

Ditto

“People often, often people” is a truly astonishing construction to find in a published work. The idea of reading a couple hundred pages of this prose is unfathomable.

In a win for polluters, the Trump regime proposed a rule to limit the EPA’s authority to regulate pollution in wetlands and waterways. This would strip federal protections from 55 million acres of wetlands (85% of all wetlands nationwide!), threatening lots of people's drinking water.

Absolutely no way to read this and not conclude that the Department of Justice has been deeply corrupted. And this is from a time when career lawyers were in place, pushing back against illegality. With firings and resignations, the politicization will just get worse. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I refuse to believe that Larry Summers' expertise and skills are indispensable in any way. Please find another economist and policy expert, @americanprogress.bsky.social. There are loads out there.

My favourite year for oppressed literary masculinity was 2023 when the number of women on the Booker shortlist was smaller than the number of men named Paul

💔 Never turn your back on the ocean. #CAwx #Beachhazards bsky.app/profile/dust...

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imagine being hit on by gross old Larry Summers when you just wanted professional advice and then finding out he was getting advice on how to hit on you from Jeffrey fucking Epstein one of the grossest things I’ve ever read

“Interested in my commentary on her outfits.” I absolutely guarantee she was not.

For two months, the U.S. government has been racial profiling as masked federal agents hunted for immigrants throughout Chicago. They’ve repeatedly snatched up U.S. citizens while traumatizing communities. “I felt like a piece of trash.” Here is our story www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/15/l...

The Humanities have taken hit after hit in higher ed since 2008. Here's what Trump has added. #GiftLink www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/a...

horrifying

Academics who have advised a graduate student from China over the past years would be banned from federal funding. This would give the federal government one more lever to attack scientists. And how long before they expand the list of "hostile foreign" countries?

alright let’s get something more pleasant going. what two books would you leave out on your coffee table so a reporter can mention you have them. doesn’t matter if you’ve read them. for me it’s Pale Fire (which I did read) and Ulysses (got like 15% of the way in)

Very much looking forward to attending this! 🧵🧶🪡https://folkartmuseum.org/programs/shades-of-cotton-the-material-worlds-of-19th-century-textiles-12-2-25/?ID=35244

New blog post: www.katiematherwrites.com/the-gulp/eat...

Ghosts Behind Glass has been officially published by @uchicagopress.bsky.social! If you are looking for an absolutely gorgeous book that tackles a deeply serious topic, this is a perfect choice. Would make a really thoughtful Christmas gift. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Story time about WHY I hate Summers, plus bonus alt text on this stinking piece of excrem-er, I mean email. Not so long after Summers publicly questioned the abilities of women in STEM, a colleague said: Well, I don’t think it IS a good assumption that women are equally as good as men at science!

'Matt Gaetz Raped A Homeless Teenager' is what you mean. A teenager with a homeless parent? What? The fuck? Did she have a home and not allow her parent to live in it? Ended up having sex with? What? Yeah clearly you guys been caping for pedos long enough and you understand the assignment here