Histories at Scale with @kawulf.bsky.social ▶️ Dr. Karin Wulf presents insights from her new book Lineage, connecting individual stories to the larger sweep of history. 🗃️ #VastEarlyAmerica #LineageTheBook #ALA25

I fucking hate writing sometimes. It's like somebody hands you a tree and an axe and says "I need a table by dinner time, and make it pretty." Like, fuck you. Who the fuck does this for a living? It's fucking stupid.

Had to go back and double-check this, but NYC does not use ranked-choice in the general election. (So this is just a straight-up 20-point lead for Mamdani.)

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply." me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

I'm so happy to finally share this news. This book is about how the past 9 years changed my ideas about family, community, and care, and how those ideas fit into a long history. Huge thanks to my agent @carolineeisenmann.bsky.social, who held my hand through much angst, and to my editor Abby Mohr.

I'll add, yet again: at @aaslh.org, we've been working to support a thoughtful, full, grassroots commemoration for more than 8 years now. If you want to help support efforts to engage the public in good history all over the country, please consider joining as a member.

I’ve quietly been working on a new project: The History Explorers Club. I opened it in early August & intentionally started with a small group of 40 Members who are helping shape the experience. It’s been a lot of fun to work on & today, we’re starting our first mini-challenge!

We have been led into a post-information age, and we will have to adapt to endure.

The federal government's preparation for the 250th has long been woefully inadequate and incompetent. (Bright side: some things are still bipartisan!) Look to @aaslh.org, local/ state organizations and sites, and others doing tremendous work to make the #America250 commemoration meaningful.

Here is a conversation with Alfred Young about Masquerade that we ran on Commonplace 20 years ago: commonplace.online/article/hidd...

Everyone in academia should read this piece about our dear, brilliant colleague @durba.bsky.social www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Among the topics that would violate this policy is Deborah Sampson, who presented as a man named Robert Shurtliff and served nearly two years in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. /1 www.mountvernon.org/library/digi...

If you haven't read NYT v. Sullivan in a while (and why NOT?!), a reminder that the underlying case was about an Alabama official who believed he had been libeled in a full-page letter/advertisement by civil rights leaders in 1960. The Alabama state courts awarded him damages.

"This Nation ... can live in peace without libel suits based on public discussions of public affairs and public officials. But I doubt that a country can live in freedom where its people can be made to suffer physically or financially for criticizing their government, its actions, or its officials."

Followers who were asking if Jimmy Kimmel can sue: Daphne Keller knows her stuff, and the answer is “It’s unclear, but it’s very possible.” Check out her thread and links:

Hi y'all! Would anyone be interested in collaborating on a panel reconsidering religion in the South in the Revolutionary Era (broadly defined) for the Southern? Definitely want to do something on Quakerism and Southern religious pluralism. www.thesha.org/submit-a-pro...

Very American to frame this as the baseball field being the problem neighbor.

This is when you start to worry it might not go your way this week:

I fucking love printing. That is all.

It is very hard for me not to cut and paste passages from my book into posts at this point. I have been told by my editor not to give away the goods. That said. The difference in scale of outrage between Attiah’s firing and Kimmel’s suspension proves a whole point about canaries and coal mines.

Dad’s car we probably just put on WFAN. Mom’s car was Beatles, the red album, the blue album, or Abbey Road. Once we had CDs there was a Michael Bolton/Neil Diamond era.

V glad to be in DC for a conversation at Politics &Prose w Kate Haulman at 3 today about her new book on the politics of motherhood and commemoration. Changing leverage around both framed the mother of the father of the country as the 19thc wanted specific remembrance of the 18thc revolution.

Spending some of my Saturday morning doing a little editing for an upcoming #BFW interview with Michelle McDonald about coffee. With the requisite accessory, of course. #VastEarlyAmerica #coffee #podcasts

In this post I explain why the suspension of Kimmel’s show looks like a blatant 1A violation, as all NINE members of SCOTUS last year made clear.... but also why courts may not be able to do much about it (and yet Kimmel should still sue!) blog.dividedargument.com/p/did-brenda...

Kirk is not a modern day St. Paul, despite what Cardinal Dolan says. The only thing that such myth-making achieves is fomenting resentment, curtailing dialogue, and stifling action to otherwise prevent this tragedy from happening again, says John Grosso.

We published 10 articles about historians' work for, with, and on the National Park Service in #AHAPerspectives this summer. You can find them all here: 🗃️

Posting early 90s minivans as a timeline cleanse.

Hear, hear @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social editorial board! www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

I’m really excited about this, but going into it, I want to ask teaching ppl on here: what are the ways that AI has been forced into your teaching life in a new way this fall? I will not share any specifics during this public conversation, just want to be able to talk about where we are now.

Any Philadelphia historians out there who can point me to good sources for understanding Philadelphia highlife culture in the immediate post-Civil War era? late 1860s and early 1870s? I'm particularly interested in any info on the Moyamensing Balls

“The right of free public expression does include the right to be in error.” From A Free and Responsible Press (1947), the report of the Commission on Freedom of the Press, which was sponsored by Henry Luce and Time Inc.

I promise you I just brought this up not two days ago. We really need to revisit pre-Internet media and, for my own enjoyment, the Arsenio Hall juggernaut.

Nearly 50 college instructors across #Illinois landed on #CharlieKirk's “Professor Watchlist.” @wbez.org reached out to all of them and found the list triggered hateful messages, threats of rape or death, and intensification since Kirk's killing. #twill www.wbez.org/politics/202...

Feels like this week signaled the permanent reorientation of legacy media industries. There's no sustainable business model to "fire successful talent to obtain ephemeral political points with no tangible dividend."

we wrote about this WH tactic recently. they’re asking journalists for expert source names and then using them to look up political donations in FEC records to try to discredit those sources as biased. www.npr.org/2025/08/18/n...

Our report is published! Free and available to the public! Black History at the Vassall Estate Longfellow House—Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site This is the story of a Black family in Massachusetts who exemplified the spirit of liberty. read: irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Do...

I had this exact same experience this morning. Same reporter as Heidi. This is *not* normal. I have spoken to the press on these issues for two decades. No government official has ever demanded to know my identity in order to give a comment on a story.

This evening at 7pm ET, I’m giving a talk for my local public library @framinghamma.bsky.social on The Past, Present, and Future of the U.S. Postal Service as part of its Lifelong Learning Series. Join us on Zoom! us02web.zoom.us/j/8111131063...

Can Jimmy Kimmel sue Brendan Carr, or other federal actors, for violating his First Amendment rights by coercing ABC to suspend his show, and maybe eventually to fire him? To teal deer it, yes, but without an effective remedy. /1

After Trump’s FCC chair, demanded ABC take action against against Kimmel for his comments on Kirk, Nexstar, the largest operator of ABC affiliates announced it would pull Kimmel from its stations Then ABC said it was taking Kimmel off the air Nexstar is seeking FCC approval for a $6.2B merger

Oh look.

A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say. This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand. All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.

And it won't stop with art. Instead, I expect that--without intervention--we'll find ourselves in a world where high-quality human services (education, healthcare, etc.) are available only to the wealthiest of the wealthy, while the rest of us get stuck with the shitty version made by AI. 1/🧵

Yes to all of this. And I think about success differently than market share or profitability. Buying a media apparatus curries political favor. A conglomerate can diffuse risk and losses — meaning the platform doesn’t have to be good to be “successful”. That is the Twitter case.

Today is Constitution Day in the United States, marking the anniversary of its signing in Philadelphia on this date in 1787. Take a few moments today to read the document all the way through, and find a way to contribute yourself to a "more perfect union." constitutioncenter.org/the-constitu...

A late night thread of thoughts about the psychic toll of parasociality.

If someone’s not mourning the death of Robert Redford in a manner that’s consistent with your views, make sure you set up a database, call their employer, and get them fired.

Kudos to @massteacher.bsky.social for its call to school district officials and school committees not to act reflexively at the behest of one very loud segment of the population. massteacher.org/news/2025/09...