There’s something about this furniture that seems to induce wistfulness in my dog . . .

Kitchen Jams with Mrs Morris 💙 #jazz #guitar #jazzguitar

It’s my birthday today, and the two best gifts I received were surviving to have this one, and getting to spend it with Tulip and Mishmish.

At the Reflecting Pool, and, guys, this doesn’t look right.

Would an orange cat help about now?

Am I the only person who misses Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society? That journal filled a particular scholarly niche that no publication before or since has ever adequately covered, and its cancellation was, to mind, a terrible call. #bookhistory

Lechmere Station at 4.30. Felt artistic; might delete later.

The best thing you’ll see all week, I guaran-bee it 🐝🐝🐝

Scattered through the files of early nineteenth century arrest warrants I looked at today were random C20 paging slips. Here’s eminent scholar Maximillian E. Novak of UCLA requesting a volume in 1967! #bookhistory

I’m so sad to learn that Carlo Ginsburg has passed. As a college sophomore, I bought a secondhand copy of The Cheese and the Worms based solely on the title, and I never looked back. His brilliant reconstruction of the life and death of Menoccio had a huge influence on how I approached history. RIP.

In early 1830, an African American man named Frederic Brinsley came quite fortuitously into possession of an expensive pew in lily-white Park St Church in Boston. After two visits, a constable barred his entry to the church. I looked today at the records and the seating plan, Brinsley’s pew in red 🗃️

I spent the day reading the records of First & Second Baptist Church, Boston. I wanted to find out if any African Americans remained communicants after First African Baptist opened in 1806. The answer was yes! Others joined later too, and some even left First African for Second Baptist 🗃️

Can we just stop for a moment and marvel at the awesomeness of this late eighteenth century record book from Boston’s Second Baptist Church? 🗃️ #bookhistory

I decided to consult an Instruction Manual, but the Tulip doesn’t seem to be paying much attention 🌷

I was feeling a little blue* this evening, and then my sweet little critters hopped up on the bed with me, and things aren’t quite so bad, perhaps? *a lot blue

Guitar jazz and dilute calicos! What’s not to love?

In 1817, a man named Abraham Lincoln was fined for ‘Playing foot balls [sic] in the streets’ of Boston 🗃️

Tulip would like to remind you that in moments of despair, keep looking up. Not always easy, but if a ruffly pup can do it, so can you! 🖤

Tulip, in all her ruffly, feathery glory. So much ridiculousness in such such a compact package 🐕‍🦺

I walked past Emerson Hall this pm. I taught my first ever class here, in 1990. It was a section of Saci Bercovitch’s Myth of America. I was 25, had a Mac SE, a 2400 baud dialup modem, and a Maine Coon kitten named Waldo. I was naive beyond description. I’d do it better if I could do it again . . .

Question for the Bluesky hive mind: I have a student who is starting to look at grad programs. She’s an art history major and is really interested in provenance and restitution issues. What programs (MA/PhD) would you recommend for a student who wants to pursue graduate research in that area?

gratuitous tl cleanse

Am I the only person who sustains constant paper cuts from the lids of Hollinger Boxes? They’re razor sharp and often unobligingly snappy #archives

Reading municipal records, you’ll page through 20,000 receipts for moving dirt from one part of town to another, & then there will be a letter that says ‘My dwelling & Family are in great danger from a persecuting mob . . . Windows broken- no rest -bodies wounded’ and then it’s back to dirt again 🗃️

Clothing historians: Does anyone know what 'elastic trowsers' might mean in 1799, because when I look at this receipt, all I can see in my mind is Blackadder's Prince George! 🗃️

Literary materials appear in C19 court records all the time: a poem written on the back of a list of stolen goods found after execution of a search warrant; a fragment of a hymn used as a bookmark in a docket book; an invitation to a Library Society meeting used as a band for criminal indictments 🗃️

Cats are the only species who can show the world their buttholes and still appear unambiguously demure . . .

This chonky boi is a single court case & I’m not sure whether I was more relieved or disappointed to find find it had no bearing on my project. I found several amazing, but slimmer, cases today, tho, incl one in which an African American was appointed sole executor of a white man’s will in 1814 🗃️

Did you see this thread, @drbibliomane.bsky.social? It seems right up your alley!

Doodle on Tucker v Denny (1820). Not sure which of them it’s meant to be. Bonus snap of Chester the Archive Dog. A long but solid day of research!

I’m terribly sad to hear of Gordon Wood’s death. Just awful news. People will rightly remember his books, esp. Creation of the Am Republic and Radicalism of the Am Rev, but he was also a great essayist: ‘Conspiracy & the Paranoid Style’ from WMQ struck me when I read it first as basically perfect.

I understand why library professionals bristle at the term ‘dusty archives’: most collections are lovingly conserved, cataloged, and curated with an eye to long term preservation. The materials I looked at this morning, though, were filthy! I scrubbed my hands many, many times when done! 🗃️

Flirty Mishmish Pensive Mishmish Dismissive Mishmish Snoozy Mishmish An apricat for every mood! 🍑

Reading @kawulf.bsky.social's *Not All Wives* this morning, I see that as early as the 1750s, in Philadelphia at least, two women formed a partnership and were taxed jointly.

Two critters, both alike in dignity, In fair Somerville, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil claws makes civil paws unclean.

Here’s something you don’t see every day: two women (Ruth Bowers & Abigail Beard) in a *copartnership* in 1808, suing a man for debt. Neither appears in any Boston newspaper or town directory, so I have no idea what business they were in, but I should get some answers next week! 🗃️

I e-mailed the Beinecke today with a query about a collection they hold, & I received an automated reply seconds later that said, more or less, 'if you are writing to tell us what you think the Voynich Manuscript says, just . . . don't.' Instant spit take! #bookhistory

Mishmish loves Somerville too!

Today’s damaged docket book turned out to be surprisingly legible after all the binding brouhaha 🗃️

Happy Bottom of the Yoghurt Pot Day!

This 1811 petition for a license to sell soda “whether as a medicine or as an article of luxury” is wild. Noting that the “addition of a little venous or spiritious composition” doesn’t impact its “medicinal qualities” they promise not to “prostitute so respectable” a shop by selling booze neat! 🗃️

The final docket book I looked at today was a heartbreaker; water damage meant that 1 of every 3 defendants’ names was illegible: expunged from the record, so to speak. But at the bottom, we see the sexton of King’s Chapel suing African American Primus Grounds $12, probably for burial expenses 🗃️

Archival names of the day: Salmon Rugg Fanny Goat Comfort Dix Orange Gleason 🗃️

This dingdong woke me up at 4.30 to go for a walk, and while she gets ready for a day of napping, I’m leaving for the library feeling crushed by sleep deprivation. I love her, but oof 🫩 #SendCoffee

Research today felt like looking for a piece of straw in a stack of needles. I spent eight hours searching for a specific document in box after box like this one ⬇️ and I failed to find it. On the other hand, I found many helpful things I had not been looking for or aware of. So that was nice 🗃️

May the unalloyed happiness of a dog in the sun bless your timeline when you it the most 🖤

Today’s research has been crummy 🗃️

I found an incredible map of sewers in central Boston for 1811. It shows clearly who had direct access to waste disposal and who had to carry their waste into the street to dispose of it. Also, just how subdivided and tiny some tenements could be. More literal History from Below! 🗃️

My research on African American Boston in the nineteenth century was forever changed when read the docket books of the Boston Police Court at the SJC Archive. Meanwhile, New York’s police records are still stored poorly in dozens precinct houses. 🗃️ 🎁 link www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/n...

a tiny tulip timeline cleanse in case a ruffly black dog helps about now