Benjamin Franklin was stumped –– British mail ships crossing the Atlantic kept arriving weeks behind their American counterparts. The reason had been known to Nantucket whalers for generations. My latest, for the American Philosophical Society:

Another strange find in the Scoresby collection... a blank map? This chart appears to have been prepared for Elisha Kent Kane's Second Grinnell Expedition (1853-1855), which searched for Franklin's lost expedition. The chart was never filled in, perhaps due to Scoresby and Kane's deaths in 1857.

John Tresch on the mysteries and symmetries of Edgar Allan Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym — https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/still-farther-south #EdgarAllanPoe

huge news: my mom just accidentally attended the guerilla lorde concert

sorry what’s that last one again

Nashville area folks, I'm giving a talk on SATURDAY at the Vanderbilt Museum of Art! Come out to hear all about my experience with @terrorcamp.bsky.social & the joys of community research — and we'll be workshopping methods of incorporating fandom approaches into heritage outreach 🤩

Concerned by how this is largely being framed as “Antarctica makes you crazy!” while burying the lede: the alleged incident was sexual assault.

Today in dissertation writing: chasing a two-sentence footnote digression all the way back to the 4th century BC and cracking open Strabo + Polybius for the first time in years. I am a historian of modern Britain (allegedly).

It is in your best interest to read this intensely moving, meticulously researched piece on queer Edwardian lives and love in the wake of tragedy. Thank you @tchotchke.bsky.social for breaking this story!

full house last night at the New Canaan Public Library for the girl band of polar exploration history aka me + @evamolinaflores.bsky.social + @sarahmpicks.bsky.social ‼️ (we are ON TOUR please book us at your library or community center)