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From Life magazine, May 18, 1959. Jennifer Schuessler, "A Religious Legacy, With Its Leftward Tilt, Is Reconsidered," New York Times , July 23, 2013 (Got a shout out in this piece about another blog I help edit, Religion in American History . Hooray!) For decades the dominant story of postwar American religious history has been the triumph of evangelical Christians. . . . But now a growing cadre of historians of religion are reconsidering the legacy of those faded establishment Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians, tracing their enduring influence on the movements for human rights and racial justice, the growing “spiritual but not religious” demographic and even the shaded moral realism of Barack Obama — a liberal Protestant par excellence, some of these academics say. >>> James P. Byrd, "Was the American Revolution a holy war?" Washington Post , July 6, 2013 Holy war can seem like something that happened long ago or that happens far away — the Cr...

Randall Stephens When I teach writing I use a short piece by William Zinsser from the American Scholar : "Writing English as a Second Language" (Winter 2010). Yes, my students are native speakers.  Regardless, this essay is spot on for college students. (I've blogged about it before here .) A WPA poster from 1937. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Zinsser offers up a host of great tips: Cut horrible, long Latin-origin words: "communicated, conversion, reconciliation, enhancements, verification."  When these are used/overused they lead to stilted or stuffy prose. Use good, short, simple nouns: "infinitely old Anglo-Saxon nouns that express the fundamentals of everyday life: house, home, child, chair, bread, milk, sea, sky, earth, field, grass, road." "I have four principles of writing good English. They are Clarity, Simplicity, Brevity, and Humanity." "So remember: Simple is good. Writing is not something you have to embroider with fa...

Eric Schultz I was fortunate in early July to attend three days of the 150th commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg, including a number of events sponsored by the Gettysburg Foundation . It was busy, colorful, sometimes somber but always tropical, a good reminder of what conditions were like in July 1863.  The battlefield itself, nearly 6,000 acres and sometimes called the “symbolic center of American history,” is both inspiring and beautiful.  The 150th commemoration included a retelling of the battle and featured first-person accounts. Events included a spectacular retelling of the battle (focused on first-person accounts), and the grand opening of the Seminary Ridge Museum at which visitors could climb its historic cupola to get a bird’s eye view of the battlefield and town. As I attended various gatherings, however, it struck me that Gettysburg was nothing less than a kind of living laboratory for how people access history. For example, there were lots (and lots) of fo...

NPR Staff, "The Voting Rights Act: Hard-Won Gains, An Uncertain Future," NPR, July 21, 2013 . . . . Congress also noted, however, that the Voting Rights Act was still needed, and it had Fort Scott, Kansas, Tribune , August 6, 1965, p. 1 From the Google News Archive . been used hundreds of times since 1982 to protect against discrimination. But in his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts suggested it is a new era. "Our country has changed," he wrote for the majority. But Rep. Lewis says race is still very much at the forefront. "I think there has been a deliberate and systematic effort on the part of certain forces in our country to take the whole idea of race out of public policy," he says. "Race is involved in everything that makes up America, and we cannot escape it. We have to deal with it face on." >>> John Paul Stevens, "The Court & the Right to Vote: A Dissent," New York Review of Books , August 15, 2013 In Bending T...

Gabriel Loiacono    One evening, chatting with friends from church, one asked me what kind of history I focused on. I told him: the history of welfare in early America.  He said: what welfare in early America? "The drunkard's progress, or the direct road to poverty, wretchedness & ruin," 1826. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. I find myself having a conversation like that one more and more these days.  Whether on the left or the right politically, high school grads or Ph.D.s, most Americans I talk to assume that welfare is a creation of the twentieth century: midwifed by Franklin D. Roosevelt or Lyndon B. Johnson.  Those hearty, independent minutemen of the Revolutionary period, they assume, either made the poor find work or relied only on churches for charity.  Occasionally, this assumption is voiced explicitly in national, political discourse.  For example, in a famous September 12, 2011 Republican Presidential Primary debate, Representative R...

Kevin Kenny* The word “diaspora” is remarkably popular. But what does it mean?  The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines diaspora as “The dispersion of Jews among the Gentile nations,” giving as a secondary definition “all those Jews who lived outside the biblical land of Israel.” A Harlem "Back to Africa" announcement, Negro Club, New York (1929). Courtesy of the New York Public Library. By this definition, diaspora is both a process (the scattering of Jewish populations) and a thing (their communities abroad). This double meaning is the source of much confusion. Until recently, diaspora referred almost exclusively to Jewish history. In the 19th and 20th centuries, many other groups—including people of African, Armenian, and Irish descent—adopted the term and molded it to their own purposes. As its illustrative example, the OED cites “[t]he famine, the diaspora and the long hatred of Irish Americans for Britain.” Today, diaspora is applied to virtually every group ...

Randall Stephens The July 11-17 issue of Times Higher Education includes a must-read article for the grad school bound.  In "10 truths a PhD supervisor will never tell you" (11 July 2013) Tara Brabazon writes: "As a prospective PhD student, you are precious. Institutions want you – they gain funding, credibility and profile through your presence. Do not let them treat you like an inconvenient, incompetent fool. Do your research. Ask questions." Some of her ten tips apply more to the UK setting, but most are right on target for students in the US as well. Prospective PhD students in history should think long and hard about who they want to work with. Ask around.  Get to know something about the scholar you'd like to be your mentor.  Has this individual shepherded other PhDs?  Do his/her students land good jobs? What is your prospective mentor's publishing record like?  Is he/she a good fit for your project? What will it be like to work with him/her?  Will ...