An elderly man behind me in the checkout line at the grocery store asked me what I do. When I […]
A Letter to the Lady in Pants: Dr. Mary Edwards Walker and the History of Women (Un)Worthies
“WALKER, Mary Edwards (Nov. 26, 1832 – Feb. 21, 1919), Civil War medical worker, dress reformer, and eccentric.” So begins […]
Pink Hollyhocks
This month, National Poetry Month, we encounter a poem both contemporary and historical — “Pink Hollyhocks,” a piece from Diane […]
Public Health and the Dead at Johnstown
In the twenty-four hour news cycle we live in, we frequently are treated to instantaneous images of disasters unfolding around […]
The Paradox of Thanksgiving
With its odd combination of tradition and invention, its appeals to the past and to the future, its ancestor worship […]
Nursing Thanksgiving
In November 1820, the Reverend John Marsh delivered a Thanksgiving Day sermon in Haddam, Connecticut that couldn’t have been more […]
Heritage is Not History: Historians, Charleston, and the Confederate Flag
It’s hard to be a historian these days without constantly hearing about the supposed irrelevance of your work. After all, it […]
I Was a Bystander in a Police Shooting: What It Taught Me about Police Violence, Memory, and Public Trust
I was returning from a productive, fun academic conference in Tampa, Florida last March, getting in on a 7:35 flight […]
You’re Wearing That?
In February of this year, Urban Outfitters began selling a tapestry covered with faded gray stripes and adorned with pink […]
