Historic Travels

While planning my trip to Paris, as an American historian I thought it would be fun to visit sites dealing with WWI and WWII. What I came to find out was that the city was relatively spared from the Wars, in terms of physical damage and battles, so there are really no major sites to … Continue reading Historic Travels →

Class Notes

While Washington’s cabinet was battling each other on whether we should assist France during their revolution, an interesting incident occurred. In 1793, a French diplomat arrived by the name Citizen Edmond Charles Edouard Genet. The Republicans who favored assisting France treated him like a celebrity and wined and dined him all over the new states. … Continue reading Class Notes →

Juneteenth

With the creation this week of Juneteenth as a national holiday, I have seen several posts that, though meaning well in celebrating the day, have made mistakes about the history. Even my own college wrote that because the slaves in Texas had not heard about the Emancipation Proclamation, they were not free until federal troops … Continue reading Juneteenth →

Voting Rights?

Going to bed on election night it looked as if President Trump might win the election. But as the mail-in votes started being counted the next day, Trump’s lead slipped away in many important swing states. With mail-in voting and early voting occurring because of COVID-19, there have been many discussions about voting rights. Some … Continue reading Voting Rights? →

Historic Election?

"In this historic election." How many times have you heard this over the past two weeks? In truth, there are some historic elements. This election had the greatest number of votes cast in history. Is that historic or population growth? It's also a higher voter percentage than we have seen in some time, but nowhere … Continue reading Historic Election? →

Class Notes

The 1920s were one of the great decades for culture but also for sports. One of the differences between sports today and then was that we have the four big sports, football, baseball, basketball and hockey. In the 1920s, they had the big three, still baseball, but followed by horse racing, and boxing. Horse racing … Continue reading Class Notes →

Revolutions are Messy

There are many sayings about revolutions, but my favorite is simply, “Revolutions are messy.” This seems to sum up the majority of the world’s revolutions, despite who wins or loses. The problem for Americans is that our Revolution was easy compared to most, so we tend to think all revolutions are as easy. If … Continue reading Revolutions are Messy →

Class Notes

When JFK was running in 1960 he said, “Freedom and Communism are in a deadly embrace; the world cannot exist half slave and half free.” He later went on to say that the US was suffering from a “missile gap,” in other words the Russians had more nuclear weapons than we did and we need … Continue reading Class Notes →

Class Notes

Class Notes I am saddened by the events of the past couple weeks and the treatment that Black Americans have had to deal with. I have an article coming out on Monday dealing with that. Yet as an historian I am also saddened by the treatment of our physical history. I am emotional seeing monuments … Continue reading Class Notes →

Class Notes

During the Second Great Awakening, people became convinced they could reshape the world. There are several Utopian movements, both secular and religious. One of the largest, but short lived was Robert Owen’s New Harmony. Owen wanted his people to reject competition and instead work together with what he called social engineering. Members bartered for good … Continue reading Class Notes →