Category: American History
Guest post by D. Rose Elder The media typically portray Amish characters as either disapproving, humorless, and colorless adults rigidly humming a solemn hymn to keep worldly thoughts at bay or conflicted, cocky, out-of-control rumspringa adolescents listening to ear-splitting rock and testing all the limits of decency. Of course, TV and the movies are by…
Guest post by Jerry Griswold “The Great Y.A. Debate of 2014” has become so pervasive that the New York Times Book Review provided a summary of the controversy in late June. In one corner is Ruth Graham and a few supporters. Grown tired of girlfriends keen on young-adult fiction (The Hunger Games, The Fault of…
Guest post by Jerry Griswold “The Great Y.A. Debate of 2014” has become so pervasive that the New York Times Book Review provided a summary of the controversy in late June. In one corner is Ruth Graham and a few supporters. Grown tired of girlfriends keen on young-adult fiction (The Hunger Games, The Fault of…
Guest post by David B. Danbom I wrote Sod Busting: How Families Made Farms on the 19th-Century Plains as the result of a conversation I had with Bob Brugger at the JHU Press booth at an Organization of American Historians meeting a few years ago. I was complaining about how poorly American history textbooks actually…
Guest Post by Ronald H. Bayor The nation is presently watching the Mexico–U.S. border and obsessing over the issue of illegal immigration. The topic of undocumented immigrants, however, is not a new one. With the passage of largely ineffective state laws in the nineteenth century excluding certain immigrants because of disease, criminal background, or other problems,…
Guest post by Stephen H. Grant It was not a foregone conclusion that the Folger Shakespeare Library be built two blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Hidden away among Folger papers as I scoured in the library’s underground vault during the research phase of Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger, I found a small undated…
Guest post by Stephen H. Grant It was not a foregone conclusion that the Folger Shakespeare Library be built two blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Hidden away among Folger papers as I scoured in the library’s underground vault during the research phase of Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger, I found a small undated…
Our summer Friday series on the blog, The Press Reads, features short excerpts from recent JHUP books to whet your appetite and inspire timely additions to your summer reading list. With a nod to the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, this week we offer a selection from W. Henry…
Guest post by Carl Benn The bicentennial of a number of War of 1812 battles that took place on the Mississippi River and across the upper Great Lakes occurs this summer. Naturally, some are being commemorated by volunteer groups, museums, and heritage organizations, often within the context of larger programs and exhibits exploring the western…
Guest post by Carl Benn The bicentennial of a number of War of 1812 battles that took place on the Mississippi River and across the upper Great Lakes occurs this summer. Naturally, some are being commemorated by volunteer groups, museums, and heritage organizations, often within the context of larger programs and exhibits exploring the western…