Jennifer Howard

Today is Armistice Day. It doesn’t seem appropriate to dwell here on how powerfully affecting I find the Great War and the poetry that came out of those bloody years. Instead I’ll point you to The First World War Poetry Archive, an amazing online collection of manuscripts, photos, and other artifacts and echoes of the war and the people who fought and died in it. The archive, which is hosted at Oxford University but draws on other archives as well, has just launched its Siegfried Sassoon Collection. Here’s one of my favorite passages from Robert Graves’s memoir Good-Bye to All… Read more...

I’ve been distracted with one thing and another of late (holidays, children, writing projects), so I’m behind on posting. Sorry about that. Meanwhile, I had the pleasure last week of writing about a historical hoax perpetrated by a bunch of students in a history class at George Mason University. They created a fictional 19th-century pirate named Edward Owens and turned him loose on the Internet, along with a made-up undergraduate namd Jane Browning who was supposedly tracking down the Owens legend. The catch? Their professor, T. Mills Kelly, told them to do it. It’s a study in ethics, in research… Read more...

Give thanks for whatever you have to be thankful for. If you feel like taking the long view, you can read more about the history of the holiday over at the National Archives website: On October 3, 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation naming Thursday, November 26, 1789 as an official holiday of “sincere and humble thanks.” The nation then celebrated its first Thanksgiving under its new Constitution. On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln made the traditional Thanksgiving celebration a nationwide holiday to be commemorated each year on the fourth Thursday of November…. In 1939 President Franklin D…. Read more...

Cloud tagging with a purpose: “a visual historiography of an evolving discipline.” Fun to play with, and maybe even illuminating, if you pay attention. (Via HNN.)… Read more...

The National Trust has been assessing the damage that Gustav and Ike inflicted on historic structures in Galveston and elsewhere (even as far north as Plano, Illinois). More upsetting is this news from New Orleans: The Trust also reports increased pressure from the Nagin administration in New Orleans to demolish historic properties damaged by Hurricane Katrina. In the wake of Hurricane Gustav, the mayor has suspended review of historic structures by the Neighborhood Conservation District Committee (NCDC), a citizens’ group formed to ensure that salvageable historic properties are preserved. The mayor argued that review might “hinder, or delay necessary action… Read more...

Is Ambrose Bierce, a k a the Broad-Gauge Gossip, really bidding farewell to the blogosphere? In a few short weeks, the pseudonymous and apparently well-connected blogger has kicked up quite a stir with his/her reports on the tenure-and promotion racket at high-profile history departments. Say it ain’t so, A.B. Don’t let a few naysayers force you out of the game…. Read more...