: If this kind of thing continues to spread, “thinking chronologically” will be a basic skill history …
: Ntozake Shange and Julius S. Scott at Rice University A couple of weeks ago my graduate seminar concluded by reading the late Julius S. Scott’s …
: Found the screech owl hiding on campus today.
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: State Fairs in Reconstruction, brown2015, …
: Saddened to read in the Houston Chronicle about the death of Janis Scott, Rice Class of 1974. She …
: I’m contemplating proposing a new future course titled “The First Gilded Age.”
: Turning Omeka Classic into a Static Site More than a decade ago now, I started an Omeka Classic website to host a small collection of primary …
: I was curious about whether my domain registrar had future plans to support automatic connection to …
: “ChatGPT, it turns out, is a woefully bad way to explore the historical record,” writes …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: State Fairs in Reconstruction.
: Large Language Mimics Just now I asked ChatGPT for a brief history of Rice University. It confidently claimed that Rice’s …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: WPA Files at HHRC.
: Doing some more research today at the Julia Ideson Building in downtown Houston.
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: State Fairs in Reconstruction.
: Earlier this year I posted about ring tournaments in the Reconstruction South, but here’s an …
: I spoke with the Texas Tribune about history curricula under review in Texas. Instead of saying the …
: It’s me, hi, I’m the one emerging from a rabbit hole about how ice was commercially manufactured in …
: TIL you can get an RSS link for a Substack newsletter by appending /feed to the root URL. I may be …
: Houston's First Juneteenth Yesterday I gave a research talk in which I said that the location for the first Juneteenth …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Juneteenth, Lubbock’s Grove, WPA Files at …
: I’m looking through some files kept by WPA workers who were tasked with looking through old …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Jake Johnson.
: In preparation for the aforementioned research talk I’ll be giving on Wednesday, I wrote up a …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: mccomb1969.
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: platt1983, rabinowtiz1978.
: Houston's Baptist Hill Houston’s historic Antioch Baptist Church was founded by formerly enslaved people in the …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Emancipation Park, Juneteenth.
: On November 13, I’ll be presenting some new research at the colloquium for the Center for …
: As I feared, it looks like the migration of my faculty webmail to a managed organization Gmail …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: City Charters, Draymen, Fair Grounds, Frank Vance, …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: AAHRC at Gregory School.
: I love looking at historians’ old notes. This is from a dive into the Patricia Smith Prather …
: The university is migrating faculty webmail to Gmail this month, which means I have dusted off the …
: I published a post I’ve had in draft for a while about one of Abraham Lincoln’s favorite …
: Took some notes last week trying to trace the names of leading Black Houstonians during …
: Tomorrow I’ll be on a panel at the Monuments Symposium at the Moody Center for the Arts.
: My review for the Journal of Southern History of Dylan Penningroth’s new book, Before the Movement: …
: Well, you don’t see that every day.
: I didn’t realize that the invaluable historical resource, A Century of Lawmaking for a New …
: Yesterday I visited one of Houston’s historic African American cemeteries, the resting place of Rev. …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Elias Dibble, Frank Vance, israel1998.
: Big day at the office: my coauthor Alex Byrd and I shipped off our revised book manuscript! Stay …
: Edward Cox (1943-2024) All of us who knew him are mourning the loss of Edward Cox, a pioneering professor in history at …
: Went to the opening reception for a great new exhibit about the history of Latine students and …
: Spotted a spot survey on textbook costs in the library today. The Ayes (or the “Yaaars”) seem to …
: Archives day in my U.S. history class. We went to see the personal effects of two World War I …
: At the quad reopening last Thursday, a Rice photographer took this snapshot of some members of the …
: Morning light on the newly reopened quad at Rice. The statue of William Marsh Rice is now in the …
: Every once in a while I still come across fixtures on campus that bear the university’s first name, …
: Attended the opening reception for Agatha Babino’s Story: A Narrative of the Formerly Enslaved, an …
: “Found courage” on campus today, after a heavy and heartbreaking first week of classes was shattered …
: Fall classes begin today at Rice! I’m teaching an introductory undergraduate course and a …
: Flier for my undergraduate survey course this semester now up. One week left until the first day.
: I spoke with Kenyatta Berry on her podcast about Henrietta Wood, being a historian, and my book …
: I am “the spines on my paperbacks are starting to fade to the color I saw in my own …
: Quad construction at Rice really accelerating as semester approaches. Compare this picture with the …
: This afternoon I attended a moving online memorial service for one of my beloved doctoral advisors, …
: Great meeting today of the Texas Consortium of Universities and Colleges Studying Slavery and Race, …
: Gabriel J. Loiacono wants to give “hog reeves”—and by extension local government officers—their due …
: Susanna Ashton recommended my book on a list with outstanding recent history titles. Nice to be …
: Working on making some decisions about books to teach in my grad seminar this fall. There is still …
: This morning on Zoom, Bryson Kisner successfully defended his excellent Rice dissertation “From …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Houston Daily Union.
: Flashback Friday to August 1864, two months after Abraham Lincoln was renominated by the Republican …
: Working some today on the book version of the reports of the Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and …
: Last month I was puzzled by a Juneteenth jousting tournament in Houston in 1871. This blog post by …
: Another tree casualty of Beryl spotted on campus today, by Herzstein Hall.
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Fair Grounds, Frank Vance, Houston Daily Union, …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Sandy Parker.
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Freedmens Bureau.
: The Houston Academy While doing unrelated research in the Freedmen’s Bureau records for Texas, I came across this …
: Looks like the article I found about a Black political convention in Texas during Reconstruction has …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Elias Dibble, Sandy Parker, israel1998.
: Came across more signs of Beryl’s impact on campus today. This tree fell across the sidewalk …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Freedmens Bureau, Henry W. Stuart.
: More evidence of Beryl’s effects on the Rice campus spotted today while returning books to the …
: New trees in Rice’s redesigned quadrangle (on the left in the picture) took a beating from Hurricane …
: Charles W. Bryant, born enslaved in Kentucky, was one of ten Black delegates to the Texas …
: Another day driving the teenager downtown, another day to regale him with potted histories of the …
: A Long-Lost Black Political Convention in Texas in 1871 The Colored Conventions Project (CCP) is an amazing research collective that documents Black …
: Today’s look at quad construction at Rice, standing in path between Humanities Building and Rayzor.
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Chenango, Freedmens Bureau, Henry W. Stuart.
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: 1867, 1868, Draymen, I. C. Lord, Juneteenth, …
: Jousting on Juneteenth? In an earlier note about Juneteenth and baseball, I found myself wondering what an 1871 article in …
: I could be wrong, but I think this 1895 map of Houston is the oldest extant city map to show the …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Fair Grounds, Hangman’s Grove, Jake Johnson, …
: This book at Rice’s Woodson Research Center was “Not Stolen from R. B. McAshan.” Gotta be a story …
: Juneteenth and Baseball Historian Lou Moore wrote an interesting post a few years ago about Juneteenth and the rise of Black …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Jake Johnson, Lubbock’s Grove, Sandy Parker.
: I added a reference to Houston’s new statue of Barbara Jordan on Wikipedia.
: A newspaper report on the first Juneteenth celebration in Houston, Texas, published in the …
: I’ll be speaking in Brenham this Friday about my book Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of …
: My grandfather’s leather notebook holder, dated 1949. Now I’m using the photo as a logo for my …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Jake Johnson, Juneteenth, Sandy Parker.
: An 1869 article announcing an early Juneteenth celebration to be held in Houston’s …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Lubbock’s Grove, yates1985.
: “Monday before my second coffee” vibes on campus today.
: My review of Jessica Goudeau’s new book, We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family’s Mythmaking and …
: I spoke on a panel last night at Emancipation Park, focusing on the work of Rice’s Task Force on …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Emancipation Park, Juneteenth, Matthew Gaines, …
: Barbara Jordan at Rice University This morning I attended an excellent panel, Juneteenth and Justice for All: Black Struggle, the …
: At Freedmen’s Town Visitor Center tonight to attend a panel about a new biography of Emmett J. …
: Spent some time this morning with a library copy of The Red Diary: A Chronological History of Black …
: I maintain an open research notebook that runs on Gitit, which means that updates to the wiki are …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Gitit Hacks.
: The Brochstein Pavilion on campus is undergoing renovation for a new food vendor to move in. The …
: So cool to watch Micro.blog automatically backing up all my updates to a Github repository. Grateful …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Emancipation Park, Jake Johnson, Sandy Parker, …
: Last summer I started a sabbatical at work and a sabbatical from Twitter. One leave will come to an …
: This morning’s ground-level view of the Rice quad construction.
: Ben Brumfield asked AI to transcribe a handwritten historical document about slavery. The result …
: I wrote a new colophon page for my root website. It gives a brief history of my older websites, too, …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: Emancipation Park, Robert Fairchilds.
: My journey into the wayback machine also turned up what I think is the first domain name I ever …
: "Agora: An Online Undergraduate Journal of Humanities" This might be the earliest (extant) website I ever made. It was for a now long-defunct online …
: View of work on the redesign of Rice University’s historic quad from the fifth floor of Fondren …
: Scott Sandage wrote a moving and very helpful essay about learning to read for graduate school in …
: Updated some notes in my open research notebook: ogbar2023, penningroth2023.
: “Houston: A Complete History” After a day at Houston’s Municipal Court for jury service (without being selected), I picked up this …
: Dick Dowling and Sabine Pass in History and Memory is an exhibit my students and I built in 2011 …
: On June 14, I’ll be speaking on a panel for the Emancipation Conversations series hosted by the …
: Dorothy Ross (1936-2024) Like so many others over this last week, I am mourning the loss of a beloved teacher and mentor: …
: Tonight I had the great honor of attending the grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony at the new …
: Updated my notes on Freedmens Bureau, Gregory Institute, in my open research notebook.
: I found the inaccurate version of Douglass’s “brass letters” quote on Wikipedia, …
: "The Brass Letters U.S." A number of pages on the Internet, including on sites hosted by the National Archives and the …
: I’m thrilled that several former doctoral students of mine have published their outstanding …
: Finding Moore High As a historian and a dad, I often gently compel family members to traipse around the country looking …
: Historian James Crisp gave a generous shout-out to my book in a recent post on Shepherd about …