Category Archives: history

history

Facebook: Committee of Public Safety, Class of Sept. 1793–March 1794

Tomorrow my Western Civilization classes are watching and taking notes on the BBC documentary Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution. The documentary does a great job of detailing the inner workings of the Committee of Public Safety and the major … Continue reading

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“History Now” with Conor Bentley – Episode 2, featuring yours truly!

As I’ve recently moved back to my hometown, I’ve had the chance to reconnect with a number of acquaintances with whom I grew up, catch up with them, and learn about all the cool things they’re up to currently.

One of the people who fits into this category is Conor Bentley, who I went to high school with and graduated a year after me. He’s presently working on some cool podcast projects, one of which is called “History Now” and focuses on bringing various historical moments to life through interesting editing, in-depth contextualization, and a unique presentation.

Conor interviewed me about five weeks ago regarding the Mormon Pavilion at the 1964-65 World’s Fair. Impressively, Conor took the roughly 25 minutes of our interview and discussion about the Pavilion and turned it into a really nice final product that captures the core of my research and writing on this topic quite nicely. It was fun to get to talk with Conor about this topic and I think he’s done a really great job with the end product.

Check it out and you’ll get to hear my silky-smooth pipes – what could be more enticing than that! Also, Conor’s first episode of “History Now” was about the Great Chicago Fire and features my colleague, Dr. Fiona Halloran – check that one out too!

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Political Party Timeline: An Outstanding Example of Information Reorganization

I figure if I don’t figure out how to make pithier and less ambitious posts, I may never write again. So in the spirit of getting something, anything, out to the world, I better pass along what I’m thinking about … Continue reading

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The fruits of my inefficient time usage: A Reconstruction Timeline!

Today with my U.S. History students we’re moving into a discussion of Reconstruction as a follow-up to our in-depth reading about Lincoln, race, slavery, and the historiographical debate over “who freed the slaves?” (Though this will have to be a … Continue reading

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Backlog Post #1: The Market Revolution, Atlantic Context, and Information Reorganization

While my last post ostensibly was going to open the flood-gates of a number of new posts dealing with what I’ve been working on in my classes, that plan fell through (read: baby + grad school + teaching = neglect … Continue reading

Posted in Academic Skills, Geography, Historical Thinking, history, teaching | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Reading, Organizing, and Synthesizing Vast Quantities of Information

I feel like this title needs and “oh my” at the end as some sort of Wizard of Oz homage that will dress up an otherwise pretty wonky name for a post. Oh well. We’ll just have to be content … Continue reading

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Colbert & Palin: The “Truth” of the Past, Wikipedia, and Historical Re-enactment

All three of those elements came crashing together pretty humorously in a bit Stephen Colbert performed last week on his show, “The Colbert Report.” The particular topic of his segment had to do with Sarah Palin‘s description of Paul Revere‘s … Continue reading

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There’s something about summer and rumination…

Just as I observed yesterday that it seems like the school year is hardly over before the next project or challenge commences, I’ve also come to the realization that the “downtime” (if it can really be called that) seems to … Continue reading

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“All history is local”: The New Deal in Fort Worth Project

ne of the things that I’ve been looking forward to about teaching U.S. History is getting the chance to have students study and explore the ways in which national trends or programs manifested themselves in the local context. Perhaps I’m … Continue reading

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Trans-historical Comparison Assignments: Great, or the Greatest?

In my U.S. History classes we’ve finished up the era of imperialism and WWI, and are now moving into the 1920s and building toward the Great Depression and the New Deal. As this is the first time I’ve taught through … Continue reading

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