File this one under “Signs of the Times.” Somebody at the Massachusetts Historical Society noticed that John Quincy Adams wrote very brief entries in the diary he kept after his appointment as minister to Russia. Next thing you know, Adams has his own Twitter account.
They’re posting the diary entries on a daily basis, exactly two centuries after Adams [...]
Archive for the ‘History on the Web’ Category
LOL with JQA
Posted in History on the Web, tagged John Quincy Adams, Massachusetts Historical Society, Twitter on September 7, 2009 | 2 Comments »
History in your veins
Posted in History on the Web, tagged John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John Sevier, William Howard Taft, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, genealogy, descendants of famous people, James Madison, Ulysses S. Grant, Pocahontas, Davy Crockett, Mayflower, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, John Brown, Rutherford B. Hayes on August 31, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Here’s an interesting news story, via a blog devoted to John Brown, about an event attended by descendants of Brown and his followers. One of the attendees was Brown’s great-great-great granddaughter, Alice Keesey Mecoy of Allen, Texas.
For some reason the notion that I’m sharing the planet with John Brown’s great-great-great granddaughter struck me as pretty darn [...]
Lee’s virtual office
Posted in Civil War, History on the Web, Museums and Historic Sites, tagged Lee Chapel and Museum, Robert E. Lee, Washington and Lee University on August 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Lee Chapel & Museum has added a neat feature to their website. It’s a virtual tour of Lee’s office that allows you to examine each of its objects in detail, with explanations of how they fit into the larger story of his time at W&L.
Cumberland Gap on MSN Travel
Posted in History on the Web, Museums and Historic Sites, tagged Cumberland Gap, Cumberland Gap National Historical Park on July 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Hey, speaking of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park—check out this list of “America’s Undiscovered National Parks and Monuments” that popped up on MSN’s front page today. Cumberland Gap is the fourth one featured.
I’m not sure the Gap is as obscure as they’re making it out to be. The crowds aren’t anything like what you’ll run [...]
Digging up Meriwether Lewis
Posted in History on the Web, Tennessee History, tagged Lewis and Clark, Meriwther Lewis on June 25, 2009 | 3 Comments »
I ran across an interesting story via The Posterity Project. Relatives of Meriwether Lewis are trying to persuade the federal government to allow them to exhume his remains, so they can settle the mystery of whether foul play was involved in his supposed suicide. Here’s the website they’ve set up. So far, the Park Service has blocked it, [...]
Blogging historical fiction
Posted in History on the Web, tagged historical fiction, Kenneth L. Roberts on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Someone was kind enough to direct my attention to a relatively new blog devoted to Kenneth L. Roberts, twentieth-century author of several well-known works of historical fiction. Roberts, who died in 1957, used his novels to examine misunderstood or unpopular characters from early American history, like Benedict Arnold and Robert Rogers. (More books to add to my [...]
Virtual flowers at Ann’s grave–popular memory and the limits of scholarship
Posted in Abraham Lincoln, History and Memory, History on the Web, tagged Abraham Lincoln, Ann Rutledge, New Salem on May 27, 2009 | 4 Comments »
When I went to Springfield a few years ago, one of my priorities was to make the short drive up to Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site. I hit a lot of Lincoln sites on that trip—the Presidential Library and Museum, his home, his law office, his tomb—but New Salem was pretty hard to beat.
Since [...]
It’s all about the numbers
Posted in Civil War, History and Memory, History on the Web, tagged Black Confederates on May 18, 2009 | 2 Comments »
During the Civil War a few hundred women disguised themselves as men and fought as soldiers. We know some of their names—Sarah Edmonds, Jennie Hodgers, Frances Clalin. In some cases, we have photos, we have pension documents and other records, and we have enough biographical information to reconstruct their life stories. So if you said that “women fought in [...]
Blogging the Wilderness Wal-Mart
Posted in Civil War, Historic Preservation, History on the Web, Museums and Historic Sites, tagged Wilderness Battlefield on May 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I was looking at a comment to my last post and noticed that WordPress had automatically generated a link to an interesting site. It’s a blog devoted to the Wilderness Wal-Mart controversy, with handy links and information on what’s at stake. Check it out.
It’s just a flesh wound
Posted in Civil War, History and Memory, History on the Web, tagged Civil War, Black Confederates on April 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The historical blog world being a rather small community, I assume that most of the people who are reading this already know that the debate over those elusive black Confederate soldiers has stirred up again. Check out Civil War Memory and the Old Virginia Blog if you want to jump in.
The black Confederate proponents remind me of some [...]
