Adam Jortner is Goodwin-Philpott Eminent Professor of Religion in the Department of History at Auburn University. This interview is based on his new book, No Place for Saints: Mobs and Mormons in Jacksonian America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022). JF:...
Andrew Jackson
Episode 92: “Original Sin and the History of American Democracy”
Our guest in this episode is historian Robert Tracy McKenzie, author of We the Fallen the People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy. In the spirit of the 20th-century theologian and ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr, McKenzie places the Christian doctrine of...
Episode 89: The Heretical John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun is among the most notorious and enigmatic figures in American political history. In this episode we talk with Robert Elder, author of Calhoun: American Heretic. Elder shows that Calhoun’s story is crucial for understanding the political climate in...
Gordon Wood on a “distant democratic world that eerily resembles our own”
Historian Gordon Wood wonders if we are in a new “Age of Jackson.” Is Wood making a historical analogy? This is unusual for him. Here is a taste: Many people have compared Donald Trump’s presidency to that of Andrew Jackson...
Biden replaces Andrew Jackson with Ben Franklin
Donald Trump did not find Andrew Jackson; Andrew Jackson found him. When historians and pundits began to compare Trump the populist with Jackson the populist, the candidate took notice. Moreover, Jackson was a favorite of Steve Bannon, Trump’s political adviser...
The Author’s Corner with Michael Turner
Michael J. Turner is the Roy Carroll Distinguished Professor of British History at Appalachian State University, North Carolina. This interview is based on his new book, Stonewall Jackson, Beresford Hope, and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain...
There is nothing new about what happened to conservative evangelicals this week. But how will they respond?
It was a rough week for conservative evangelicals in the United States. The president of the largest Christian university in the country resigned after a sex scandal. A popular evangelical radio host and author was caught on tape punching an...
Who are these members of SHEAR who “support the idea that white supremacists actually have a legitimate argument?” I don’t think we have met.
Some of you who read this blog are familiar with the controversy going on in the Society for the History of the Early American Republic (SHEAR). You can get up to speed with these posts. We also interviewed Dan Feller...
Was Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policy genocidal?
Some of you have been following the Dan Feller controversy at SHEAR. Get up to speed with Episode 72 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. You can also read my posts on this controversy here. After Feller delivered...
University of Tennessee announces new director of the Andrew Jackson Papers
Here is the press release: The University of Tennessee is pleased to welcome Dr. Michael E. Woods as Associate Professor of History and the new Director of the Papers of Andrew Jackson, effective August 1, 2020. Dr. Woods is the award-winning author...
Episode 72: Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump, and the Upending of SHEAR
In this episode we talk with Daniel Feller, the editor of The Papers of Andrew Jackson at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. We discuss his work as a documentary editor, the uses of Andrew Jackson in the age of Trump, and...
What I wrote about Trump and Andrew Jackson in *Believe Me*
I am not an Andrew Jackson scholar, but I have taught him for more than two decades. In the U.S. survey I usually frame my treatment of Jackson in terms of the tensions between what historian Harry Watson calls “Liberty...
Thoughts on Daniel Feller’s plenary address at SHEAR 2020
I finally got around to watching Daniel Feller‘s lecture on Andrew Jackson in the age of Trump at this year’s virtual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. You can watch it here and decide what...
Wilentz: “We can honor–and dishonor–American leaders of previous eras without turning history into a simplistic tale of good versus evil”
Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz addresses monuments to our complicated past. Here is a taste of his piece at the The Wall Street Journal: Given history’s complexities and contradictions, though, where should we draw the line? In the starkest...
How should we deal with monuments to flawed individuals?
Eliot Cohen, the dean of The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, offers his take on the removal of monuments. Here is a taste of his piece at The Atlantic: A good place to begin is by asking whether...
What does Jacksonian America have to do with Disney World?
Not much. That is, until history professor David Head of the University of Central Florida in Orlando asked his students to design a Jackson-era vignette for Epcot Center’s American Adventure attraction. Here is a taste of Head’s piece at The Panorama:...
Should the Government Promote Prayer During a Pandemic?: The Case of Andrew Jackson
Over at The Washington Post, Harvard historian Joyce Chaplin reflects on how Andrew Jackson handled the the arrival of cholera on American shores. Here is a taste: At the time, it was a standard and orthodox belief that any disease was...
Presidential Censure in Historical Context
Democrats in the Senate believe that Trump should be removed from office. They will vote along these lines tomorrow. But they only have 47 votes. This is well below the 67 votes needed to remove the president from office. In...
What to Expect at the “Evangelicals for Trump” Rally. (Or the People are Always Right).
Trump will be at a Hispanic Pentecostal megachurch in Miami tomorrow afternoon for an “Evangelicals for Trump” rally. There has not been a whole lot of details released about who will be present at the event or what Trump will...
The Author’s Corner With Matthew Clavin
Matthew Clavin is Professor of History at the University of Houston. This interview is based on his new book The Battle of Negro Fort: The Rise and Fall of a Fugitive Slave Community (New York University Press, 2019). JF: What led...