Watch this Salem Radio love-fest between Eric Metaxas and Sebastian Gorka: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XkJccqAa3g&w=560&h=315] Most readers of the blog know Metaxas. He is a court evangelical, author, and host of the Eric Metaxas Show on Salem. Gorka’s brief and controversial stint...
ethnicity
Benjamin Franklin’s Thoughts on Germans
Here is a taste Franklin’s Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind. We talked about this letter today in my Colonial America course. 23. In fine, A Nation well regulated is like a Polypus; take away a Limb, its Place is soon...
The Author’s Corner with Peter Gilmore
Peter Gilmore is a ruling elder at Sixth Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh and teaches history at Carlow University. This interview is based on his new book Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania, 1770-1830 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). JF: What led...
Happy Columbus Day
That’s right. I said it. I have blogged about Columbus statues here and here, but I also want to call your attention to Yoni Appelbaum‘s piece at The Atlantic: “How Columbus Day Fell Victim to Its Own Success.” The subtitle is “It’s...
Statues of Christopher Columbus and Italian-Americans
In case you have not heard, New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio is considering removing the statue of Christopher Columbus in the circle that bears his name. David Marcus of The Weekly Standard explains how that statue got there: The earliest...
Doing History in the (Literal) Shadow of Trump
Back in October 2016, Donald Trump crashed the 30th biennial meeting of the Conference on Faith and History held at Regent University in Virginia Beach. I wrote about it in a piece syndicated through Religion News Service. Susan Fletcher, the historian...
The Unraveling of White Working-Class America
Over at The Wall Street Journal, journalists Bob Davis and Gary Fields have written a very interesting piece about the decline of working-class community in Reading, Pennsylvania. It is titled “In Places With Fraying Social Fabric, a Political Backlash Arises.” This...
Amy Sopcak-Joseph: SHARP Things at AHA 2016
Amy Sopcak-Joseph checks in with another dispatch from the floor of the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Atlanta. To read Sopcak-Joseph’s previous post at The Way of Improvement Leads Home click here. –JF This conference has been...
Why Are Democrats Doing So Well in the South?
Mitch McConnell needs evangelicals to win in Kentucky Over at The Atlantic, Robert P. Jones of the Public Religion Research Institution has made a very interesting observation about evangelicals and the mid-term elections in the South. Jones argues that the five...
Where America Came From
This is a fascinating map. It shows the ancestry with the largest population in every county in the United States based on the 2000 census. Here are the rankings: 1. Germans2. African Americans3. Irish4. Mexicans5. English6. “Americans” (People who label...
Some Great Stuff Today at Religion in American History
If you do not read Religion in American History, you should. In the last day or two Paul Harvey and his cast of American religious history bloggers have posted some great stuff. First, check out Harvey’s tribute to civil rights...
Oscar Handlin R.I.P.
I always begin my course on the immigrant experience in America by talking about the work of Oscar Handlin and his book The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations That Made the American People. It won the Pulitzer...
A One Minute History of the Life of St. Patrick
Dyron Daughtry of Pepperdine discusses his life here.
Kathy Sprows Cummings: Becoming Irish
Over at Religion in American History, Kathy Sprows Cummings, an American Studies professor at Notre Dame, reflects on becoming an Irish citizen. A fitting St. Patrick’s Day reflection from a thoughtful scholar. (And I am not just saying that because […]
What is Happening to Little Italy?
My grandmother was born in Little Italy, New York and I have taken students there in the past, but according to this article, New York City’s enclave of Italian culture is shrinking. In fact, you would be hard pressed to...
Richard Rodriguez on Cesar Chavez
Richard Rodriguez, the author of Hunger of Memory and several other books about Latinos in America, has an article in the recent Wilson Quarterly that takes a pretty hard shot at Mexican labor leader Cesar Chavez. Rodriguez concludes that Chavez […]