I do not allow my students to use Wikipedia as a source in their research papers. But I do encourage them to go to Wikipedia to learn more about their topics. Sometimes Wikipedia footnotes can lead students to sources that...
This weekend my daughter and her boyfriend came to visit for Thanksgiving. It was his first visit to our stately abode in south central Pennsylvania and during the course of his stay she decided to show him my basement office....
As Rachel Basinger notes at Perspectives Daily, historians use the federal census to make sense of the past. I don’t use the census in my own research, but I have asked students to write neighborhood histories of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania based on...
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxgQIAHX8kg&w=560&h=315] Here is Grossman at Perspectives on History: Access to research materials—both print and digital—is crucial for any historian engaged in scholarship and teaching. For historians working outside of well-resourced colleges and universities, gaining access to these materials has become...
Annie Thorn is a sophomore history major from Kalamazoo, Michigan and our intern here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. As part of her internship she is writing a weekly column titled “Out of the Zoo.” It focuses on life as...
I was recently contemplating a research trip to the David Library of the American Revolution (DLAR) in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania. I have some left-over professional development money that I need to spend by the end of June and the DLAR...
Robert Caro, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and Lyndon Johnson biographer, recently published Working: Research, Interviewing, Writing. Here is a the publisher’s description: For the first time in book form, Robert Caro gives us a glimpse into his own life and work...
Over at Boston 1775, J.L. Bell has a nice roundup of some of the best databases about enslaved people. Here is a taste: This is just one of several online databases about enslaved people that researchers can now use. There’s...
Students at the University of Pennsylvania have been exploring the university’s connection to slavery through the Penn Slavery Project. The Daily Pennsylvanian reports on how things are going. Here is a taste of Giovanna Paz’s piece, “New findings from Penn Slavery...
Paul Escott is Reynolds Professor of History at Wake Forest University. This interview is based on his new book, Rethinking the Civil War Era: Directions for Research (The University Press of Kentucky, 2018). JF: What led you to write Rethinking the Civil War Era? PE: I...
This summer, when I am not writing about the court evangelicals, I have been working on a book on the American Revolution. On a good day I get in about five hours of research, and I am fortunate to have...
Apparently today is archive day at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. If you are new to working in the archives, I recommend taking a look at Andrea Turpin’s recent post at Religion in American History: “Adventures in the Archives:...
I will be in the archives this summer. If all works out as I have planned it, I hope to be spending some time at the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton. Stay tuned. Over at Religion in American History,...
This post originally ran at The Way of Improvement Leads Home on December 14, 2014–JF Anthony Grafton (Princeton University) and James Grossman (American Historical Association), the authors of the “No More Plan B” proposal that challenged graduate programs in history to think about training...
Last week we did a post on Lisa Munro‘s tips for historians doing archival research. Now Munro is back with a second post on the topic. Here are some of her thoughts on organization in the archives: The other thing that is vitally...
Lisa Munro, a recent Ph.D in Latin American history, has started what appears to be a great introduction to archival research for historians. (It is the first of a multi-post series at her blog). Munro starts her series with four general tips:...
I am in Mount Vernon, Virginia for a month. I am working on my next book project at the Fred W. Smith Memorial Library for the Study of George Washington. I am sure I will write more about my experience...
In a world in which ministers are encouraged to run for office and bombarded with claims about religion and the nation’s founding, Beth Allison Barr of Baylor University has written a very useful post titled “A Pastor’s Guide to Reliable Historical...
My last post in this series was November 18, 2014. I have actually done very little writing on the American Bible Society book since then. I had some health issues that disrupted my work flow on the project, but my […]
Messiah College history students conducting research in a 19th c. cemetery Anthony Grafton (Princeton University) and James Grossman (American Historical Association), the authors of the “No More Plan B” proposal that challenged graduate programs in history to think about training Ph.D students for careers...
