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History Twitter is Good II
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History Twitter is Good II

Alexis Coe
Aug 4, 2021
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Twitter is often a hellscape of pile-ons and bad opinions, but once you find your people, there’s nothing like it. Here are the most thoughtful, vexing, delightful tweets I bookmarked from historians over the last couple of weeks. 

By the numbers: In 1897, Helen Dortch, 34, married Longstreet, 76. The Civil War ended in 1865. She was a widow from 1904-1962, more than half of her 99 years. They had no children.

Twitter avatar for @drjohnaeharrisJohn Harris @drjohnaeharris
Wow. Confederate General James Longstreet’s wife, Helen Dortch Longstreet, lived until 1962.
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July 27th 2021

5 Retweets70 Likes

Imagine rushing to a bookstore on pub day, hurriedly opening it up to the chapter about you, and seeing this.

Twitter avatar for @bkrewindbkr @bkrewind
Never forget that Ethel Merman was married to Ernest Borgnine for 1.5 months and then made the chapter in her autobiography titled "My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine" just a blank page
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July 28th 2021

63 Retweets628 Likes

Don’t get John Locke started on sourdough starters. 

Twitter avatar for @DavidRArmitageDavid Armitage @DavidRArmitage
Want to know “the right way” to make pancakes? John Locke’s got you covered (Bodleian MS Locke c. 25, f. 85).
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July 29th 2021

581 Retweets2,613 Likes

File under “I had no idea!”

Twitter avatar for @surlybasseyKaitlyn Greenidge @surlybassey
From @Hugh_Ryan for @harpersbazaarus ...this fantastic oral history of the time five Gay Liberation Front activists traveled across the US to organize a queer contingent for the Black Panther's Constitutional Convention...Happy Pride!
The Incredible True Adventure of Five Gay Activists in Search of the Black Panther PartyHistorian Hugh Ryan collects five Gay Liberation Front activists’ memories of communes, free love, coming out, getting arrested, consciousness-raising rap sessions, gun shooting, acid dropping, and trying to be macrobiotic at McDonald’sharpersbazaar.com

June 8th 2021

46 Retweets109 Likes
Twitter avatar for @DominiqueJL15Dominique Jean-Louis @DominiqueJL15
A reminder that A. Philip Randolph had the space to develop his radical labor critiques because his wife Lucille was a good friend of Madam CJ Walker’s and ran a Walker salon of her own to support the two of them while he took classes and organized. https://t.co/M09MjAqwTk
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Dr. Keisha N. Blain @KeishaBlain

✨ #OnThisDay: On August 2, 1925, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a labor union for African American employees of the Pullman Company, was organized. A. Philip Randolph was its first president. #history #labor #TodayinHistory https://t.co/I6WRKm0YsW

August 2nd 2021

34 Retweets139 Likes

When Americans are chiller than the French. 

Twitter avatar for @john_overholtJohn Overholt @john_overholt
Just putting it out there that Houghton claims no rights over the reproduction of public domain works in its collections.

ArtReview_ @ArtReview_

Louvre takes legal action against Pornhub over erotic art history guide https://t.co/mP7lvcoue7 https://t.co/MIekUL4xI5

July 26th 2021

11 Retweets94 Likes

There’s this. 

Twitter avatar for @darylsturgisDaryl Sturgis✊🏽 @darylsturgis
Before antibiotics folks used to think sitting people with TB in a park under the sun would cure them.

𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑇𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑎①①①👑💅🏽 @Rider_100x

@ImFocusedMaaan @DoGoodRon_ I’m trynna figure out what y’all think yalls ancestors did to cure their sicknesses……..

July 31st 2021

1 Retweet16 Likes

On a related note. 

Twitter avatar for @BrendanNyhanBrendan Nyhan @BrendanNyhan
Evidence suggests the problem is the greater visibility of terrible people in online spaces, not the online format itself - new @boralexander1 @M_B_Petersen
psyarxiv.com/hwb83/
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Noah Smith 🐇 @Noahpinion

I am a big fan of the "It's just Twitter" theory of American cultural deterioration. Two things reliably turn nice normal people into raging flaming assholes: 1) getting behind the wheel of a car, and 2) Twitter. https://t.co/TARNJ60S1W

July 29th 2021

28 Retweets92 Likes

Elmo’s politics are right. 

Twitter avatar for @VegHistoryAdam Shprintzen @VegHistory
This is incredible. I had to record my week's video in the kids' room. After slightly turning my head, Elmo now is invading the White House during Jackson's inauguration (just to the left of my glasses).
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August 1st 2021

117 Retweets1,016 Likes

I’ve never read anything like this. Historians rarely talk about the stories we tell while living our own, particularly early in our career, when we’re under such intense pressure and scrutiny. 

Twitter avatar for @ykomskaYuliya Komska @ykomska
Though there is no separation between the stories we tell about the lives of others and our own, the latter are infinitely more difficult to put into words and to assert. A searing and courageous account of how these two cross by ⁦@JoyNeumeyer⁩.
Darkness at Noon: On History, Narrative, and Domestic ViolenceAbstract. This essay is inspired by my experience of domestic violence while earning a PhD in Russian history. It applies the philosophy of history to escapingacademic.oup.com

July 29th 2021

1 Retweet13 Likes

Recent history. Imagine if he’d incited an insurrection!

Twitter avatar for @Katiejo50033270Katiejohn @Katiejo50033270
Obamas Remember the Tan Suit scandal?
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August 2nd 2021

86 Retweets370 Likes

Don’t read, don’t vote, let us get away with anything.

Twitter avatar for @AaronRHanlonAaron Hanlon @AaronRHanlon
1) This is a short thread on how and why we're getting the 'culture wars' wrong. You think e.g. Christopher Rufo similar are culture warriors fighting on the battleground of ideas (perhaps so do they). But that's wrong. ...

Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ @realchrisrufo

This is a lie. Almost 20 years ago, the founder of critical race theory, Kimberlé Crenshaw, boasted that "critical race theory" has been "used as interchangeably for race scholarship as Kleenex is used for tissue." It's their own definition; now they are being exposed. https://t.co/7kdFD0rSno

July 28th 2021

18 Retweets74 Likes
Twitter avatar for @juliaioffeJulia Ioffe @juliaioffe
History comes at you fast

Susan Glasser @sbg1

Offline for an hour only to discover that it is now apparently House GOP official position that Nancy Pelosi not Donald Trump to blame for 1/6 insurrection at the Capitol. #2021

July 27th 2021

22 Retweets158 Likes
Twitter avatar for @TJStiles_AuthorT.J. Stiles @TJStiles_Author
One thing I've learned in studying history is that the obvious is usually true, at least with big stuff. Slavery is the reason for the Civil War. The pandemic is real. Vaccines work. Climate change is real & worsening. Trump lost the election & caused the Capitol attack. Come on.

July 26th 2021

3 Retweets41 Likes

Facial hair was a flex. 

Twitter avatar for @sixteenthCgirlSuzannah Lipscomb 💙 @sixteenthCgirl
For the first Monday of August, I have a treat on the podcast for you: Dr Eleanor Rycroft @EarlyModernista being absolutely brilliant on BEARDS and manhood. Listen up at
podfollow.com/not-just-the-T…
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August 2nd 2021

24 Retweets194 Likes

Chaotic good. 

Twitter avatar for @KevinMKruseKevin M. Kruse @KevinMKruse
This thread is a pretty good example of what it’s like for a historian to watch a movie set in the past.

Angus Johnston @studentactivism

Watching The Greatest Showman with Casey, and trying desperately to figure out when it's supposed to be set.

August 1st 2021

175 Retweets1,434 Likes

This feels true for many of us. 

Twitter avatar for @RogueChieftanjayson m porter @RogueChieftan
Every professional historian is also an amateur historian, and I love that for us.

July 28th 2021

37 Retweets294 Likes

Did you know founding father Henry Knox was a bookseller before the Revolution? I’ll forever be indebted to him for writing detailed letters to his wife, which I quoted heavily in You Never Forget Your First.

Twitter avatar for @Boston1775J. L. Bell @Boston1775
Henry Knox had just turned twenty-one, time to launch his own business—most likely with money from the booksellers who had trained him in the field and were ready to retire.

Jake @ HUB History @HUBhistory

From the Boston Gazette and Country Journal #OnThisDay in 1771. https://t.co/lHjBHN3Mh9 https://t.co/bGpAau4BB9

July 29th 2021

8 Retweets34 Likes

Archives are essential to my work, and most have been closed or inundated with requests for almost two years. They were just reopening or were scheduled to be…but this keeps happening. 

Twitter avatar for @TrumanLibraryTruman Library @TrumanLibrary
Due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in Jackson County, Mo., the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum will close until further notice, effective today, July 26. Learn more here:
Truman Library to Close Temporarily Due to Public Health Conditions | Harry S. TrumanIndependence, Mo., July 26, 2021 – Due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in Jackson County, Mo., the Harry S.trumanlibrary.gov

July 26th 2021

111 Retweets337 Likes

50% of tweets fall under “you do you.”

Twitter avatar for @HannahPalsaHannah E. Palsa 🐱🎧 @HannahPalsa
Hi, animal historian here. Animal and children have often been linked together in history by their helplessness and their inability to speak (at least until a certain age for children) Animal welfare and child welfare was linked in the 19th century—

Gregory A. Hargreaves @bordergroves

Unpopular opinion: your pets are not children, nor are they equal to children.

July 31st 2021

27 Retweets120 Likes
Twitter avatar for @pptsapperAngry Staff Officer @pptsapper
My sisters are texting me about whether William Tecumseh Sherman was hot or not I sent them his iconic thirst trap pic In case you were wondering how weird my family is
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July 30th 2021

39 Retweets1,114 Likes

On a related note:

I look forward to reading Tiya Miles’ All That She Carried, excerpted in The Atlantic in June. 

My great grandmother Rose

mother of Ashley gave her this sack when

she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina

it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of

pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her

It be filled with my Love always

she never saw her again

Ashley is my grandmother

Ruth Middleton

1921

Thanks for reading! You can find me on Twitter and Instagram and my books, as well as others mentioned on SMK, on Bookshop and Amazon. If you have a question or comment, I want to hear it! studymarrykill@gmail.com.

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