History Twitter is Good III

TikTok could never

Sep 1, 2021

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.

Your regular reminder: Do not come for library twitter unless we send for you

I don’t need to be told twice.

Felix Harcourt @FelixHistory

The Garan (👂~Baron) @The_Garan

@evanishistory A grad student composer at Juilliard clued me into these gems from Mozart's back catalogue when I was an undergrad:

Mozart Wrote Dirty Songs, TooPeople love to complain about today’s music. All the lyrics are too bland, repetitive, and racy. So thank goodness we have a canon of treasured composers to fall back on! You know, guys like Mozart. He wrote songs with substance.mentalfloss.com

Piemanthe3rd @DustinJComedy

@evanishistory While doing research at the Gerald Ford museum, I came across a speech given by John Wayne at a charity dinner Ford also attended making absolutely one of the least accurate predictions I saw in my studies

V for Vaughndetta @gvaughnjoy

@evanishistory That the FBI wrote a whole report claiming It's a Wonderful Life is communist subversion in 1947. Wild.

Glock21 @Glock21OpEd

@evanishistory That the publicly open and known "Exalted Cyclops" of the massive Champaign County, Illinois (home of the flagship University of Illinois) Klan was best remembered as the town Santa. (In addition to being a prominent Republican Party leader and local judge).

Eric Gonzaba @EGonzaba

By the late 80s, some cruise lines instituted mandatory employee HIV testing. Cruise pianist Rick Unterberg got his positive result from the ship's nurse in 1988 and wept knowing he'd be fired. Why the test? Insurance companies wanted the excuse to deny coverage. #twitterstorians

TheTattooedHistorian @InkedHistorian

Never gets old. #twitterstorians

Seth Cotlar @SethCotlar

The image of Calvin Coolidge eating breakfast in his bedroom while a valet rubbed his head with Vaseline will stick with me till the day I die.

John Ganz @lionel_trolling

calvin coolidge sounds a bit like mr. burns https://t.co/69HbUOLSxO

Eric Rauchway @rauchway

Just wanted to remind you that the Nazis burned books; the New Dealers built libraries. Sometimes history is unsubtle that way.

Qasim Rashid, Esq. @QasimRashid

Black people were enslaved. The Indigenous suffer genocide. Japanese Americans were interned. Jews suffered Holocaust. No one compares their suffering to others Yet GOP claim masks are slavery, genocide, & Holocaust—combined. The Privilege to make minor inconvenience an atrocity

Lisa Citron @LisaCitron3

@AlexisCoe Susie King Taylor was an activist, educator, and volunteer nurse on the Union side in the Civil War. She documented her experiences in her memoir Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers. After the Civil War.

Brandon @blgtylr

“I dislike Hitler as much as anyone, but” is…a statement…I…what?

andi zeisler @andizeisler

I am begging people to not https://t.co/vvjiG6GCq8

Emily Brand @EJBrand

Me just now: oh look @NHM_London have posted a pic of wild dogs having “a playful moment” on Instagram - cute! *looks closer* … 😱😫

Emily Brand @EJBrand

Ah, all the best medicinal recipes begin with "Take a Gallon of Milk and a Hundred of Snails...." 🐌🤢

Eric Rauchway @rauchway

Legit lol. Genuinely the funniest thing I’ve read on here in ages.

PEG @pegobry

Ok. That’s it. I’m done. FDR wasn’t "naïve". He was a communist and he admired Stalin because he had implemented full communism in his country and FDR’s goal was to have world communism succeed. Sorry. This explanation makes more sense of the facts than any other.

Artists of Colour @artistsofcolour

TRAIL OF TEARS (4 SIGNS), Edgar Heap of Birds, 2005

Sara @YatesHenley

@AlexisCoe The late, great Julia Reed would have been able to point you in the right places. Her columns from @gardenandgun and Vogue might touch on this.

In Memoriam: Julia Evans Reed, 1960–2020A tribute to the long-time Garden & Gun columnist and contributing editor, who died on Fridaygardenandgun.com

Nyasha Junior, Ph.D. @NyashaJunior

I have a joke about Lot's Wife, but I'm afraid it's too salty.

🗽Sydette Cosmic Dreaded Gorgon 🇬🇾 @Blackamazon

I’ve got a joke about Dido but I’m afraid it will go up in flames https://t.co/pY3HHGBXQM

Monica McLaughlin @rococopacetic

Wonderful piece here from @monodialogue. The clerks desperately trying to keep the mail dry until rescue is an especially poignant detail that I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

What a Watch Tells Us About the Titanic’s Final HoursThe handheld item, belonging to an American crew member, stopped minutes before the ship sanksmithsonianmag.com

Andrew Wehrman @ProfWehrman

After having shut their city down for "general inoculations" for smallpox in 1776 and 1778, new cases appeared in Boston in 1792. The most susceptible were the children who had been born after the previous inoculation. Political and business leaders resisted another shutdown...

Annette Gordon-Reed @agordonreed

Yes. That’s what I like about history and biography. Thinking about the limits that exist for some people, externally imposed and internally imposed. “Great man” history often assumes too much. It’s hard to do big things in the world.

Holly Brewer @earlymodjustice

@AnneMuntean @agordonreed @HobbitMiles Everyone exists within legal, political, social, cultural environmental constraints. Even princes. Some are more powerful than others and can defy such norms more easily. They can even rewrite norms. But we do need to acknowledge that constraints existed then, as now.

David Malitz @malitzd

Happy one-year anniversary to a strong contender for Trump's best one-liner.

Annie Karni @anniekarni

Trump, this morning, introducing his Secretary of the Interior: "He loves the Interior."

Viet Thanh Nguyen @viet_t_nguyen

All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. https://t.co/2EwUS2W5Xy

Naveed Jamali @NaveedAJamali

#breaking US official to me: “final plane is wheels up. War is over.”

dr. sam white @dearsamwhite

“The new exhibit ‘Pool’ explores how the legacy of segregated pools still denies Black people the joy of water” I really want to check out this exhibit in Philly.

For a history lesson on how yesterday’s segregation impacts Black lives today, visit the new exhibit ‘Pool’ | Elizabeth WellingtonThe multimedia exhibit at Fairmount Water Works that runs through August 2022.inquirer.com

ZSW @nerdosyndical

@evanishistory Realizing that Hannah Arendt had crossed a picket line of striking Yale janitors who were being beaten by police to receive an honorary doctorate

Hugh Aldersey-Williams @HoooAW

@evanishistory The story Christiaan Huygens’s brother told him in 1657 of one Flora / Floris, a trans inhabitant of Danzig, who went to see Dr Nicolaes Tulp (of Rembrandt fame 👇) for a gender reassignment operation.

Steve James @Stevetaiji051

@evanishistory This and other stories like it made me go "hmmm."

The Nazi’s ‘perfect Aryan’ poster child was actually JewishHessy Taft’s baby photograph was selected by Nazi party as the ideal Aryan infant.businessinsider.com

Adrian @KitchenIsDads

@evanishistory The Civil Rights Movement in Las Vegas was led by a dentist. Under pressure & threat of a 300 person march (which was more like a 30 person walk), mob controlled Vegas acquiesced. W/a mere phone call by a Mobster, the casinos were desegregated (except for Binion’s). “It’s done.”

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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