History Twitter is Good III
TikTok could never
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.
I don’t need to be told twice.
@evanishistory A grad student composer at Juilliard clued me into these gems from Mozart's back catalogue when I was an undergrad:
@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
@evanishistory That the FBI wrote a whole report claiming It's a Wonderful Life is communist subversion in 1947. Wild.
@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).
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
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
Just wanted to remind you that the Nazis burned books; the New Dealers built libraries. Sometimes history is unsubtle that way.
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
@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.
“I dislike Hitler as much as anyone, but” is…a statement…I…what?
andi zeisler @andizeisler
Me just now: oh look @NHM_London have posted a pic of wild dogs having “a playful moment” on Instagram - cute!
*looks closer*
… 😱😫
Ah, all the best medicinal recipes begin with "Take a Gallon of Milk and a Hundred of Snails...." 🐌🤢
Legit lol. Genuinely the funniest thing I’ve read on here in ages.
PEG @pegobry
@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.
I have a joke about Lot's Wife, but I'm afraid it's too salty.
🗽Sydette Cosmic Dreaded Gorgon 🇬🇾 @Blackamazon
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.
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...
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
Happy one-year anniversary to a strong contender for Trump's best one-liner.
Annie Karni @anniekarni
All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. https://t.co/2EwUS2W5Xy
Naveed Jamali @NaveedAJamali
“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.
@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
@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.
@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.