Irena's Lamp
AHA president Tyler Stovall contributes a feature story this month-a meditation on race, politics, and history inspired by a lamp purchased by his great-great-grandmother, Irena Claytor, some time after Emancipation. On the cover, the lamp shines on one of Stovall's books, his glasses, and a copy of his family tree, open to Claytor's story. Cover photo: Shoey Sindel
Staff
Blunt Impact
Nick Johnson calls himself a “hempiricist”—the Colorado State University MA and senior associate editor of Colorado Encyclopedia writes prolifically for…
Consider the Source: The High School Historians of THATClass
The allergy to microfilm research among today’s young people has been overdiagnosed—or so found Patrick Cronin and Thomas Neville.…
Crypto Currents
At the 16th biennial Symposium on Cryptologic History, held this past October, William F. Friedman was a celebrity of…
Townhouse Notes
A friend sent a slightly panicked text after she’d gotten her copyedited manuscript back from the university press publishing her…
Adam McKeown (1965–2017)
World historian Adam McKeown was born in San Francisco, but he spent his life roaming the world and helping the…
Alan O’Day (1940−2017)
Historian of Ireland Alan Earle O’Day, formerly senior fellow in history at Greyfriars Hall, University of Oxford, died on May…
The Rise and Fall of DC’s Chinatown
Located along H and I Streets between 5th and 8th Streets NW, the Washington, DC, Chinatown was once home to…
AHA Member Spotlight: Margaret Lynch-Brennan
Margaret Lynch-Brennan is a current public scholar for Humanities New York (formerly the New York Council for the Humanities). She…
AHA18 Signature Cocktail Names Announced!
AHA staff is thrilled to announce the winning names of this year’s “Name That Cocktail!” contest. Each year, historians submit…
Teaching Local History using Digital Methods
“British Again Striking Hard on Somme Front Capture Two Lines of German Trenches” reads a banner headline in the Harrisburg…
AHA Member Spotlight: Mark Sedgwick
Mark Sedgwick is a professor at Aarhus University, Denmark. He lives in Aarhus and has been a member since 1997. …
Historians and Government Shutdowns
Federal government shutdowns are never in the best interest of historians. The unpredictable events are detrimental to research, closing down…
Medievalism, White Supremacy, and the Historian’s Craft: A Response
Carol Symes’s AHA Today post, “Medievalism, White Supremacy, and the Historian’s Craft,” raises a number of important issues about the…
Voting Now Open for 2018 Name that Cocktail!
Thanks to everyone who contributed a suggestion to the 2018 Name that Cocktail! contest. We’ve aggregated our favorites and composed…
Historians Tackle the Present in Six Late-Breaking Sessions at AHA18
In the past year, historians have frequently been called upon to make meaning of news. From Confederate monuments and statues…
AHA Member Spotlight: Telisha Dionne Bailey
Telisha Dionne Bailey is a postdoctoral fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies at…
Will Robots Rule the World?
On a recent cover of the New Yorker (October 23, 2017), robots purposefully stride to their jobs; the only human…
Name that Cocktail 2018!
For the sixth year in a row, AHA annual meeting hotels will be offering signature cocktails at their bars. The…
Frederick Douglass at 200: Making New Meaning of His Life and Legacy
Before today’s protests against symbols of American nationalism, or debates about the place of the Confederacy in America’s history and…
AHA Member Spotlight: Geraldo Cadava
Geraldo Cadava is an associate professor of history and Latina/o studies at Northwestern University. He lives in Chicago, Illinois, and…
Benevolent Diplomacy
Last winter while leafing through the Official File at the Truman Library for material on Herbert Hoover’s 1947 economic mission…