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stephenwest.bsky.social
Historian of Civil War & Reconstruction. Bicyclist, baker, 3d favorite human of Banjo the dog. Views=mine, repost ≠endorsement
3,161 posts 7,160 followers 800 following
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Posts 29 Comments 21

offs - signed, a historian

submitted 2 hours ago • 3 comments

Wow

submitted 10 hours ago • 0 comments

The paper is disintegrating before our eyes

submitted 10 hours ago • 16 comments

"...In the nearly 200 submissions NPS received in the first days since the solicitations were posted, visitors implored the administration not to erase U.S. history and praised agency staff for improving their experiences."

submitted 12 hours ago • 4 comments

I want to boost this master work by Dr Edda Fields-Black, “Combee” shows how you can recover Black histories of resistance in unlikely places. I got to meet her while she was writing this book when I was doing similar research on the enslaved owned by the Calhouns at Clemson U. 🗃️

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

"The public...deserves the truth. The administration has accused historians of writing and teaching about forms of 'shame' in American history. The only shame to be found in this controversy emanates from the desk of the Secretary of the Interior." @oah.org, on sanitizing history at NPS sites 🗃️

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

Happy Juneteenth follks!

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Concepts of a war (and/or peace) plan

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Slavery's destruction proceeded slowly and unevenly during the Civil War. Afterwards, Americans commemorated its demise on a variety of dates keyed to national & local events. Jan 1: Emancipation Proclamation (1863) Apr 3: Evacuation Day, Richmond (1865) Apr 16: DC (1862) Juneteenth: TX (1865) 🗃️

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

For Juneteenth, I published some newly (re)discovered evidence about the very first celebration of the holiday in 1866. Read more …

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

A growing body of research attempts to put a number on energy use and AI—even as the companies behind the most popular models keep their carbon emissions a secret. www.wired.com/story/ai-car...

submitted 1 day ago • 20 comments

Slavery's destruction proceeded slowly and unevenly during the Civil War. Afterwards, Americans commemorated its demise on a variety of dates keyed to national & local events. Jan 1: Emancipation Proclamation (1863) Apr 3: Evacuation Day, Richmond (1865) Apr 16: DC (1862) Juneteenth: TX (1865) 🗃️

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

"The public...deserves the truth. The administration has accused historians of writing and teaching about forms of 'shame' in American history. The only shame to be found in this controversy emanates from the desk of the Secretary of the Interior." @oah.org, on sanitizing history at NPS sites 🗃️

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

"Some of the tourists and locals who stopped by the statue between downpours Wednesday afternoon expressed surprise that it was allowed to be placed where it was. And they expressed reservations about weighing in on it publicly." Man, that's a depressing last sentence. gift link

submitted 1 day ago • 11 comments

I'm not really one to brag, but...

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

I do not expect I will ever write a history of the Trump presidency - but if do, I've had the title ready for years.

submitted 2 days ago • 7 comments

[does a little dance] www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/o...

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Strange bedfellows, Supreme Court reporting division

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

antebellum era century chuck schumer who's like "the vicious caning of Senator Sumner is just a distraction from the debate on funding the C&O canal"

submitted 2 days ago • 5 comments

In the attention age, I think the opposite is true. For your voice and criticism to have power you have to say things over and over again

submitted 2 days ago • 19 comments

<putting on my professor hat> this derogatory use of “professorial” is too vague to be helpful. Does the writer mean that the musings are abstract, or impractical, or jaded after 30 years of faculty meetings, or wearing socks with sandals in the summer, or something else? Revise and resubmit.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

I honestly do not understand this

submitted 2 days ago • 203 comments

We've reached that point of the year - and it comes every June - when I realize with a shock, "wait, they're still playing hockey!?"

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

"Then they sing 'Memories,' from the musical CATS! William McKinley rides by on a tariff and gives me a thumbs-up!"

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

“Then Civil War soldiers marched by, but they were in the WRONG COLOR uniform, not the one worn by the folks all our best forts are named for, but the blue one.” www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

submitted 4 days ago • 39 comments

If @nickofferman.bsky.social were a retired Gilded Age Congressman

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

The latest issue of Scholarly Editing by ‪‪@editorial-notes.bsky.social‬ features an important essay on how to use documentary editing assignments to help students grapple w the legacies of inequalities, esp in instances where teaching abt these topics is banned. Highly recommend!

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

PUBLICATION DAY! _I Have Avenged America: Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haiti's Fight for Freedom_ is now available from @yalepress.bsky.social To celebrate, I am going to post some of the most extraordinary Dessalines quotations below! yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

submitted 3 days ago • 19 comments

The terminally online mind cannot comprehend this

submitted 4 days ago • 24 comments