I have been Editor for over two years, and I’ve yet to publish my first issue. I don’t like to rush into things. April 2016’s issue has been out for over five months now, but that wasn’t my first issue. For those of you in the northern hemisphere, July 2016’s issue arrived in your mailbox just as the heady… Read More
(Pictured left to right) Frances Bell, Emily Wells, Kaila Schwartz, Cody Nager, Holly Gruntner, Chris Slaby, Mitch Oxford, and Ravynn Stringfield. Not pictured: Rebecca Capobianco The OI partners with the College of William & Mary’s Lyon G. Tyler Department of History to administer the Editorial Apprenticeship Program. The decades-long program introduces entering graduate students to the practices… Read More
Next Tuesday, October 4, 2016, we begin a new tradition at the Omohundro Institute: the annual McGiffert Lecture. The lecture series honors the late Michael (Mike) McGiffert who served as editor of the William and Mary Quarterly (WMQ) at the Omohundro Institute from 1972–1997 and also taught at William & Mary. Mike had an enormous influence on the journal, and on… Read More
Shauna Sweeney joined the Institute this summer as the 2016-2018 OI-NEH Fellow. Her research focuses on female-centered market networks in the Caribbean and their significance to the rise of Atlantic commerce and the transition from slavery to freedom during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Laurel Daen (William & Mary Ph.D. 2016), sat down recently with Shauna to discuss her work… Read More
In today’s post, WMQ author Michael D. Breidenbach (July 2016) reflects on the beginning and end of historical writing. by Michael D. Breidenbach An unavoidable task in historical writing is beginning and ending within particular time periods, dates, or moments. But while a published article denotes its end—the publication date—historical writing often does not admit of a beginning. The genesis of an… Read More
Today’s guest post is by Bryan C. Rindfleisch, an assistant professor of history at Marquette University. It was July 4, 2016. I found myself sitting on the curb at the intersection of Duke of Gloucester and Henry Streets, at one of the entrances to Colonial Williamsburg. I watched as families, big and small, dashed into air-conditioned stores and restaurants. Read More
In today’s post, Omohundro Institute short-term fellow Melissa Morris (Columbia University), details how she used her time in Williamsburg and what she found out about the tobacco industry in early America. by Melissa Morris A hogshead. Photo taken by Melissa Morris in Colonial Williamsburg. For the last two months I have researched my… Read More
by Kirsten Fischer In today’s post, WMQ author Kirsten Fischer (July 2016) delves into her relationship with Reader D and how their interaction ultimately influenced her piece. Powerful intellectual opposition to one’s ideas is a disturbing, provoking, and very useful thing. That’s what I learned from Reader D, the anonymous reviewer who went to great lengths to refute the arguments… Read More
Today’s post is by Nadine Zimmerli, Associate Editor of Book Publications, on how she came to academic publishing as a career. I skipped class in high school precisely once, to attend the Leipzig Book Fair (I know, it doesn’t get nerdier than that…). There, I asked a local publisher—I believe it was Reclam—whether they had any internship positions available… Read More
In this week’s post, Keith Pluymers (July 2016) describes the shifts in perspective that led him to reconsider a well-worn topic and ultimately to publish his first piece in the William and Mary Quarterly. by Keith Pluymers In 2013 while on a Mellon Research Fellowship at the Virginia Historical Society, a combination of archival discovery and a fortuitous meeting with a… Read More
This coming Friday, July 22, Drew Cayton will be remembered in a special panel offered during SHEAR’s annual meeting in New Haven, Connecticut. The following letter from Jan Lewis, Dan Richter, and Karin Wulf was sent out to members of SHEAR and friends of the Omohundro Institute in preparation for that event. Drew Cayton–scholar… Read More
by Josh Piker There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the evidence suggests that potential authors of William and Mary Quarterly articles read my posts and take seriously what I say there. The bad news is that, because of the good news, what I said in one particular post is no longer accurate. Last July,… Read More