Domestic Tranquility: Privacy and the Household in Revolutionary America
Today’s post accompanies “Creating the Fourth Amendment,” episode 261 of Ben Franklin’s World and part of Doing History 4: Understanding the Fourth Amendment. by Lauren Duval The image of a victorious and weary George Washington retiring to Mount Vernon after eight long years of battle… Read More
Articles of Amendment: Copying “The” Bill of Rights
Today’s post accompanies “Creating the First Ten Amendments,” episode 260 of Ben Franklin’s World and part of Doing History 4: Understanding the Fourth Amendment. Last week as I was listening to Ben Franklin’s World, I was struck by the way in which Liz Covart and… Read More
Reflections on “Archives-Based Digital Projects in Early America”
by Molly O’Hagan Hardy Molly O’Hagan Hardy’s article “Archives-Based Digital Projects in Early America” appeared in the July 2019 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly. If this article succeeds, it is because the composition of it, like the projects it describes, are the result of back and forth, give and take, what we often call “collaborative” production but… Read More
Friends in All the Right Places: The Newest Legal History
Today’s post accompanies “American Legal History and the Bill of Rights,” episode 259 of Ben Franklin’s World and part of Doing History 4: Understanding the Fourth Amendment. By Gautham Rao In 1965 a lawyer named Malcolm S. Mason wrote an article for the Journal of Legal Education with a simple problem: legal history was boring. Read More
Introducing Commonplace.online
By Joshua R. Greenberg, editor of Commonplace.online What is it like for a scholar to read the entire back catalog of a publication without a specific research or teaching agenda in mind? For me, it has been like assembling a very complicated jigsaw puzzle. Let me explain. As of September 30th, Commonplace: the journal of early American life has… Read More
The OI’s Working Group on Inclusive Practice
by Karin Wulf Starting later this month, the OI will convene a Working Group on Inclusive Practice. The OI’s Executive Board has charged me, together with the OI’s Council Chair, Jennifer Morgan, with bringing this group together to consider inclusivity throughout our programming, including our publications, meetings, fellowships, and more. All current and former members of the OI’s Board… Read More
County Plats: Evidence of a 17th-Century Virginian Cartographic Culture
by Nathan Braccio Today’s post is courtesy of Nathan Braccio, an Omohundro Institute–Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation fellow. Nathan spent a month in Williamsburg at the OI and Jamestown this summer. During my month in Williamsburg I conducted research for my dissertation, “Parallel Landscapes: Algonquian and English Spatial Epistemologies 1500-1700.” While the bulk of my research focuses on how New England… Read More
How to Pick Your Next Great Read: Summer 2019 Edition
By Nadine Zimmerli Two years ago, I polled my colleagues at the OI about their summer reading habits and gathered book recommendations. In the wake of that blog post, I raced to pick up Kathy Burdette’s suggestion, David Sax’s The Revenge of Analog, and have found myself recommending it ever since. I even sent a paperback copy to… Read More
Taking Account of Sexual Harassment
OI Executive Director Karin Wulf’s statement is followed by a statement from Professor Lisa Wilson of Connecticut College, and a statement from the current Council of the Omohundro Institute. Taking Account of Sexual Harassment Karin Wulf “I was at an “Institute of Early American History and Culture” (now known as the Omohundro Institute) mixer at the Organization of American… Read More
Accessing the Past: Why Paleography Skills Still Matter
Learn more about paleography at our first Transcribathon on Saturday, March 23, 2019, in the Ford Classroom, ground floor of Swem Library, on the campus of William & Mary. We will begin at 11:00 a.m. and continue until 4:00 p.m. Participants are welcome to drop in for an hour or to stay all afternoon. Lunch and snacks will be available. Julie Fisher will lead… Read More
Digital Sources, Analog Citations
Today’s post is by Andrew Newman, author of Allegories of Encounter: Colonial Literacy and Indian Captivities, published in January 2019 by the Omohundro Institute with our partners at the University of North Carolina Press. It is available in paperback. by Andrew Newman The image on the right is a copper engraving from a 1725 Amsterdam edition of François de… Read More