Historiography
Hubert Bancroft Runs a History Factory
In 1868, a San Francisco book dealer named Hubert Howe Bancroft (1832-1918) set out to write the history of the Pacific slope,[1] from Alaska to the Isthmus of Panama. It was a project on a heroic scale. Bancroft did not write all the books himself, even though he was the only author listed. In fact,…
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From the History in the Margins Archives: History and a More Just Future
If it seems to you that I’ve run a lot of posts from the archives lately, you would be right. At the moment, I am overwhelmed by life stuff and simply don’t have the bandwidth to write new posts on a consistent basis. Instead of letting the blog go dark, when I don’t have something…
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Helping to Write Women’s History
One of the greatest challenges in writing history is reading handwritten documents from the past. Many times over the last few years I found myself cursing struggling with Sigrid Schultz’s letters.* Her handwriting was not great. Her use of punctuation was erratic. (I blame this on years of writing stories in cablese and sending telegrams.…
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