Yale University Press. 2016
I feel like I’m dancing into a funeral wearing a party dress and a lampshade on my head, but in case you’re interested in a break from the general gloom, click on over to Ben Franklin’s World and check out my interview on Liz Covart’s podcast.
Liz learned how to edit her own podcasts–unless I’m mistaken, she used to hire an editor, but she’s figured out how to do it herself now. Check it out–she made me sound really good, like I speak naturally in paragraphs without any ummmms or wells… or so…s. She doesn’t just work hard on the editing–she reads all the books she features (and probably a great deal more she decides she doesn’t want to feature!)
Next week I’ll resume my Teaser Tuesday feature. What’s next? Life and learning in the Ursuline convent school at the turn of the eighteenth century! And the week after that–a new doll I’ve never shown you before!
Historiann 
I just made a tour of the Wheelwright podcasts and radio and web interviews, as part of putting together an assignment. They’re all good. I especially liked the one-liner about early Mainers being “profit-seeking, Virginia-type colonists.” That one had to sting in a variety of regional settings. “Gig economy” may resonate with some of my kids. One wonders what would have been different in general, and in this story, if Champlain had been more successful in his initial sortie along the Maine coast, or if the Sagadahoc survivors had hung tough for a few more seasons and carved out a durable node. Probably not that much, but who knows. The return of doll blogging will be welcome.
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My class on conflict in the colonial northeast is in full swing and I’ve forwarded links to both the Ben Franklin’s World podcast and the Junto interview to all my students. We’re reading Abraham in Arms and one of my students announced last week that while he thought the book was going to be dull, it’s one of the best books he’s read in college and the rest of the class enthusiastically agreed. A small bright light in the current gloom?
I oversaw our annual Phi Alpha Theta induction ceremony this evening and the pledge the students take has never had so much relevance before:
“The spirit of respect, which instills a sincere regard for the rights of each individual to freedom; The belief in the community of all persons which renders abhorrent all ideas that tend to foment national hatreds, racial and sexual discrimination, and all forms of injustice; The need for historians to search for Truth and to accept the responsibility for making decisions in terms of their meaning for others as well as themselves.”
And for my largely first generation college students, the gig economy is also relevant. I’ve long thought that colonial Maine’s core problem was the fact that there were so many colonies in Maine going simultaneously in the 1630s and 1640s that it became very easy for Massachusetts to divide and conquer in the 1650s and 1670s. Enough letters survive from an early Province of Maine governor named Thomas Gorges for us to know that he envisioned a society with “liberties of conscience for all” and if he hadn’t gotten frustrated and headed home to fight in the English Civil war in 1642, Rhode Island might have had some company.
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Thanks, Abby–this is great. And thanks for reporting your enthusiasm for A in A, all these years later!
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