Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture

Uncommon Sense—the blog

Archive for the ‘#VastEarlyAmerica’ Category

Public Commissions for the 250th: What You Need to Know

· April 11th, 2022 · No Comments

In 2026 the United States will mark the 250th anniversary of American independence—the Semiquincentennial. It would be the understatement of two-and-a-half centuries to suggest that it will likely be a busy year for the history profession across the nation and even internationally. Of course, history professionals are not the only people interested in how to… Read More »

Our History’s Next Generation

· October 14th, 2021 · No Comments

A blog post by Karin Wulf Note: This is the last blog post by Karin Wulf in her role as executive director of the Omohundro Institute. Her final day at the head of the team is today. We congratulate her and wish her the best of luck in her new role as the Director and… Read More »

Advisories Versus Executive Orders

· April 21st, 2020 · No Comments

By Liz Covart In late March and early April, state and municipal governments across the United States issued orders for residents to “stay at home” to combat the covid-19 pandemic. As of April 16, 2020, forty-two states, three counties, nine cities, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia had ordered residents to close physical locations… Read More »

Researching and Teaching VastEarlyAmerica

· March 19th, 2020 · 7 Comments

The following is a loosely (and necessarily imperfectly) organized set of online resources for researching and teaching about VastEarlyAmerica. We invite you to add suggestions to the list by leaving your comments via the form below or by contacting martha.howard@wm.edu directly. Resources Slavery Studies A database of crowd-sourced information on fugitives from slavery, compiled by University of… Read More »

The New York Times 1619 Project and the Omohundro Institute

· March 17th, 2020 · No Comments

By Karin Wulf The 1619 Project continues to attract a lot of readers and responses.  On March 6 the editor of the New York Times Magazine, Jake Silverstein, and the principal author of the New York Times 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, convened scholars at the Times Center for a conversation centered on one of the issues that has been most… Read More »

Must Early America Be Vast?

· May 2nd, 2019 · 4 Comments

by Karin Wulf Spoiler:  I think yes. But it’s complicated.  You may have seen this meme about historians, with “it’s complicated” mocked as the weak battle cry of our profession.  I would argue that there is ample demonstration, from contemporary politics to technology, that an appreciation of complexity is newly resurgent.  And so it is… Read More »