Some Professor Says...

One of my Tweets (take that, Musk!) went semi-viral recently--for a historian on Twitter, that means Kevin Kruse retweeted me--for a link to a brilliant essay by one of my long-ago former professors, Barbara Fields.  It's here if you haven't seen it.  And it's got me thinking thoughts, about Fields, and about history. Dr. Fields meant nothing in particular to me at the time--I only had one class with her, and even there she was just a name on the top of the syllabus for "History of the South," the person who stood in front of the room and read every day from her pre-written lecture notes.  She did so with a style and ability that was, truly, phenomenal--she would go so far as to do the different Southern accents as she read off quotations.  I'll never forget the moment she switched from high-born Southern elite to Kentucky country twang.  It got a huge laugh, and I think of it almost every time one of my silly little jokes lands in lecture. (I especially thoug

 A rare OTD post, because I came across it and can't stop thinking about it today.  On this Day January 5, in 1914, Henry Ford instituted the $5 day. This was a big moment.  It was around twice (sorry, my books are all in my office and I'm not going to the college over break for a blog post) what his workers had made previously, and far more than unskilled workers could have made in America.  A much celebrated moment, that, Ford said, would mean that workers in his factories would now be able to buy the cars they were making (spoiler alert: they wouldn't). The $5 day came with strings attached, though.  The $5 meant that Ford's dreaded Sociological Department (who isn't a little afraid of angering the Sociology Department!) would be visiting the workers' homes, making sure that they were keeping a clean house, abstaining from alcohol, not taking in borders.  The $5 meant that immigrant workers would have to take "Americanization" classes, where they wo

I have COVID, as do my wife and eight-year-old son. We're all fine; they seem mostly over it and in vaxxed and double boosted and fully planning on spending the next few days taking it incredibly easy. It's interesting that back in 2017-2018 we all thought there would be no way to write the history of the Trump era.  I remember tweeting about it sardonically, as did so many other much finer historians: there would be no way to capture a presidency, I thought, where every week brought a new scandal. But now, only two years after Trump's first presidency (I know, I know, he has no chance, except he had no chance in 2016 either, so I'm counting on nothing in this regard), I think it will be all too easy.  Everything about Trump's presidency, in the history textbook, will be discussed in light of what followed: That pandemic that hit us in 2020 was the defining moment of a generation, much like 9/11 was a decade before. People sometimes foolishly claim that 9/11 brought

Still working out how often to post on here, clearly.  But it's been an interesting week.  Mostly because my mother fell. My mother is a set of contradictions, as much as anything else.  She's a working-class Italian American girl from a tough neighborhood who was going to be a school teacher but somehow stumbled into the sciences and became a laboratory technician (she finished her Ph.D. in biology the same year I did, only weeks after me; I think that makes her a second generation Ph.D. but will have to look it up somewhere).  A committed atheist who hates religion but who went to all Catholic schools right up through college, she once told me that Catholic schools are good training for atheists, because having gone to one atheism seemed the only logical course of action to her.  A political radical and fierce advocate for racial equality who for years told my Indian wife, then girlfriend, stories about an Indian roommate my mother had once had.  An incredibly forgiving woman

So, big carryings on at work this week over doors. Esp whether or not faculty are allowed to hang anything on the glass windows in our doors. Our newish college president announced that we were not allowed to do this because we should be engaging with the community, not hiding in our offices. Plus at big investment firms they only have glass doors and walls so everyone can see everything. I know this is a thing; my wife worked for Bloomberg for a few years and I saw the ridiculous office plan they have. But of course it was a thing before that. As an adjunct all over NY, I had a range of office setups. One place I taught instituted an adjunct office the second year I was there, where all adjuncts for the division had cubicles one largish office space. A CUNY school had a dedicated adjunct office for history dept adjuncts. Adjunct work conditions stink. Always have, and my sense is that it's not going to get better in the future. But nonetheless this new policy is a troubling one. T

Not sure I'll do this, but if Twitter dies I will need somewhere to vent, to celebrate, to think things through. So let's see how it goes. I'm a professor at a small liberal arts college right near New York City.  My students are mostly first generation, whip smart, and totally impossible not to love unless they're driving me crazy, which certainly happens. I write about labor issues and politics sometimes, so no doubt that'll creep in here. I'm especially interested in 1930s labor and radicalism--the Old Left gets more interesting the older they get, far as I can tell. I have an eight year old son with special needs who fills my day with joy, and a wife whom I love dearly and mock incessantly (not usually here, though it happens!). Don't come here looking for music or theater or movie or tv takes unless they're about (a) really old movies, (b) things I show to my students, or (c) feature the Cat in the Hat or Winnie the Pooh. Let's see how this goes