American History Untucked 013 -- Seth Kotch

My guest for this episode is Dr. Seth Kotch. Seth was a classmate of mine in graduate school and is now the Assistant Professor of Digital Humanities in the American Studies Department at UNC-Chapel Hill, a post has recently taken after a lengthy tenure as the Digital Projects Director at the Southern Oral History Program.

This is kind of a short episode, as both Seth and I are in the heart of the fall semester and time was at something of a premium. We didn't get a chance to talk in depth about all of the interesting work Seth has done over the past few years. Here's a sampling:

• Mapping the Long Women's Movement
• Media and the Movement (with Dr. Josh Davis, one of our grad school classmates)

Seth has also done some excellent work on the death penalty in North Carolina. His book on the subject should be out in the next couple of years.

American History Untucked 012 -- David Trowbridge

My guest for this episode is David Trowbridge, who teaches at Marshall University. He is the creator of the Clio app that uses GPS technology to direct users to historic sites and provides information about the site that you can consume on the go. It's open source, so users can add content about historic sites in their area. Adding content would be a great project for high school or college students. Here's a promo video about Clio:


Trowbridge is also the author of A History of the United States and participated in a recent JAH roundtable on the current state of textbooks. Here's our conversation:

American History Untucked 011 -- Anne Sarah Rubin

This is my first show of the new academic year and I was very pleased that Anne Sarah Rubin agreed to come on to talk about her new book on Sherman's March, Through the Heart of Dixie. We also got a chance to talk about the digital project that she had created to accompany the book, and about digital history more broadly, including her work with the Valley of the Shadow project.

Unfortunately, the audio quality of the interview isn't great. I don't know whether the problem was with our skype connection or my recording software or my own incompetence (I'm betting on the last option). Anyway, I tried to clean it up as much as I could. It's still a great conversation, even if the audio leaves a lot to be desired.

Summer Hiatus

I'm spending the summer researching in the United States, and am going take the time off from American History Untucked. I can assure you that you'll have a full season of American History Untucked in the fall.

One way you can support the show is by buying the books of the people I've had as guests. Selling academic books is a difficult task: the royalties are low (if they exist at all), the print runs are small, and book stores are hesitant to carry books they think are *too academic*.

Megan Kate Nelson
Ruin Nation

Rachel Hope Cleves
Charity & Slyvia
The Reign of Terror in America

Lil Fenn
Pox Americana
Encounters at the Heart of the World

Chris Cameron
The Many Lives of Chris Cameron
To Plead Our Own Cause

Scott Reynolds Nelson
Steel Drivin' Man
A Nation of Deadbeats
Iron Confederacies

Donald Shaffer
After the Glory

JacquelineWhitt
Bringing God to Men

Many of my guests from last season also have websites or blogs worth checking out:

Megan Kate Nelson
Historia

Donald Shaffer
Civil War Emancipation

Rebecca Onion
Vault Blog

American History Untucked 010 -- Rachel Hope Cleves

My guest this week is Rachel Hope Cleves, author of The Reign of Terror in America and Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America. We talk about some events in her life that prompted her interest in the history of American violence, about LGBT history, and about her current research in Paris.

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American History Untucked 009 -- Rebecca Onion

My guest this week is Rebecca Onion, author of Slate's The Vault blog and historian of childhood and science.

For those of you who haven't looked at The Vault, here are some of my favorite gems (the latter two of which we discuss in the show):

•  How Literate Are You by 1918 Standards?
•  The Entire History of the World—Really, All of It—Distilled Into a Single Gorgeous Chart
•  Where To Find Historical “Redlining” Maps Of Your City

Here's her article on history on Twitter:
Snapshots of History

American History Untucked 008 -- Lil Fenn

My guest this week is Elizabeth (Lil) Fenn, Associate Professor of History at the University of Colorado - Boulder. We discussed her 2001 book Pox Americana and her new history of the Mandan Indians, Encounters at the Heart of the World. We also discussed her career as an auto mechanic during a hiatus in her academic career.