The Society of Americanists

09/10/2026

Streaming available of forum titled “What is the U.S. and Why Does It Matter?”

09/07/2026

Once called "the most dangerous woman in America," Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was a prolific workers' rights advocate in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Born in Cork, Ireland, Jones fled to North America during the Great Famine of the 1840s. After her husband and four children died in the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1867, Jones moved to Chicago and set up a dressmaking shop, which was destroyed in 1871 by the Great Chicago Fire.

As she helped to rebuild the city from the ashes, Jones rebuilt herself as a labor organizer, working for The Knights of Labor and United Mine Workers — gaining the nickname "Mother" for her maternalistic style.

While organizing West Virginia coal miners seeking higher wages and safe working conditions, Mother Jones leaned into her mother persona, questioning the courage and masculinity of coal miners who were reluctant to join the union.

"If you are too cowardly to fight, I will fight," she told coal miners on the steps of the capitol building in Charleston, West Virginia in 1912. To recalcitrant miners she added, "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves... to see one old woman who is not afraid of all the blood-hounds."

📸: Mother Jones attending the 1915 hearings of the federal Commission on Industrial Relations at the New York City Hall (Bain News Service/Library of Congress)

08/24/2026

NY Times article by Ruth Franklin on how Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be taught.

I traveled around the country to find out if “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” still has a place in the classroom.

07/28/2026

Interview with Americanist professor Susan Asbury, author of new book on board games of the Gilded Age and their implications for American values of the industrial era. https://jmwwblog.wordpress.com/2026/07/27/fun-and-games-an-interview-with-susan-asbury-by-curtis-smith/?fbclid=IwY2xjawTVjVBwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR6cUgyRMO8UFH17iK8EWYNUaS0j5yC_GeL7TuC0JTMvf2i3lyR-MuVQF6Fv3w_aem_BrZxvdjgnBwazxTYJmD5yQ

Between 1880 and 1920, the American board game industry produced a host of board games that reflected political, economic, social, and cultural themes of the day.

07/28/2026

The Ephrata Cloister was founded in 1732 by German settlers who chose a life of extreme simplicity, sleeping on wooden benches with blocks of wood for pillows and rising in the middle of the night to sing. They produced remarkable hymns, illuminated manuscripts, and one of the busiest printing operations in the colonies. The medieval looking buildings still stand in Lancaster County. Have you visited the Ephrata Cloister and seen how they lived?