History resources online

Blogs, web magazines, and journals:

The Junto is a group blog made up of junior early Americanists dedicated to providing content of general interest to other early Americanists and those interested in early American history, as well as a forum for discussion of relevant historical and academic topics. The blog launched on December 10, 2012.”

Common-place is a common place for exploring and exchanging ideas about early American history and culture. A bit friendlier than a scholarly journal, a bit more scholarly than a popular magazine, Common-place speaks–and listens–to scholars, museum curators, teachers, hobbyists, and just about anyone interested in American history before 1900.Common-place is a common place for all sorts of people to read about all sorts of things relating to early American life–from architecture to literature, from politics to parlor manners. And it’s a place to find insightful analysis of early American history as it is discussed not only in scholarly literature but also on the evening news; in museums, big and small; in documentary and dramatic films; and in popular culture.”

Historiann is the not very clever pseudonym of Ann M. Little, the author of Abraham in Arms: War and Gender in Colonial New England (2007) and several scholarly articles and book chapters on early American women’s and gender history. She is an Associate Professor in the History Department at Colorado State University.”

Local (Fredericksburg/Virginia) links of interest:

It’s an old city, and there’s stuff to do. Check out the Greater Fredericksburg Tourism Partnership’s page to get started with some brief descriptions of and links to local sites, and for you Civil War aficionados, it’s probably worth starting at the National Park Service’s page for the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.

The Library of Virginia maintains an interesting blog–one recent entry was titled “Jackass: The Blog Post”–that’s worth a read.

Professional organizations:

Two major professional organizations for our field are the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians. They’re pretty much what they sound like, and the AHA’s website in particular has some great resources for teachers and other historians.

For my own, narrower interests, there is the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, the focus of which “encompasses the history and cultures of North America from circa 1450 to 1820 and includes related developments in Africa, the British Isles, the Caribbean, Europe, and Latin America;” the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, an “interdisciplinary community of scholars who study the histories and cultures of North America in the Atlantic world before 1850;” and the American Society for Ethnohistory, a collection of diverse professionals “helping to create a more inclusive picture of the histories of native groups in the Americas.”

 

*This is obviously a short and selective list so far, but I’ll keep updating this page as I encounter useful resources, so feel free to chime in with suggestions as well.