The last few days were a series of graduations on campus, and today were the 148th Commencement Exercises at my alma mater, Vassar College. This time of year always brings to mind a poem by Nancy Willard, from A Visit to William Blake’s Inn: Poems for innocent and Experienced Travelers. It’s a book I particularly associate…… Continue reading A Poem for Graduates and Soon-to-be-students
Category: Quotes
How do we shuffle our cards?
Over the past few months I’ve had a quote, more of an idea really, rattling around in my head. The artist James C. Christensen wrote about how he thinks about creativity and new ideas using the metaphor of a library’s card catalog. I never knew card catalogs, so in time the cards in the metaphor…… Continue reading How do we shuffle our cards?
A quote, a book, a whole discipline!
One of the books I received this year for Christmas* was Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, a book of essays on women in history. The title is her most-quoted soundbite, taken from an essay on gravestones which forms part of her first book, Good Wives. The quote, with “rarely” used in place…… Continue reading A quote, a book, a whole discipline!
A Bit of Dickens’ Christmas
I do have more coming about the history of the celebration of Christmas, but this weekend my time was taken up with the actual activities of the season (decorating, a party, attending church, writing Christmas cards). So, in lieu of a proper post, here’s a quote from one of the stories I read every year…… Continue reading A Bit of Dickens’ Christmas
A Christmas Quote
(possibly the first of a few) One of the fun aspects of working with historic documents is seeing annual events through other people’s eyes. I initially found this quote from an 1834 Christmastime letter to be entertaining in a macabre way (I first read it shortly after Halloween). On reflection, it seems to parallel a…… Continue reading A Christmas Quote
What makes a citizen?
Working as I do with a focus on the period between 1780 and 1830, the War of 1812 frequently drifts into focus. It is not a war with which I was very familiar when I started at this job, and I still think there’s a lot more I could know about it (although I have…… Continue reading What makes a citizen?
Quote from Miss Ann Maury, March 9, 1832
Miss Ann Maury was born and raised in England to an English mother and an American father. James Maury, her father, was consul at Liverpool from 1790 to 1829. She kept a diary, and part of it has been published, from the 1830s after her family moved (back) to the United States. She writes that…… Continue reading Quote from Miss Ann Maury, March 9, 1832
Quote on History
“Human nature is the same in every age if we make allowance for the difference of customs & Education, so that we learn to know ourselves by studying the opinions and passions of others” -William Bradford (paraphrasing Hume) in a letter to James Madison, October [1772], original in the collection of the Historical Society of…… Continue reading Quote on History