May you have a fun-filled or restful holiday season, whichever you prefer. We hope to see you in the New Year—see our Upcoming Events.
Prospective members, we hope you will join us in 2018. Existing members, please recruit someone new!
Sunday, August 21, 2:00 pm, Public Program via Zoom.
Megan Kate Nelson is a historian and writer, with a BA from Harvard and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa. She is the author of four books: Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America (Scribner 2022); The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West (Scribner 2020; a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History); Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War (Georgia, 2012); and Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp (Georgia, 2005). She writes about the Civil War, the U.S. West, and American culture for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, and TIME. Before leaving academia to write full-time in 2014, she taught U.S. history and American Studies at Texas Tech University, Cal State Fullerton, Harvard, and Brown. She grew up in Colorado but now lives in Boston with her husband and two cats.
Writing and Revising Narrative History
A Presentation by Megan Kate Nelson
Join the Mechanics' Institute and the Institute for Historical Study for this exciting talk about writing with historian Megan Kate Nelson who left academia in 2014 to become a full-time writer. During this Zoom event, she will offer advice for writers who want to publish trade history books and other pieces for general readers. Dr. Nelson will talk about how to make the transition from academic to narrative history writing, how to revise manuscripts for trade publication, and how to pitch articles and Op-eds to newspapers and magazines.
Megan Kate Nelson is a historian and writer, with a BA from Harvard and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa. She is the author of four books: Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America (Scribner 2022); The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West (Scribner 2020; a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History); Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War (Georgia, 2012); and Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp (Georgia, 2005). She writes about the Civil War, the U.S. West, and American culture for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, and TIME. Before leaving academia to write full-time in 2014, she taught U.S. history and American Studies at Texas Tech University, Cal State Fullerton, Harvard, and Brown. She grew up in Colorado but now lives in Boston with her husband and two cats.Sunday, October 20, 2:00 pm, Monthly Program via Zoom.
John Hyde Barnard is a member of the American Historical Society and the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society, and was recently elected to the board of directors for the Institute for Historical Studies, San Francisco. Although John attended Saddleback Community College, California State University at San Marcos, University of California at Riverside and Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, he did not participate in academia or practice law. Instead, he pursed and continues in an active career as a musician, arranger, producer, publicists, performer and musical director. He discovered the Creole Incident as a student at Saddleback Community College and was accepted into the doctoral program at U.C. Riverside to form a dissertation on the subject.
You are welcome to invite friends and colleagues to attend.
Democracy Under Attack. THE CREOLE INCIDENT: The beginning of the end of slavery.
A presentation by John Hyde Barnard
J
ohn Hyde Bernard discusses a threat to democracy in the years 1836-42 when Southern Representatives acted to establish slavery under Federal Jurisprudence. The Creole Incident describes a calculated and premeditated course of action taken by a handful of radical abolitionists, in concert with certain Congressmen, to break the stranglehold of slavery’s representation in Congress. They turned to a slave revolt onboard the brig Creole to help make their case. At the heart of the story is the love between two slaves and their determination to be free. Events reach a climax when the British government has to decide the fate of the Creole slaves now imprisoned in the Bahamas on charges of mutiny and murder. These two stores combine to set in motion a series of dramatic floor fights in the United States House of Representatives¬—with the struggle for power between North and South hanging in the balance. A true historical incident that is an American story—for all Americans.
John Hyde Barnard is a member of the American Historical Society and the Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society, and was recently elected to the board of directors for the Institute for Historical Studies, San Francisco. Although John attended Saddleback Community College, California State University at San Marcos, University of California at Riverside and Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, he did not participate in academia or practice law. Instead, he pursed and continues in an active career as a musician, arranger, producer, publicists, performer and musical director. He discovered the Creole Incident as a student at Saddleback Community College and was accepted into the doctoral program at U.C. Riverside to form a dissertation on the subject.
You are welcome to invite friends and colleagues to attend.
You are welcome to invite friends and colleagues to attend.
We need a volunteer to write a short report on the presentation for the newsletter. If you would like to volunteer, please contact the program coordinator (Dan Kohanski).
The presentation will be recorded, and posted on YouTube. If you don’t want to be on the recording, just make sure your video is off. And please remember to mute your microphone!