I recently finished reading a book about Alexander Cassatt, head of the Pennsylvania Railroad during its largest expansions and one of the most powerful men in the US at the time. In it, he is portrayed as holding many beliefs that today would qualify him as rather left leaning - pro-union, anti-corruption, and pro-regulation. (I suspect this characterization may be biased)

During this era (late 19th/early 20th century US), were there powerful industrial figures promoting ideologies other than unfettered capitalism? Did they get any traction in government? Why did their voices (if extant) have so little effect?

Reading Chernow's Grant at the moment inspired this question, but I would be just as interested in hearing about other universities in pre-Civil War America, too.

EDIT: I appear to have gotten confused. George Washington Custis Lee, Robert's son, graduated first in his class at West Point in 1854. I was still interested in knowing more despite the fact that Robert finished a pathetic second in his class of 1829. As usual, AH provides superior answers to an inferior question, thanks!

Did these scrolls complete a parts of Christianity previously unknown? Who wrote them and why?

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Rome was left without a, well, Roman government, but when the Eastern Half, Byzantium, reconquered the western empire, what was life like in the city of Rome itself? Were the people happy under Byzantine rule? Did the Romans see the Byzantines as Romans?

While I am pursuing a degree in sciences, I've always wanted to study history and dive deeper than reddit threads, youtube videos, and highschool courses. Right now, I am looking at the history electives offered at my university. I am choosing between.

Europe in early Middle Ages (pre-1000s). Discusses Charlemagne, Islam, and Danelaw? I don’t know much about the Dark Ages.

Europe in the late Middle Ages (post-1000s)

Europe during the Renaissance

Europe during the Reformation

History of Modern France

20th Century Germany

I understand this is not a typical Ask Historian question. But I felt like it's more appropriate to ask history experts than users from my university thread. Which period would you say is both interesting and impactful on the geopolitical situation today? What got you interested in the historical period you specialize in and why? Of the topics above which one would you choose? How are university history courses like? Besides lectures are there debates, discussions, or papers? Any insight appreciated.

Have any studies shown if there is a correlation between rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, and the progress of the industrial revolution? Are there any other trends? I recognize mental illness is likely just more openly discussed today but I was curious if there is a connection outside of that.

Reddit has a system where acceptable answers are upvoted to the top but lately the majority of top comments have been getting removed. I click on an interesting questions to see the answer but the top comment, with hundreds of upvotes has been removed. Can we start letting the votes decide?

I ask because I've been watching a few dramas set in historical settings and particularly in the ancient world, there's no locks. Seems like theft would have been a massive problem, especially in large cities like Rome.

Also, apologies if this falls foul of the "no first/last" rule. I thought that since I was asking about them being prevalent, it would be acceptable.

My teacher once taught us that in the Middle Ages (maybe a little later but before the Reness.) there were an incredible number of criterias you had to meet. You could not have sex if the sun was up, not on Christian holidays (which there were a lot of), not on a Sunday and therefore not before or after a Sunday. The list went on and on.

At the end of it, there was ultimately very few days left in a year you could have sex on lol

Im very interested in a general theory on revolutions like when, why and how they occur, why some last decades and some fail after a year like 1848? Wandering if you guys could recommend books on general theories of revolutions?

Good morning everyone! I was referred here by r/history and I have a question for you all. I am looking for some primary sources about my chosen subject. Yes, I am writing a paper. No, I'm not asking for anyone to do my homework. I am just at a loss for any quality and scholarly primary sources for my chosen topic and am looking to be pointed in the right direction.

Here's what I have. My research question is as follows:
Despite early push back or segregation of Irish immigrants, how did early Irish baseball players gain their acceptance and become some of the best to ever play?

My thesis statement, albeit not that strong, is as follows:

The acceptance of early Irish immigrants into the game of baseball demonstrates that their discrimination by the mostly Protestant Anglo population in the New England areas in which they settled in was a combination of their lack of meaningful skills, lack of education, and their religious views (Catholic), contrary to the argument of many scholars that suggest it was the fact that they were taking unskilled, labor jobs at lower wages than the already established workforce.

I have plenty of scholarly secondary sources, but am lacking any real primary sources. For those that don't know, a primary source provides direct or firsthand evidence about an event, object, person, or work of art. So, for example letters from players or Irish immigrants from 1880 - 1900 or photographs from that era. I am really at an impasse here. I have been searching for two months and can't find anything. If anyone knows of any scholarly sites or collections that might relate to my subject, I would be most grateful. Again, I am just looking to be pointed in the right direction or even just given suggestions that I may have not thought of at this point.

Mods, if you feel that this is inappropriate, please feel free to remove it. I am just looking for a little bit of help or direction from a new set of "eyes".

All cultures & countries seem to be following the same week days. Like it's Friday every where? When did this unification happen; & how did it happen?

Sorry if this isn’t the type of question that’s allowed, but I’m genuinely curious and please remove if it violates any rules. (Particularly worried about soap boxing but I promise that’s not my intention and I’m hoping this is more meta)

TL;DR - So this honestly can be broken down into a couple questions: (these are also restated at the bottom of the text)

1. the title question, would you say you’re also equally as aware of the significant women from your specific specialty/concentration as you are the men?
2. would you say that yours is a male dominated field?
3. does gender ever come up as significant information in your line of work/research? Woman, man or otherwise, and if/when it does, what does it look like? (I’m not quite sure I worded this one right I may have to come back to it if there’s too much confusion)
4. are there even historians who focus specifically on gender and women as they have with LGBT and minority studies?

I am currently a university student and I bet you can guess my field of study based on my question, Women’s and Gender Studies (laugh it up boys). At my school this is a multidisciplinary program so I get to take history, sociology, communications, and even art classes that focus on gender and how it has been viewed/changed around the world as well as accomplished women. I love what i study, and I have learned about so many great women who made amazing strides in the fight for equality, but also in technology, wars, developing nations, etc. etc. many of these names I had never heard before taking a class that specifically focused on these women. I also noticed that there isn’t a specific link for women or gender history in the side bar, as well as no direct banning of “sexism” (although I recognize it can be absorbed by other restrictions). This just made me curious as to how “gender” plays into a historians role or research, if it does at all.

So this honestly can be broken down into a couple questions:

1. the title question, would you say you’re also equally as aware of the significant women from your specific specialty/concentration as you are the men?
2. would you say that yours is a male dominated field?
3. does gender ever come up as significant information in your line of work/research? Woman, man or otherwise, and if/when it does, what does it look like? (I’m not quite sure I worded this one right I may have to come back to it if there’s too much confusion)
4. are there even historians who focus specifically on gender and women as they have with LGBT and minority studies?

I hope this all came off as genuinely curious because I love this thread, and I love all the things I learn from it. I know a lot of the content is submission based but I am always curious, now that I’ve learned about so many “secret” women, if there’s ever anything else that I’m not being told about.

I have several questions.

How did the pirates gain their intel on the whereabouts of merchant ships?

Did they usually have a pretty good idea of what the target ships had in store for them? as far as “plunder”

What usually were the contents of said “plunder” and were they assorted goods or a lot of one specific type of goods? (Correct me if i’m wrong, but I thought most ships were owned by ship owners rather than the merchants themselves)

I have more questions if this post gains enough traction to ask them! Thank you for the time of day to whom can answer any of these questions for me!

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Not to be too harsh (err, actually ...to be harsh) it has bothered me for some time that the some of the amazing resources available on AH are so often squandered on the frankly awful questions which dominate the volume. Ranging from profound ignorance to utter nonsensicality. While Reddit rests on the silicon valley fever-dream of popular voting causing the cream to rise, in reality subject matter or rote recognition often dominates over incisive inquiry that prompts real novel research and discussion. The SASQ threads are a hall-of-fame for evidence that the majority of the audience neither understands the scope of questions they are asking, nor how to prompt the response they are interested in coherently.

In an ideal world, gently educating your audience in order to inquire more effectively would be a possible solution, but given the amplitude of work I have no doubt AH already consumes in regards to moderation and operationg, hardly reasonable. It would seem to me that simply tightening the standards on allowable questions in some regards would help to alleviate the lopsided signal:noise ratio, while also raising the level of discourse.

I ask because I had originally associated this sort of (racist) perspective as stemming from western views of the People's Republic of China, rather than republican or dynastic China. Does it stem more from our reaction to how Confucianism impacted the structure of Chinese society (and ideas like guanxi?).

(I hope it goes without saying that by asking this question, I'm in no way supporting this sort of perspective)

I assume even a large earthquake couldn't damage a teepee much. But what about Mayan pyramids and such? What did they think about earthquakes?

Were there any law against this, like new convert doesn't count?