I'm grading now. This is hurting my soul. Send positive thoughts. Sometimes I wish I drank.

The other day /u/ouat_throw posted a question: If at all, how much of America's national identity and I guess the national experience openly emphasized white supremacy in the 19th and early 20th Century? - I don't feel quite qualified to answer this question fully; I mean, I could talk about the nadir of race relations in the United States, how the Irish claimed status as "white," and the Immigration Act of 1924 and all of segregation laws between Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) leading up to Brown vs. Board of Education (1954)...but what really stuck to me was an anecdote:

Speaking in general, the Mexican population of New Mexico seems much further advanced, more prosperous and better educated than the Mexican population of Texas and Oklahoma. There are plenty of school-houses, and the Mexicans we saw seemed quicker, more intelligent in general than those of my own State. I’ll admit it seemed strange to me to see Mexicans being treated on the same footing as white people. You can certainly tell the difference in the bearing of Mexicans, Indians, negroes and other dark races the instant you cross the Texas line. Texas, whatever its virtues or faults, is a white man’s State, and that fact is reflected in the manner of the non-white races. They know their place. Yet I’ll admit that the only insolence in the case of negroes I noticed occurred in Texas, some miles east of El Paso. Ahead of us we saw a car with a California license, and ahead of them an auto full of niggers — five or six big, brawny black bucks who might have been coming east to pick cotton. Anyway, the California people wanted past, and the niggers wouldn’t pull out to let them past. They went along that way for a half mile, perhaps, the Californian vainly honking his horn, and the niggers laughing at him. At last they did pull over a little, but when he got even with them, before he could pass, they speeded up, and almost ran him off the road. At last he did get past, and by this time I had drawn up right behind them. I was pretty mad already, for one thing because I don’t like to see a nigger displaying insolence toward a white man, and another thing, I demand that strangers within the boundaries of the State shall be treated with courtesy, by white or black. I zoomed up behind those coons, honking peremptorily, and they started pulling the same stuff with me as they had the Californian. I stuck my head out and told them to pull over in a voice that has frequently been compared to the bellowing of a bull, and I wasn’t at all choice in my use of words. My request, to put it mildly, was framed in harsh, abusive and profane language. And the black boys pulled over in a hurry. When they saw the Texas license plate on my car, they couldn’t get out of our way fast enough. The Californian really should have shot the tires off their car, if he didn’t want to do anything more drastic. They knew better.

• Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, July 1935, Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard 3.357

I think there's a lot to unpack there - not because Robert E. Howard's remarks are racist, but because by the standards of the 1930s they are not considered particularly racist; Lovecraft even responded that the Texan had done exactly the right thing. Despite living on almost opposite ends of the country, Howard and Lovecraft both felt that being "white" was an essential aspect of their identity as Americans, with anyone non-white (and sometimes more specifically not Anglo-Saxon or Celtic) - which included many immigrants - seen as interlopers; Native Americans were a little more complicated, and I've discussed that a bit before. It's not really an answer to that question, which is why I didn't post it here.

Also as an aside, A Means to Freedom: The Collected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard (2 vols.) is coming back into print in January 2017 - and even for folks not interested in Weird Tales and such, it makes for some fascinating period documentation of reactions to things like the Texas oil boom, Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Massie Case, and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.

I was recently reading this excellent essay by Paul Graham.

So, this is quite an appropriate time to look at the important role played by America's underappreciated entrepreneur - The United States Federal Government in making not only Silicon Valley but also Wall Street what it is today.

One of the reasons why the high tech sector (particularly Silicon Valley which has produced a huge number of innovative and successful companies giving a competitive edge to the United States) is so strong is due to the Military Industrial Complex. There is a strong co-relation between the development of the military industrial complex and development of technology sector. The Stanford Industrial Park was created and led by Fred Terman, who along with a staff of over 800 people helped build military technology during WWII. A large number of high-tech firms, many of them comprising the military-industrial complex (e.g. Varian Associates, General Electric) had set up their operations in that place. The Internet started out as DARPANET, which was created for military reasons. Jon Von Neummann who created the ALU , worked closely with the United States military and sat on the board of many companies including General Electric etc. This has continued even today with D Wave co-operating with Lockheed Martin.

Israel (Israel Aerospace Industries), Sweden (BAE Systems, Bofors) France (Thales, DCNS, Dassault) and the European Union (Airbus) apart from the US are also notable examples of high tech economies which have a thriving Military Industrial Complex. The difference is that unlike the United States which has a large domestic market for consumption of the goods which are produced, they are reliant on exporting them to other countries. The difference between the defence industry and other industries is that the purchasers of the goods tend to be governments because it is the national governments are responsible for the protection of national interests. Even in the former Soviet Union, the innovation in heavy industry particularly in the defense sector was pretty high and Russia still retains that competitive advantage.

The root of this has got to do with the policy adopted by the United States Federal Government during World War 2. Before that military produced it's own weapons. However, the United States government employed approximately 10,000 scientists and engineers in civilian run weapons lab for a organization called the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). The weapons were then produced by American Corporations. The OSRD developed advanced electronics: radar, electronic warfare, rockets, sonar, proximity fuse, Napalm, the Bazooka and new drugs such as penicillin and cures for malaria. After the war this organization ended up getting split with the research about the weapon system went to the Department of Defence and health related research into National Institutes of Health (NIH). Atomic weapons were placed with Atomic Energy Commission. The federal funding for American Universities started in 1940's and in return universities helped the Federal Government in research and development.

Of course, to achieve the desirable results the above system needs to be complemented by a thriving financial sector. We need a financial sector that is innovative but not destructive. The United States unsurprisingly does very well in this. As per The Venture Capital & Private Equity Country Attractiveness Index developed by the IESE Business school, the United States has the most advanced in categories such as Capital Markets depth, Sophistication and the size of financial sector, M & A, development of Debt and Security Market, Corporate Governance etc. Similar results were found in the Financial Sector Development Index published by the World Economic Forum.

A less known fact is that even Wall Street owes it’s existence to the Federal government. When the government spending ended after the end of Space Wars a lot of physicists ended up on Wall Street. Wall Street today has become quite high tech (fintech, algorithmic trading, investment firms that use advanced mathematics to invest) and employs tons of scientists. One can argue whether this was useful or not but this has increased the output in the financial sector in a relatively large way. They placed a key role in setting up derivative markets for utilities (electricity).

There is also a notion that Federal Government and large Corporations (as opposed to small business) has runied America which otherwise would be richer. I would respond with a Tamil saying: Summa Vikaṭam adikkatheengappa. The translation is left as an excercise to the reader:)

Reference:

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret History of Silicon Valley by Steve Blank

Today a former archives coworker emailed me to let me know materials I reported to the organization as missing from their latest acquisition were successfully sent to the archives! Of course I haven't worked there in 2 years, and I requested the fix these gaps easily 2.5 years ago... Oh well, I'm putting that down as Effective Archives Advocacy!

Meanwhile in Montreal, this guy is mad that countertenors aren't castrati but still have the audacity to sing in public. You leave countertenors aloooooone!

edit: and for /u/chocolatepot: Doesn't Pantone's COTY look a bit familiar?

I hoped the museum where I work would get the money to buy dress forms somewhere, but grants failed and wealthy donors did not line up at the door. So I took it into my own hands, and bought several blocks of ethafoam, glued two together, used a crappy but small dress form I own as a guide, and started carving!

I'm pretty sure I've made her waistline too low already, but that can always be padded into the proper place depending on what she's dressed in.

Something I submitted to Reddit made it to No. 2 on /r/all, which was a first for me.

u/Iphikrates

As someone who tends to learn a lot of new words and spellings from your posts, are there any anglicisations of ancient Greek words that you find particularly annoying?

Are historians and the human sciences in general considered communist propaganda in your country too?

In a recent Q&A by Jas. Townsend and Son, who features tons of recipes and cooking techniques from the 18th and early 19th century for reenactments or historical sites, he mentions how difficult it is sometimes to answer questions asked by his viewers. I was wondering if we could extend a hand and try and get him to do an AMA here on AskHistorians? I love watching his channel and love to see all the stuff he makes and hope others are just as interested as I am.

Some of my favorite videos are,

How to cook with a dutch oven - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGBvqNJ8H-U

Making a real pound cake - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLX3d-WbaQk

Friend chicken - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsyjNef2ydQ

I know there is a commercial aspect to his channel in which he promotes some of the equipment, recipes, and costumes he used for reenactment, but I found the history behind recipes and the foods we once used and now use to be too valuable not to watch.

Is this something you guys would want? Is it okay to reach out to him and extend an invitation?

Busy couple of weeks, but productive ones! To help improve my dissertation, my committee sent me some reading suggestions. Even though none of these works are on my subject (antebellum intellectual culture in the U.S), they felt these books would help me figure out how to organize my writing and provide it with a stronger narrative revolving around theory. I agree, they've been a great help! I checked out:

Jonathan Holloway's Jim Crow Wisdom

Alcoff's Gender and Identity

and Aaron Sach's American Arcadia.

With these books in hand, particularly Holloway's, I think I have a good idea of how to reorganize my work with subheadings, at least :D After that, I've gone through my first draft and catalogued all the important issues (not just the minor spelling/formatting stuff) my profs noted, so next week I'll be better able to go fast and focused in making a second draft. You can see more of what I've been up to, including food I've been eating, here:

https://gunlord500.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/gunlords-dissertation-saga-episode-25-season-2-laying-the-groundwork/

Anyways, a question for you guys with Ph.Ds: Have any of you ever lost a committee member before you submitted your dissertation? That almost happened to me--I heard my dissertation chair was moving to another uni! When I asked, though, he said he wasn't going away for quite a while, so I should have more than enough time to finish my dissertation, so that was a relief. Quite a scare, though...has this happened to anyone else? D:

Just finished Mosier's The Myths of the Great War. Fantastic read, raises some good points and data, thesis is absolute hogwash.

Tl;dr: French, BEF, and Russia were incapable buffoons. Germany was capable of marching on Paris in 1914...but they didn't for no reason...but they were winning until 1918. Then the AEF showed up, and German High Command decided to end the war on Wilson's favorable terms - which forced the Allies to accept peace before Wilson signed an individual peace agreement.

But still a fun read if you don't take it seriously.

After the Soviet Union fell in 1991, how did the United States and Western world view China? Did they see them becoming a future superpower or was it not clear yet?

the search bar reveals a number of questions about punctuation, but none are answered with what i'm looking for.

therefore: can any of you recommend me a good book on the history of punctuation in english-language texts?

a similiar book for spanish-language texts would also be appreciated.

Minor question

If I wanted to start learning about history, from the earliest time period to today, what would be the best way to break up all of that time into searchable terms?

For instance, if I wanted to get a overview of what was going on from 3000 B.C. to 2800 B.C., what would be some choice words or terms I could search for that would talk about that time period? The question is more open ended than I would like, but I was hoping for a more so comprehensive list since I'd like to eventually have a general idea of what was going on historically at any point.

Small request here. Can anyone provide a recomended reading on Theodoros Kolokotronis? I have read a few books on the Greek War for Independence, but I would like to get a better understanding of the history of Kolokotronis seeing as he had one of the most action packed lives I can think of.

Thanks in advance.

Just started watching Oliver Stone's Untold History of the US. Really fascinating. In particular how the US began bombing civilians during WWII. Dresden, Tokyo, etc.

Then I see a note on Facebook this morning acknowledging the internment of Americans of Japanese descent. Some hideous posts there. To this day, racism exists to the point where people feel the killing of innocent is justified. And they forget frightful moments in US history like the Trail of Tears, and the Sand Creek Massacre.

Any books about the Taiping Rebellion/Civil Wars in 19th century China? The only thing I could find to put on my list is Stephen Platt's 'Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom'.