I’ve been reading the essays and find them fascinating and historically provocative (in a good way). However I noticed the authors reference themselves in footnotes very often and often swing wildly through large swaths of time. I greatly appreciate how they frame new narratives to the public, but at times these great leaps in time puzzle me as to the accuracy of what sometimes feels like a monolithic, all-reaching narrative and explanation. How do Historians view the essays?
Ah yes, 1619. Historians being historians and therefore a disputatious lot (even before bringing in people from other specialisms, since 1619 is not strictly a historical recounting), there are, of course, many Thoughts and Opinions on it. Anyone else is more than welcome to make a post of their own; we certainly are open to more thoughts on the 1619 Project!
For the meantime, here's some previous threads that may be of interest.
More can be said if anyone has anything else they wish to add, but the 1619 project is a pretty common topic on here, so in the meantime you may be interested in some of these older threads, featuring discussion from /u/edhistory101, /u/Red_Galiray, /u/mikedash, and more:
I'm not an expert on the subject matters of the project, nor have I looked at all of it (yet!), so I can't really comment on its veracity. But I would reiterate something that I mention in one of those threads, which is that the project isn't a work of academic history but of multimedia and journalistic storytelling. Journalists and historians use different methodologies when uncovering history, which affects how they frame the story, and how that context explains the current situation that we live in. Most discussion does generally focus on the accuracy of the project, though in one of the threads there is some discourse on the distinction between historiography and journalism and how that tension matters when talking about this project, and I just wanted to highlight that difference.