In the begininng

Me and “Abe” at Nationals Park

There was this post. This was the first post.

Hello and welcome to my blog. I’m a Masters student at American University in Washington, D.C., in the Public History program. I’ve created this blog for History 677 “History and New Media,” and have some ideas about what I’ll post outside of my responses to the readings. But the reason I’m excited to start this blog is that I can see it going in many different directions, so who knows what it’ll end up looking like in the weeks, months and years ahead.

A little about myself: I’m originally from Washington, D.C., and a big fan of our sports teams (even when they continually break my heart). I received a BA in History from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, where I wrote for the school newspaper and was in the Pep Band (Go Quakers!). I wrote my senior honors thesis on Andrew Jackson’s election, and my historical interest is the U.S. from roughly the Revolutionary Period through the Civil War. I currently work at President Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington D.C., a non-profit historic site where Abraham Lincoln spent 1/4 quarter of his Presidency, including the summer and fall of 1862 when he drafted the Emancipation Proclamation. We’re open 362 days a year for tours, so come visit!

Please follow me on twitter @zachhistoryau, and if you have any questions or comments, write me an email at zk9098 AT american dot edu. Let me know if you have any thoughts on the blog.

To paraphrase one of my favorite Presidents (in case there was any doubt), thanks for joining me as I blog about “The mystic chords of memory” that make up our national history.

-Zach

PS While messing around with some of Word Press’ features, I decide to insert a poll asking about favorite historical eras, plus a few topics. Apologies if my inherent biases as a mostly political historian focused on the U.S. affected the choices. Just wanted to get a broad sense of what people were interested in, so it’s not meant to be exhaustive.