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Mailbag

The mailbag is for all your questions about the nuts and bolts of doing history. How to research a topic, utilize an archive, navigate an issue in the classroom, make sense out of a primary (or secondary!) source—broad or narrow, solemn or goofy, hit us up with your question and we’ll answer it, or find someone who can.

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Mailbag

When Is History Advocacy?

By Nick DeLuca | March 30, 2025

Advocacy should not be a dirty word.

Mailbag

What Does A Public History Consultant Do?

By Nicole Belolan | February 25, 2025

There are so many wonderful opportunities in this field. Sometimes, you create your own.

Mailbag

Are You Making Money As A Consultant?

By Nicole Belolan | February 18, 2025

When I tell people I’m a consulting public historian, this is how they respond.

Mailbag

How Do You Do Research For A Podcast?

By JJ Bersch | August 31, 2023

Any historian knows that it is crucial to write to your audience. I’m writing to two audiences.

Mailbag

Why Do Archivists Get Rid Of Things (And Enjoy It)?

By Sarah Calise | November 11, 2022

Just because something is cool doesn’t mean it belongs in an archive.

Mailbag

Why Can’t You Just Keep Doing Your Research on the Side?

By Zeb Larson | June 6, 2022

Frankly, even if I could, I wouldn’t want to.

Mailbag

Who Do Historians Write For?

By N.A. Mansour | May 28, 2022

“I want my reader to enjoy reading it as much as I want to challenge myself writing it.”

Mailbag

What If… Historians Were Honest About Counterfactuals?

By Adam Shapiro | May 5, 2022

A single choice can branch out to infinite realities.

Mailbag

Why Can’t You Just Get A Job At Your Partner’s School?

By Chris Bouton | March 17, 2022

If an academic couple can’t get a partner hire, they’re faced with a life-changing choice.

Mailbag

Why Wasn’t This in My Textbook?

By Adam Shapiro | February 13, 2022

In both versions of this question, the assumption is that there’s a pure history out there somewhere, perhaps with answers in the appendix.

Mailbag

How Do You Publish A Book Off The Tenure Track?

By Tanya Roth | August 1, 2021

Publishing off the tenure-track is possible, but not without its challenges.

Featured in Category

How Do You Write A Biography?

By Narayani Basu | May 21, 2020

For this historian, the key in telling her subject’s story was to marry the personal with the public, as honestly as it might be possible to do.

Mailbag

The Five Oral History Commandments

By Kate Dahlstrand | April 21, 2020

Start at the beginning. Work towards the present day. This sounds simple, but it often gets overlooked.

Mailbag

Don’t We Have To Judge People By The Standards Of Their Time?

By Erin Bartram | January 25, 2020

Many who reach for this cliché want it to function as a shield against judgment altogether.

Mailbag

Why Do Historians Go To Conferences?

By Marc Reyes | January 11, 2020

Packs of historians roam the streets, name tags flapping in the breeze, only to disappear into hotel conference rooms for hours at a time. What are they doing in there? And why?

Mailbag

What Is Revisionist History?

By Erin Bartram | August 8, 2019

What is revisionist history–and is it dangerous?

Mailbag

Why Do Historians Still Have To Go To Archives?

By Marc Reyes | March 25, 2019

Why do historians go to archives? Hasn’t everything already been digitized?

Mailbag

How Much Money Do Historians Make From Their Writing?

By Erin Bartram | March 17, 2019

In general, academic writing doesn’t earn you anything, and most of the time, it costs you.

Mailbag

What Are the Different Kinds of College Faculty?

By Bill Black | March 9, 2019

Their jobs and salaries may differ, but you should still call them “Professor.”

Mailbag

What Does “Contingency” Mean?

By Bill Black | March 9, 2019

When are you supposed to call your instructor a professor?

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