​In the early days of a project, all is new, all directions possible, no conclusions are fixed. It’s an exciting time of discovery, to formulate hypothesis, test them against the evidence, change course as needed, and see where the research takes you.
 
When I started the project on Daisy Lampkin I knew that I would be learning new things about race and gender and class in America, about how the suffrage movement influenced the civil rights movement, and about how African American women such as Daisy made their entrée into such networks. I also expected to learn, and am learning, a great deal about how local communities, including cultural and political powerbases, related to larger patterns of national influence. What I didn’t realize at the beginning was the role that technology would be playing in the narrative:

​I am thrilled and delighted to observe that Calvin Stovall has been nominated by the NAACP’s Image Awards for Outstanding Literary Work, Non-Fiction, for his Hidden Hospitality: Untold Stories of Black Hotel, Motel, and Resort Owners from the Pioneer Days to the Civil Rights Era. I was privileged to work with Calvin on this book as his editor.

This was a passion project for Calvin, but also an intense investigation of Black hoteliery and hospitality from colonial days to the present. Given the realities of segregation, many Black travelers were prohibited from finding accommodation as they travelled. The response was a vibrant landscape of Black hotels, restaurants, and resorts where not only could weary travelers find respite, but several generations of Black entertainers found employment, started careers, and made names for themselves. It is therefore not only a story of Black entrepreneurship, but also of Black community and Black joy. Beyond that, Calvin also shows how many enterprises thrived, allowing proprietors to become stolid community members and even political power brokers in their own right. The upshot of this is that many Black-owned hotels and restaurants became vital headquarters and meeting grounds for activists during the long civil rights era.
 
Calvin’s work has inspired my current research into Daisy Lampkin. Lampkin’s husband, William, was a restaurateur in the Pittsburgh area. Daisy and William also spent many summers on the road, traveling to Idlewild in Michigan or Morris Beach, New Jersey, near Atlantic City, which Calvin shows were among the several vibrant resorts of which Black travelers availed themselves.
 
Great work, Calvin! Can’t wait to read what you’ve got in store for us next!

I get asked from time to time why I call my business and my website “FractalPast”? A fractal is a mathematical concept, a geometry that comprises “a never-ending pattern.” According to the Fractal Foundation, “Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales.” At every level of magnification, in other words, a fractal repeats itself in the same pattern. YouTube videos of fractal patterns can either relax or drive you mad—either way Pink Floyd on the turntable may be necessary.

We’ve been discussing on the blog whether and under what circumstances one finds it acceptable to violate conventional grammar rules. A good example of my “Never say never, but . . .” attitude toward breaking the rules concerns the use of adverbs. Let’s take a moment to understand why many writers and editors often give the side-eye to adverbs:

It pains me to observe the dismantling of a US-led global order that took decades to build. Institutions such as USAID have been razed, often in mere days. NATO is evaporating before our very eyes. While the institutions are important, the foundational block of that global order was always trust. Violent though it could be at times, American global hegemony was not imposed so much as coaxed.* Now that trust is gone, American ability to advance US interests through persuasion is also gone.

For generations, in the mirrored halls of European diplomacy, Americans suffered the reputation of being impatient, flippant, unreliable, and certainly manipulable. Much of the diplomacy of World War II was conducted into the headwinds of European suspicions that the Americans would never carry through on their promises. After the war, as the Cold War unfolded a world in which long-term commitments would be vital, the Americans redoubled their efforts to reassure their allies, to prove their staying power, or “credibility” as successive presidents put it. Now, the Trump administration’s kowtowing to dictators, unilateralism in Venezuela, unaccountable territorial fixation on Greenland, and contempt for the US-led international trading system has swept away the trust that countless Americans had built.
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The first postwar down payment on American credibility was the Marshall Plan, one of the great triumphs about which one fears most Americans today are largely ignorant. Contrary to myth, the Marshall Plan was not a gigantic grant of cash. It was not a blank check. It was, for all its imperfections, a deeply considered and thoughtfully pursued partnership between the US and the sixteen European countries that participated. A sizable chunk of my book focuses on the Marshall Plan, its transformative energies, and the ways in which Dutch policymakers accepted some of those energies while resisting others. What follows is a brief history of the signature US foreign policy of the twentieth century:

Happy MLK Day everyone. A brief reflection:
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To me, the most important aspect of the impressive and moving MLK memorial in Washington, D.C., is the way it looks out over the Tidal Basin to Jefferson: the great prophet of justice keeping vigil on the high priest of democracy, eternally waiting for what we preach to travel the distance to what we practice.

​The Nobel Peace Prize has long fascinated, perplexed, even bewildered observers. Nobody has ever been as obsessed with the prize as President Trump, however. Trump’s weird fixation has forced the Nobel committee to the unusual step of publicly asserting its sole prerogative to award the prize and to insist that it is not transferable. Despite Trump's debasement and other controversies, the committee entrusted to safeguard the legacy of the Nobel Peace Prize has, on the whole, conducted itself with honor. A brief history: