Author Archives: michaeljdouma
Trans-arctic Internet
I basically live in the 19th century, so when I see an article like this, I respond like I would in the year 1847: “Our best sailing ships have been unable to make it through that ice!! And you you propose to bury this cable 13 feet below the sea floor?! Are you mad?! This […]
Faroese-Americans: Some Preliminary Research on an Immigrant Group without a Written History
Around the year 2010, I began researching the history of migration from the Faroe Islands to the United States. I had become fascinated with the history of the Faroe Islands, and I read everything I could find about that 18-island archipelago roughly equidistant between Scotland, Norway, and Iceland. Settled by the Norse perhaps as […]
Historian Wanted
In the May, 2016, issue of the AHA’s magazine Perspectives on History there is an absolute gem of a silly job advertisement. Well, to echo the text, it is not a “job offering” but a “relationship that would offer income supplementation.” Sounds a bit sketchy. What kind of relationship is this? At any rate, the […]
Reviewer #2 is a Jerk.
Let’s face it. Reviewer #2 is a always jerk. There is no list of peer-reviewers who might serve as the second reviewer, there is only one “Reviewer #2” and he is called on to read every article you write. Reviewer #1 is basically Julie Andrews dancing on a mountainside somewhere, singing praises about your article. […]
Historical Narrative and Personality Development
I think that reading history make you a better person, more sympathetic to others, more critical in your analysis, more skeptical of standing interpretations, more knowledgeable of the world. Why is this? How can reading history make us better people? I think stories help us relate to others. By telling ourselves stories, we also build […]
Mailings
History writing is about making connections to other people. Now that my article about antique stores has been published, I’m mailing copies to all of the antique store owners I interviewed in my project. Other projects include framing my circa 2002 Dutch anti-war posters.
Maryland Colonial 2/3rds of a Dollar
Hipster coffee shops in Maryland only accept cash, but they I can’t get any of them to accept this legal tender, a re-sown 2/3rds of a dollar bill.
Tracking down the descendants
Why do family photographs end up discarded? Why do we find them for sale at antique stores? In many cases, antique store photographs come from the shoebox files of distant relatives or long-ago friends of the photographed. When the owner of the photographs passes away, and a son or daughter rifles through the shoebox, they […]
Michael J Douma 