Ashlee
@cluesandcontext.bsky.social
Archivist. Writer. I also do research in history (interested in everything but esp. GA/PE, labor, religion, gender). Someday I may call myself a historian. Midwesterner on the East Coast. The cat is named Merry. Opinions, my own.
Pinned
Ashlee
@cluesandcontext.bsky.social
· Jun 27
Like, I know why but it’s still baffling that these folks hate the effects of Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, and the New Deal
Reposted by Ashlee
Shower thought: way more food is "mostly just grain + cheese + tomato" than you would think
lasagna
spaghetti (marina + parmesan etc)
enchiladas
grilled cheese & tomato soup
nachos if there's salsa
I gotta be missing some
lasagna
spaghetti (marina + parmesan etc)
enchiladas
grilled cheese & tomato soup
nachos if there's salsa
I gotta be missing some
December 22, 2025 at 4:16 AM
Shower thought: way more food is "mostly just grain + cheese + tomato" than you would think
lasagna
spaghetti (marina + parmesan etc)
enchiladas
grilled cheese & tomato soup
nachos if there's salsa
I gotta be missing some
lasagna
spaghetti (marina + parmesan etc)
enchiladas
grilled cheese & tomato soup
nachos if there's salsa
I gotta be missing some
Reposted by Ashlee
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Seems like it's worth posting this one again.
Why Do Historians Still Have To Go To Archives?
Why do historians go to archives? Hasn’t everything already been digitized?
contingentmagazine.org
December 22, 2025 at 1:40 AM
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Reposted by Ashlee
If you want to actually improve archival access, you do that by spending money providing liveable wages and more resources to existing archives and professionalizing the thousands of volunteer-run local repositories. Spending money on AI/genAI isn't helping either.
December 22, 2025 at 2:51 AM
If you want to actually improve archival access, you do that by spending money providing liveable wages and more resources to existing archives and professionalizing the thousands of volunteer-run local repositories. Spending money on AI/genAI isn't helping either.
Reposted by Ashlee
That indeed is the fun of it. I don’t want some entity to do that work for me. And until it becomes more trustworthy, I really don’t see the point of herding everybody into using a tool that is so often wrong.
A big part of being a historian is being a detective! Who did this? Why? Where? Why does it matter in the grand scheme of things? You have to learn how to probe, how to uncover, how to read against the grain, how to find unusual sources, how to interpret those sources. How to piece together a puzzle
It also robs students of learning *how* to research.
December 21, 2025 at 10:28 PM
That indeed is the fun of it. I don’t want some entity to do that work for me. And until it becomes more trustworthy, I really don’t see the point of herding everybody into using a tool that is so often wrong.
Reposted by Ashlee
Seems like it's worth posting this one again.
Why Do Historians Still Have To Go To Archives?
Why do historians go to archives? Hasn’t everything already been digitized?
contingentmagazine.org
December 21, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Seems like it's worth posting this one again.
Reposted by Ashlee
What historians (and other scholars do) is create knowledge. We should use that phrase more and talk about what it means. I think we don't, and it's part of why AI enthusiasts are confused when we don't readily agree that our work can be replicated/replaced by their products.
December 21, 2025 at 8:39 PM
What historians (and other scholars do) is create knowledge. We should use that phrase more and talk about what it means. I think we don't, and it's part of why AI enthusiasts are confused when we don't readily agree that our work can be replicated/replaced by their products.
Reposted by Ashlee
And this is what librarians spend all our time trying to facilitate. Thinking about how stuff is organised, how can we help you find what you don't even know you don't know. It's literally the joy of our profession
December 21, 2025 at 9:06 PM
And this is what librarians spend all our time trying to facilitate. Thinking about how stuff is organised, how can we help you find what you don't even know you don't know. It's literally the joy of our profession
Building on this, “Feeding AI” also devalues the labor of archivists, while endangering original records as well as the authenticity and reliability of the records. People do not understand that end of the work and assume we can just digitize everything. No. No we cannot.
(standing in the NARA reading room, “feeding” a raft of unpublished government documents into AI somehow, as the archivists are definitely applauding me, telling it to find the important stuff)
“Look at me, I’m a historicalian!”
“Look at me, I’m a historicalian!”
December 21, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Building on this, “Feeding AI” also devalues the labor of archivists, while endangering original records as well as the authenticity and reliability of the records. People do not understand that end of the work and assume we can just digitize everything. No. No we cannot.
Reposted by Ashlee
honestly, “it’s because they’re still mad about the New Deal” is a pretty good guiding hypothesis for a lot of stuff
The standard story was that 1950s religious revivals were about contrasting America with the godless commies of the USSR, but I found material that hinted at an older well funded campaign that reframed the revival as a corporate pushback against the New Deal.
So I followed that unexpected thread!
So I followed that unexpected thread!
December 21, 2025 at 4:55 PM
honestly, “it’s because they’re still mad about the New Deal” is a pretty good guiding hypothesis for a lot of stuff
Reposted by Ashlee
I’m sorry but ‘heritage American’ makes you sound like a tomato
December 20, 2025 at 3:39 PM
I’m sorry but ‘heritage American’ makes you sound like a tomato
Reposted by Ashlee
My point is there is no substitute for Deep Work. For wrestling with readings you don't understand. For trying to make connections between 5 things you just read and the context beyond that. AI cannot do this and it robs you of the foundational skills you need in whatever career you choose.
December 21, 2025 at 1:59 PM
My point is there is no substitute for Deep Work. For wrestling with readings you don't understand. For trying to make connections between 5 things you just read and the context beyond that. AI cannot do this and it robs you of the foundational skills you need in whatever career you choose.
Reposted by Ashlee
A big part of being a historian is being a detective! Who did this? Why? Where? Why does it matter in the grand scheme of things? You have to learn how to probe, how to uncover, how to read against the grain, how to find unusual sources, how to interpret those sources. How to piece together a puzzle
It also robs students of learning *how* to research.
December 21, 2025 at 2:01 PM
A big part of being a historian is being a detective! Who did this? Why? Where? Why does it matter in the grand scheme of things? You have to learn how to probe, how to uncover, how to read against the grain, how to find unusual sources, how to interpret those sources. How to piece together a puzzle
Reposted by Ashlee
Suffragists didn't just march. They baked, held bake sales and sold cookbooks to raise money for the cause of equality.
The cookies that fueled votes for women
Suffragists didn't just march. They baked, held bake sales and sold cookbooks to raise money for the cause of equality.
n.pr
December 19, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Suffragists didn't just march. They baked, held bake sales and sold cookbooks to raise money for the cause of equality.
Reposted by Ashlee
🚨 WIND ALERT
Winds to ramp up rapidly this afternoon, spreading W to E from noon–2p. Already seeing 60 mph gusts in Cumberland, Md.
Strongest winds W & NW of DC, esp at higher elevations, but gusts of 45–55 mph poss Beltway area.
🌳 Downed trees, isolated power outages poss.
👉 Updates at cwg.live
Winds to ramp up rapidly this afternoon, spreading W to E from noon–2p. Already seeing 60 mph gusts in Cumberland, Md.
Strongest winds W & NW of DC, esp at higher elevations, but gusts of 45–55 mph poss Beltway area.
🌳 Downed trees, isolated power outages poss.
👉 Updates at cwg.live
December 19, 2025 at 4:46 PM
🚨 WIND ALERT
Winds to ramp up rapidly this afternoon, spreading W to E from noon–2p. Already seeing 60 mph gusts in Cumberland, Md.
Strongest winds W & NW of DC, esp at higher elevations, but gusts of 45–55 mph poss Beltway area.
🌳 Downed trees, isolated power outages poss.
👉 Updates at cwg.live
Winds to ramp up rapidly this afternoon, spreading W to E from noon–2p. Already seeing 60 mph gusts in Cumberland, Md.
Strongest winds W & NW of DC, esp at higher elevations, but gusts of 45–55 mph poss Beltway area.
🌳 Downed trees, isolated power outages poss.
👉 Updates at cwg.live
Reposted by Ashlee
Reminder: Volatile weather day Friday.
* Gusty downpours barge thru 6-9a
* Temperatures plummet. 55-60F early but falling into 40s in afternoon.
* Wind advisory in afternoon for gusts to 45-55 mph.
Detailed forecast at cwg.live
* Gusty downpours barge thru 6-9a
* Temperatures plummet. 55-60F early but falling into 40s in afternoon.
* Wind advisory in afternoon for gusts to 45-55 mph.
Detailed forecast at cwg.live
December 19, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Reminder: Volatile weather day Friday.
* Gusty downpours barge thru 6-9a
* Temperatures plummet. 55-60F early but falling into 40s in afternoon.
* Wind advisory in afternoon for gusts to 45-55 mph.
Detailed forecast at cwg.live
* Gusty downpours barge thru 6-9a
* Temperatures plummet. 55-60F early but falling into 40s in afternoon.
* Wind advisory in afternoon for gusts to 45-55 mph.
Detailed forecast at cwg.live
Saw the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope today. It’s very big, and very cool, and I want my tax money to go to things like that.
December 19, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Saw the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope today. It’s very big, and very cool, and I want my tax money to go to things like that.
Reposted by Ashlee
Just to be clear. It’s the John F Kennedy center legally.
Just like it’s still the department of defense
Just like it’s still the department of defense
December 18, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Just to be clear. It’s the John F Kennedy center legally.
Just like it’s still the department of defense
Just like it’s still the department of defense
Reposted by Ashlee
James Garfield is often portrayed as a good man in an age of bad governance—but the real story is a little more complicated, Jake Lundberg writes in Time-Travel Thursdays.
When One Honest Politician Isn’t Enough
James Garfield is often portrayed as a good man in an age of bad governance, but the real story is a little more complicated.
bit.ly
December 18, 2025 at 11:30 PM
James Garfield is often portrayed as a good man in an age of bad governance—but the real story is a little more complicated, Jake Lundberg writes in Time-Travel Thursdays.
Reposted by Ashlee
I see solely from my TL that the president is having a normal one
December 18, 2025 at 2:22 AM
I see solely from my TL that the president is having a normal one
Reposted by Ashlee
“And then when we were finished, he comes up to me to shake my hand and say goodbye. And he says to me, "You know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people." And I looked at him and I said, "You know, you do, too."
The moral core of the feature, the photos, all of it.
The moral core of the feature, the photos, all of it.
December 18, 2025 at 1:44 AM
“And then when we were finished, he comes up to me to shake my hand and say goodbye. And he says to me, "You know, you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to people." And I looked at him and I said, "You know, you do, too."
The moral core of the feature, the photos, all of it.
The moral core of the feature, the photos, all of it.
Reposted by Ashlee
Photographers are journalists.
That is all.
That is all.
December 18, 2025 at 1:25 AM
Photographers are journalists.
That is all.
That is all.
Reposted by Ashlee
This kind of statement would once be made inside the most rarified councils of state, some ultralimited Special Group, wherein POTUS & his most trusted advisors would commit to never putting anything in writing yet some handwritten archival scrap excavated 50 years later would reveal the truth.
Trump on Venezuela: "Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had -- they took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn't watching. But they're not gonna do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. They threw our companies out. And we want it back."
December 17, 2025 at 9:38 PM
This kind of statement would once be made inside the most rarified councils of state, some ultralimited Special Group, wherein POTUS & his most trusted advisors would commit to never putting anything in writing yet some handwritten archival scrap excavated 50 years later would reveal the truth.
Reposted by Ashlee
I still can't believe they're trying to make a war happen out of thin air. Not just their abrogation of Congress's role in formally declaring a war -- that's been a slippery slope for decades -- but their total unwillingness even to go through the motions of drumming up public support.
December 17, 2025 at 9:23 PM
I still can't believe they're trying to make a war happen out of thin air. Not just their abrogation of Congress's role in formally declaring a war -- that's been a slippery slope for decades -- but their total unwillingness even to go through the motions of drumming up public support.
Reposted by Ashlee
In honor of Rob Reiner, I wrote about the Michael Stivic / Archie Bunker dynamic, the dual-fission reactor that powered "All in the Family" [giftie] www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/a...
As Archie Bunker’s Foil, Rob Reiner Brought Politics Home
www.nytimes.com
December 15, 2025 at 7:56 PM
In honor of Rob Reiner, I wrote about the Michael Stivic / Archie Bunker dynamic, the dual-fission reactor that powered "All in the Family" [giftie] www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/a...
Reposted by Ashlee
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.
December 15, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.