Sign in

David Patrick McKenzie

@dpmckenzie.bsky.social
2.1K followers 2.2K following 123 posts

Versatile public historian & professor. Public history, museums, US-LatAm hist, hist memory. Formerly of Folger, Ford’s Theatre, Capital Jewish Museum, Design Minds, Alamo. SATX->Pgh->ElSal->DC/NoVa->GSO.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 30/09/2026
Do your find it surprising that there are more than 21k history orgs in the U.S.? Or that 80% of nonprofit history institutions are run by volunteers? Or that a third of all history orgs are operated as part of government? If so, come join me for a webinar in a couple weeks.
0103
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
In the ACC, a team from SC playing a team from NC should only mean South Carolina vs North Carolina or Southern California vs Northern California, not… A team from South Carolina vs a team from Northern California playing an Atlantic Coast Conference game on the Pacific Coast. 🤔
021
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Who's going to Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS) in March and might be up for forming a panel with me? I'm proposing to present on how U.S. citizens with claims against Mexico—esp John Baldwin, my main figure—advocated in the late 1830s & early 1840s. Others with related?
052
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Tim Muth @timmuth.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The US government leaves 170,000 Salvadorans who have lived in the US for more than 25 years in limbo over whether they may face removal from the country where they have built lives. I summarize where this stands from US and Salvadoran perspectives. timmuth.substack.com/p/confusion-...
timmuth.substack.com
Confusion over Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador
The designation for El Salvador had an expiration date this past Wednesday. 170,000 are in limbo as the US says it will make an announcement “when appropriate.”
001
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 13/09/2026
President Trump just cannot help keeping my book relevant. A reminder as always to my media followers that if you need someone to talk about how we remember George Washington and slavery who has context of public history work, I’m easy to find. www.amazon.com/Thy-Will-Be-...
amazon.com
Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory: Marks, John Garrison: 9781469693521: Amazon.com: Books
Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory [Marks, John Garrison] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Thy Will Be Done: George Washingto...
215342
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Pope Leo XIV holding a copy of Zachary M. Schrag, The Fires of Philadelphia: Citizen-Soldiers, Nativists, and the 1844 Riots Over the Soul of a Nation (Pegasus, 2021). This really happened.
814817
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Jacqueline Beatty, Ph.D. @jmbeatty.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Grab a paperback copy of *In Dependence* for just $15 (!!!!) with the @nyupress.bsky.social 50% off sale using code NYUP50 (through 8/31). nyupress.org/978147984231...
nyupress.org
In Dependence
Examines the role of the American Revolution in the everyday lives of womenPatriarchal forces of law, finance, and social custom restricted women’s rights ...
042
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Ben Railton @americanstudier.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
#ScholarSunday on a Saturday is just as full o’ public scholarly goodness as always! Check it out for yourself, & if you see this & are able, please share widely to get all this great work out there, thanks! 🗃️ @hcrichardson.bsky.social
16736
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Ben Railton @americanstudier.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
August is here, & with it my 287th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, please share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️ + blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...
blackwhiteandread.com
#ScholarSunday Thread 287 (8/2/26) – Black and White and Read All Over
August is here, & with it my 287th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the past week. Add more below, please share as widely ...
35338
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 27/07/2026
Ahem, I think I know how the story goes. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...
theatlantic.com
How the Trump Administration Made George Washington an Abolitionist
In Philadelphia, the Park Service now downplays the importance of slavery to understanding the first president.
071
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
When writing an academic narrative nonfiction/crossover book, it's especially a delight to find a primary source that not only helps answer a question & advance an argument, but adds color. In 1841, my main figure, John Baldwin, wrote to H.M. Brackenridge. digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/ob...
digital.library.pitt.edu
Verifying Connection
130
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 25/07/2026
I’m published in The Atlantic.
0132
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Toni Salazar L., PhD 🧿🇲🇽 @mexhistorian.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
So is Spain being invited to the White House for McDonald's?
061
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
A compelling case for identification—and a good read in a fascinating person, to boot. Also appreciate the shout-out to archivists.
120
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Was just talking to a coworker about the “they changed my family’s name at Ellis Island” myth and she wanted to read more. Other than a day of everyone being mad at historians on here about this some time last year, are there any sources I can point her to to read more? (She is an academic.)
8278
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Lady Postseason, Himbos at Her Feet (she/her) @maggiesox.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Make them go through the exhibits before you let them out.
1172
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Gina Dalfonzo @ginadalfonzo.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Spaceballs just became real life, folks.
static.klipy.com
Spaceballs: What Am I Looking At?
Alt: Spaceballs: What the Hell Am I Looking At?
28426
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
When news reached Mexico of one of history’s great coincidences—the deaths of Jefferson and Adams on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence 200 years ago today—the U.S. Minister there, Joel Poinsett, asked US citizens living in Mexico to wear mourning bands for 30 days.
132
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
Abe Lincoln vs. the "heritage American" crowd, 1858: It doesn't matter where your ancestors were in 1776. Americans who read the Declaration and affirm its creed "have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote [it] ...and so they are."
We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian—men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, (loud and long continued applause) and so they are.
11794250
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 04/07/2026
Been a long road for me to get to today. Happy 4th, don’t let the bastards take it from you.
1328
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Rachel Hope Cleves @rachelcleves.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
An open letter, to readers, about Charity and Sylvia. I am very pained to feel the need to write this. #queerhistory #pride
1122270719
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
In addition to erasing indigenous history, the perception that everything in the US is new/modern really ignores how much older many things on the Eastern Seaboard are--buildings and roads and the choices made about were to put them.
3678
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 21/06/2026
‘Father’ and ‘dad’ are synonyms. ‘Figure’ and ‘bod’ are synonyms. But, a ‘father figure’ and a ‘dad bod’ aren’t exactly the same thing…
6665471594
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Remembering the day a group of friends and I were excited to see toys we grew up with in the gift shop at National Museum of American History… Only to look up and see a sign saying something like “Vintage Toys” 😂🤦‍♂️
001
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Working two events that attracted conspiracy theorists was quite a trip. While the central story at Ford’s Theatre was literally a conspiracy, some claimed it went much further—like the guy who showed up for 150th of Lincoln assassination with 9-foot sign claiming papal involvement in said event.
130
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
We are in mailbag heaven at the magazine this year, and this is the latest and greatest. I would love to hear the conspiracy theories that you encounter when talking about your work with people outside the field. Do you take the same approaches as Lorna?
53612
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Watching Haiti play Brazil in Philadelphia reminds me of a story from my research on U.S. citizens in Mexico that especially intrigued me: that of Theodore Ducoing, born in Philadelphia in 1810. His mother was born in 1789 in what was then Cap-François, Saint-Domingue—today Cap-Haïtien, Haiti.
140
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 20/06/2026
Brazil/Haiti on Juneteenth makes me feel like I’m back in grad school.
2141
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Christopher Jones @ccjones.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Haiti was the first nation in the Americas to abolish slavery (1804). Brazil was the last (1888).
0222
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
The summer PI is out! Erika Valdivieso discusses Latin American classical reception, Virgil & her new book. Then, ancient Cypriot pigeons, a new game board from medieval Morocco, @proflroach.bsky.social remembers Rosamond McKitterick, ancient world journals by @yaleclassicslib.bsky.social & more.
pasts-imperfect.ghost.io
Pasts Imperfect (6.18.26)
This week, classicist Erika Valdivieso discusses new directions in Latin American classical reception, Virgil, and her new book, Empire’s Companion: Virgilian Epics from Colonial Iberoamerica. Then, a...
18234
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 18/06/2026
There's a reason the Confederacy inaugurated its permanent government in Richmond on George Washington's birthday, in front of a giant statue of George Washington. He's also in the middle of the official seal of the Confederacy.
1144
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Ben Railton @americanstudier.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Need a distraction from the Idiocracy tonight? Try all the amazing public scholarship in today’s 280th weekly #ScholarSunday thread! Share widely & enjoy, all! 🗃️ @hcrichardson.bsky.social
210232
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
For all the talk of genocide elsewhere, this is going to end up as the largest scale mass killing event in modern history. A crime against humanity & the rule of law of almost unimaginable proportions for which Musk must be marched in chains to the courthouse & then to jail for the rest of his life.
581909648
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Future historian department: -Front page of today's NYT reports creation of world's first trillionaire. -Lead op-ed of same NYT is about worst-ever Ebola outbreak, which *this VERY SAME trillionaire* enabled, with his "chainsaw" destruction of US public health in the world. The book writes itself
4135201024
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Yeahhhh… Let’s be more consistent tonight, Spurs
020
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
W. Caleb McDaniel @wcaleb.org · 08/06/2026
On June 19, 1866, Black Texans marked the first anniversary of Juneteenth. But where and how was that day first publicly celebrated? My new article, “The First Juneteenth,” explores those questions and finds some surprising answers in Houston. www.alliancefortexashistory.org/juneteent…
42914
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
David Rotenstein, Curator, Shrouded in Secrecy Archives @davidrotenstein.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Journalists really need to do better.
051
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Sean Blinn 🇺🇦 @themuseumguy.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Hoping to go to AASLH in September? There’s a scholarship for people from small museums to help defray costs. Deadline is tomorrow but the application isn’t hard. Details at www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZC6TNF6 #museum
surveymonkey.com
2026 Small Museums Scholarship
Take this survey powered by surveymonkey.com. Create your own surveys for free.
003
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
What. did. I. just. watch.?! Congratulations Knicks, you deserve this. Dagger in the heart.
020
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Kacey Musgraves on the speakers in a coffee shop seems an appropriate soundtrack as I draft course materials for a writing seminar on Texas Revolution, U.S.-Mexican War, and memory thereof.
010
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Not to be an unpaid rep for the international sites of conscience but my mentions over the past 12 hours have been a real example of what happens when the four parts of the arc of dialogue go to war with each other.
171
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Enjoying @rachelgracenewman.bsky.social’s new book—congratulations on publication!
A book entitled “The Future in Their Hands: Making Mexico’s Foreign-Educsted Elite” by Rachel Grance Newman.
050
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Apropos of the Zotero conversation, this post I did about technology and research management is 10 years old but I think some of the advice is sound. It's also a good reminder of how very new/newly accessible many tools are.
usreligion.blogspot.com
Research Tools and the Dissertation II
Today's post comes to us from Erin Bartram. Erin completed her Ph.D. in December 2015 at the University of Connecticut. She studies 19th cen...
1286
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Getting moving on one of my summer goals: rough draft book proposal. After fits and starts working on it while working other jobs full-time and life happening (including fitting in a narrative nonfiction writing class during Folger long-term exhibit installation), focusing again.
A laptop computer and coffee framed by two books: The Book Proposal Book and The Dissertation to Book Workbook, insa coffeeshop scene.
290
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Historian Jack Davis on the American Revolution on the Gulf Coast, featuring many public historians. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/travel/g…
000
David Patrick McKenzie @dpmckenzie.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
#RaceForSeis
A lit tall prayer candle with the logo of the San Antonio Spurs
040
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 28/05/2026
So, instead of continuing a six-decade tradition of celebrating American multiculturalism, we get Kid Rock.
0104
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 27/05/2026
Something I would find useful would be an undergrad-friendly history of AI, from perceptron to transformer, explaining the rise of different ideas, the “AI winter,” etc. I know of encyclopedia articles that don’t quite do that and books that tell the story at length, but I need a v concise version.
3214325
Reposted by David Patrick McKenzie
John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 27/05/2026
Do not let the White House convince you that they are dictating what happens for the 250th. They're doing a bunch of stuff, but it's all fleeting spectacle. There is genuine, thoughtful, history-focused programming happening all over the United States. Get offline and go find it.
9469152