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Phil Feller

@philfeller.bsky.social
234 followers 138 following 933 posts

IT professional and scholar of 19th century American political culture. Currently working on a microhistory of the 1855 Know Nothing triumph, part of a project exploring the continuation of antebellum republican thought into the Progressive Era.

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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Rochester, NY, has a monument at the place where Susan B. Anthony cast a vote in the 1872 presidential election. Although she’d talked a registrar into adding her to the voter list, she was convicted of voting illegally and fined $100. 🗃️
An outdoor monument depicting a 19th century ballot box
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Make a band bigger. Joy Corps
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The house I owned in Troy, NY, was briefly shown in two Gilded Age Scenes. The RPI fraternity I played hockey for also shows up in period dramas (beginning with The Age of Innocence and including The Gilded Age). Troy was used as a location for The Time Machine when I lived there.
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
On the way from Lancaster to Philadelphia I stopped in Christiana to see if there is any public commemoration of the 1851 Resistance, a major act opposing the Fugitive Slave Act. I found a rather odd interpretation, including the statement that a slave catcher “died for law.” 🗃️
Two sides of a monument in Christiana, PA, stating its purpose to commemorate the “Christiana Riot,” and listing the names of those tried for treason in its aftermath.Two sides of an obelisk monument in Christiana, PA, describing Castner Hanway, the first person to be tried for treason for resisting the Fugitive Slave Act, as having “suffered for freedom.” It describes Edward Gorsuch, the enslaver and slave catcher who was killed by the resistors as having “died for law.”
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
I’m in Lancaster this weekend, rather than at SHEAR, and took the opportunity to visit the new Stevens and Smith Center. I particularly liked the way that it contextualized Stevens’ life in Lancaster and presented Smith as a political actor in her own right. 🗃️ stevensandsmithcenter.org
Museum room at the Stevens and Smith Center that interprets how Lydia Hamilton Smith managed Thaddeus Stevens’ household, including in its role as a locus for political activity.
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
I always visit Douglass’s grave when back in my home town, and Juneteenth was the obvious day to go this time. 🗃️
Frederick Douglass’s grave in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, NY.Monument to Douglass in Highland Park, near Mount Hope Cemetery.
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
I realized when preparing the paper that I presented yesterday at APHC that it involved at literal panic at a Lyceum. I briefly spoke about how a young men’s Lyceum responded politically to a local financial panic that bankrupted potential employers.
I present my paper without panicking (much).
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
I’m always happy to contribute cat photos to the internet.
Female tuxedo cat sleeping on luggage that I’d hoped to pack.
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Having a great time at APHC and looking forward to my presentation tomorrow. It’s been great to hear the presentations this morning and meet other 19th century political historians. @adamrothman.bsky.social was gracious enough to lie and say that I held my own in wordplay.
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Introduce yourself with ten bands you’ve seen live: Neutral Milk Hotel Sharon Van Etten Son Volt The Psychedelic Furs Bruce Springsteen Elvis Costello Pet Shop Boys Metric Wye Oak The Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Wyna Liu finally has a badge that recognizes my quest for reverse rainbows.
New York Times Connections statistics page, including the new “Reverse Rainbow” badge
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
After checking newspaper databases, I think that I have an answer to my question from last week. “The principles of ‘93” appears to be shorthand for some form of Jeffersonian republicanism. 🗃️
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Have any #skystorians come across the phrase “principles of ‘93?” An 1854 announcement for a Connecticut Young Men’s Institute newspaper described it as devoted to those principles. Is it Jeffersonianism?
“The Voice of the Institute announces that the Meriden, CT, Young Men’s Institute will be publishing a paper that is “entirely original, racy, and well filled,—devoted to the interests of Meriden, the welfare of the young, and “the great principles of ‘93.”
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Post a banger that’s not in English. youtu.be/8soQkubMk1g?...
youtu.be
Plastic Bertrand - Ça plane pour moi (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Plastic Bertrand
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Do any historians know what type of certificate would possibly be useful for a voter in a 1853 Connecticut election? It’s far too early for it to have been a birth certificate, and a naturalization certificate seems unlikely to be important for Whig voters after 1852. 🗃️
Certificates

Whigs! Look to the matter of procuring certificates. Learn in season who is in want of them, and procure them at once.
Certificates may be procured by application to Asahel H. Curtiss and Geo. W. Rogers.
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
What’s your favorite song that has a long title, say at least 6 words long? “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand” (Primitive Radio Gods) Honorable mention to Sufjan Stevens, although my favorites among his songs all have shorter titles.
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
I came across a CT newspaper account of the 1851 Christiana Resistance during my research. An organized group of free and formerly enslaved Blacks fought off an attempt to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, blowing a horn to summon reinforcements. 1/3 🗃️
9/20/1851 account of the Christiana Resistance in the Connecticut Organ.
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
I’ve been working on the politics of the 1850s. Although I will focus on how local leaders crafted a rhetorical strategy to help assemble a winning electoral coalition, I’ve also looked into whether updated ecological regression tools can help. 🗃️ 1/4 philfeller.github.io/election-inf...
philfeller.github.io
Connecticut Voter Transitions, 1851-1857
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
Post a perfect album from the 90s.
Cover of Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
I’ve realized one life goal: playing the NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle on air. www.npr.org/2025/11/16/g...
npr.org
Sunday Puzzle: Name's the Same
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe plays the puzzle with Phil Feller of Durham, North Carolina, and Weekend Edition Puzzlemaster Will Shortz.
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
You’ve probably seen that xAI launched Grokipedia, its LLM-created alternative to Wikipedia. I looked at its article on the Know Nothings, and it didn’t take long to find a problem. It made an unconventional claim, and the provided citation failed to support it. 1/ 🗃️ grokipedia.com/page/Know_No...
grokipedia.com
Know Nothing
The Know Nothing, more formally the American Party from 1855 onward, was a nativist political movement and party active in the United States from the 1840s through the 1850s, distinguished by its vehe...
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
I’ve suspected that right-wing fascination with René Girard might come from reading his theory of mimetic desire through the lens of Carl Schmitt. In the specific case of Peter Thiel, that seems to be the case. www.wired.com/story/the-re...
wired.com
The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession
Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since.
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. 🗃️
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
I’m in Lancaster, PA, for the weekend, and I discovered that our Airbnb has a famous neighbor. #skystorians
Grave of Thaddeus Stevens.
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Reposted by Phil Feller
b-eichengreen.bsky.social @b-eichengreen.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
"This Bill Will Return Us to an Era of Economic Chaos" www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | This Bill Will Return Us to an Era of Economic Chaos
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Historians have been discussing the NYT piece about AI and history writing, and I largely agree with what they’ve written about it. However, there’s one part to it that I haven’t seen discussed: the way that academic historian Mark Humphries uses AI. 1/ #skystorians
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
This thread provides smart analysis of the civic symbolism encoded into previous military parades through DC and the one planned for today. #skystorians
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Phil Feller @philfeller.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
UNC Press notes two recent events that it worries may signal attempts to silence its authors’ voices. Most recently, a scheduled talk to U. S. Attorneys about lawyers’ role in Nazi Germany was abruptly canceled before an outcry led to its reinstatement. uncpressblog.com/2025/01/31/a... #skystorians
uncpressblog.com
Academic Freedom and Open Discourse - UNC Press Blog
For over 100 years UNC Press has championed the principles of academic freedom, open discourse, and the free exchange of ideas—values essential to a democratic society and the pursuit of knowledge.  R...
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