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Stephen West

@stephenwest.bsky.social
9.6K followers 1.1K following 6.1K posts

Historian of Civil War & Reconstruction. Bicyclist, baker, 3d favorite human of Banjo the dog. Views=mine, repost ≠endorsement

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Reposted by Stephen West
Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 20h
Pity poor Hannibal Hamlin - and the course of the nation's history www.loc.gov/resource/lpr...
Banner reading "Lincoln and Johnson Club" with a beardless portrait of Lincoln.
It was previously used in 1860. The name Hamlin has been cut out and a patch with the name Johnson sewn in.
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 10h
“Stunningly, the Court acquiesces.”
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 20h
Pity poor Hannibal Hamlin - and the course of the nation's history www.loc.gov/resource/lpr...
Banner reading "Lincoln and Johnson Club" with a beardless portrait of Lincoln.
It was previously used in 1860. The name Hamlin has been cut out and a patch with the name Johnson sewn in.
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Keri Leigh Merritt @kerileighmerritt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Today is book release day!!! So thrilled that An Inconvenient Woman is finally out after years of research & writing. Thanks to everyone who has ordered or told their library to order - I truly appreciate you!♥️♥️♥️ @stmartinspress.bsky.social us.macmillan.com/books/978125...
us.macmillan.com
An Inconvenient Woman
A revelatory and immersive biography of a white Southern woman who was a key figure in the early civil rights movement, devoting her life to ending segregati...
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Daniel Drezner @dandrezner.bsky.social · 22h
As a Williams College alum I’m… less than thrilled that I need to push back on this Williams professor.
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Snipers and ammo and drones! Or maybe not.
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Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahaha. Puh-leez
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Pam Herd @pamherd.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
America.gov launched today--a DOGE initiative to use AI to deliver public services. Child lying facedown on a frozen lake as the image accompanying the question: "How can I invest in my child's future" is just incredible. Way to go AI
Image of a child lying facedown on a froze lake.  above is the portal where you ask AI questions about government services.  the question matching this image is:  "How can I invest in my child's future?"
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Elizabeth Joh @elizabethjoh.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
A new episode is out! @romanmars.bsky.social & I talk about free pianos, ripe cases, and how we nearly had a midterms mail disaster—listen here! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...
podcasts.apple.com
Nonmailable Matter
Podcast Episode · What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law · September 26 · 48m
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Kathryn Brightbill ✒️ @kebrightbill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops' gubernatorial candidate comparison sheet is interesting, because the way it describes policies uses the least inflammatory language possible for issues where David Jolly's policies disagree with Catholic Church stances. files.ecatholic.com/11291/docume...
FLORIDA CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS

GUBERNATORIAL COMPARISON

DAVID JOLLY Democrat

BYRON DONALDS Republican

Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is where having a Secretary of Education who cares and is knowledgeable about education would be an advantage
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Whenever you see a pollster or consultant give a take like this, it’s always worth following the money. In this case, Emanuel has paid Anzalone’s firm nearly $300k (maybe more but that’s what I found so far). A consultant class is devouring the Dem Party www.elections.il.gov/CampaignDisc...
John Anzalone &
@JohnAnzo
X.com
Underestimate @RahmEmanuel at your own risk.
He knows how to win. He knows how to fight.
And he knows how to message.
And no one will out work him. Regardless of whether he wins the Democratic nomination in 2028 he will make an impact on the race. You can be sure of that. Don't take your eyes off of him. At the minimum, learn from him.
Rahm Emanuel Makes His 2026 Play
Rahm Emanuel Makes His 2026 Play
From nytimes.com
6:47 AM • 9/26/26 • 274K Views
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Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Russell Brand, who's awaiting trial in London next month on rape and sexual assault charges, will moderate a panel at DC's MAHA summit tomorrow on reforming a U.S. health agency
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Happy Monday morning, especially to those who woke up and immediately googled themselves - hope you weren't canceled!
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Katelyn Burns @katelynburns.com · 28/09/2026
Called it again
Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh • 6h
€ UPDATE: A migrant caravan just RUSHED into Mexico and is now full steam ahead to the
U.S. Southern Border
This is NOT a freaking game! THEY ARE WAITING FOR DEMOCRATS TO TAKE POWER
VOTE RED!!
You see these people? Each one is a future Democrat voter if Dems take Congress then win in 2028.
Punish RINOs in primary season, SAVE OUR REPUBLIC IN NOVEMBER
We can kiss any hope of the SAVE America Act and ICE funding GOODBYE if Democrats take power ever again e
x.com/AnthonyAguero/…
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Since some folks claim to have never heard ‘Cigarettes and Coffee Blues'
youtu.be
Lefty Frizzell "Cigarettes and Coffee Blues"
YouTube video by Huesos Pegajosos
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Not only should engineers study history, more historians should study engineering. Concrete is the second most used material on earth, a huge part of every economy, but there are about 10 english language academic histories of it. Is it really less important than another take on Lincoln? 🗃️
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
“It’s unprecedented and, frankly, a disaster,” said former NPS director Jonathan Jarvis of changes to national monuments. “Signs can come down and be put back up, but what it does is it undermines the credibility of the National Park Service, of the Smithsonian, of other historical organizations."
bostonglobe.com
Trump is using the government to wage an unprecedented American history culture war - The Boston Globe
The White House’s campaign to reorient history around the president’s desired narrative is far reaching in scope and relentless in its pursuit.
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
JD Vance, notably, has been a less reliable henchman in Trump's war on the Smithsonian. Vance is an ex officio Regent. Trump's March 2025 EO vs the Smithsonian singled him out, directing that he "work to effectuate" Trump's policies. Trump's July 2026 EO, by contrast, makes no mention of the veep.
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Drew McKevitt @drewmckevitt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
We know that the best way to draw someone into a history major is in a class of 12. That's why you don't get classes of 12 as a service dept. You get 180 students, in two-hour chunks, with no breakout sessions or teaching assistants. You are set up to fail, at least in terms of attracting majors
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
“The notion that somehow this museum or any part of the Smithsonian is done by people who don’t love America, don’t care about America, is unbelievably wrong,” Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch said. “You cannot understand the greatness of a country without understanding the totality of a country."
theguardian.com
‘Let’s tell the truth’: Smithsonian head given standing ovation as he hits back at Trump attacks
Outgoing secretary Lonnie Bunch rejects claims the institution is unpatriotic, telling audience ‘You cannot understand all without illuminating the dark corners’
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Would I bring an iced coffee to my lecture class? Yes - but not from Dunkin.
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Seth Masket @smotus.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Interviewing the inventor of napalm about his hats
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Novel technologies do not actually require novel political solutions, especially when those technologies either evoke, replicate or recapitulate age-old problems of political & economic life.” Important insights from @jamellebouie.net about what we can learn from the past.
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Railroads Were Once the Octopus That A.I. Is Now (Gift Article)
New matrix, meet the old matrix.
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Pema Levy @pemalevy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
In destroying the Voting Rights Act and gutting the 14th and 15th amendments, the Roberts court is recycling legal arguments once advanced by Confederates and white supremacists to destroy Reconstruction. From me and @ariberman.bsky.social
motherjones.com
Jim Crow was on the ash heap of history. Then came the Roberts court.
The disaster the justices have unleashed has its roots in one of the darkest periods of our past.
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Eric Columbus @ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This idiotic suit was never going to prevail in court. But it had a decent shot at deterring other reporting, and we may never know if, in that sense, Trump won.
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Abraham Lincoln - who was *not* radicalized by the FSA - expressed some thoughts that definitely resonated when I taught them earlier this week. From the Peoria speech, which Lincoln quotes in his 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas www.nps.gov/liho/learn/h...
When they remind us of their constitutional rights, I acknowledge them, not grudgingly, but fully, and fairly; and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, which should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man into slavery, than our ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one.
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Jacqueline Antonovich @jackiantonovich.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Taught the Fugitive Slave Act for the first time in a few years. Man, my head was spinning as I uttered my familiar refrain about how the FSA radicalized Northerners who maybe never thought much about slavery until they saw people being snatched off the street right in front of them...
static.klipy.com
Euphoria Wait Is This Fucking Play About Us
Alt: Euphoria Wait Is This Fucking Play About Us
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
If I can't put my name on the performing arts center that memorializes one assassinated president, maybe I'll put it on the theater where another president actually was assassinated
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John Garrison Marks @johngmarks.com · 23/09/2026
I hear the heads on all the statues in the Garden of American Heroes are going to tilt back and machine guns are going to pop out of them. Headless James Fenimore Cooper and Kobe Bryant just mowing people down.
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
so many hours of labor spent trying to make sense of transparently nutty things www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/u...
New York times graph. it shows a 3D model of Donald Trump's proposed Memorial Arch near Arlington National cemetery. A caption reads " ammunition would likely need to be placed in a bunker underground"
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
"I am the code"
wapo.st
‘I am the code’: Trump clashed with ballroom architect over safety issues
James McCrery II resigned in October after warning that the president was insisting on designs that violated fire and safety codes.
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Abe Lincoln, posting up postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/l...
image of a postal envelope. it is addressed to SD governor Tom Berry. It bears 3 cent Lincoln stamps, and a large commemorative impression that reads "Commemorating One Hundredth Anniversary Commissioning of A. Lincoln Post Master New Salem Ill May 7, 1833 - May 7, 1933" it includes images of Lincoln himself, his New Salem, Ill store, the Illinois State house and the White House, reproductions of his signature, and the motto "Be Prepared" along with an outline of the Boy Scouts insignia
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"upends everything you thought you knew about batting orders" - if you stopped paying attention twenty years ago, maybe Hell, the *Nats* were batting Schwarber leadoff in 2021.
wsj.com
The MLB Team Upending Everything You Thought You Knew About Batting Orders
The Philadelphia Phillies are challenging more than a century of baseball orthodoxy around how to construct a lineup—and it’s helping them charge into the playoffs.
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Watch out - a sledgehammer that slashes AND boomerangs!
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
a 🧵on the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Stick around for the bit from William Lloyd Garrison, in which I learn the meaning of "Ithuriel spear."
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"a mischievous youth stands behind Van Buren thumbing his nose" loc.harpweek.com/LCPoliticalC...
"A HARD ROAD TO HOE! Or, the White House Turnpike, macadamized by the North Benders."

Printed image satirizing Martin Van Buren and his run for re-election as president in 1840. Description from the website:

"A crude satire on the obstacles facing Van Buren's reelection effort in 1840. Weighed down by a large bundle labeled "Sub Treasury," Van Buren follows the lead of Andrew Jackson toward the White House. His way is blocked by barrels of "Hard Cider" and log cabins, symbolizing the popular appeal of Harrison's candidacy. In the right distance the Capitol is visible, and in the left distance Van Buren's home at Kinderhook. A mischievous youth stands behind Van Buren thumbing his nose."
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◥◤Kriston Capps 250 @kristoncapps.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The only architects on the team planning the Kennedy Center renovation are a Minneapolis firm whose portfolio includes local K-12 schools — no performance halls, historic renovations or federal projects www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Inside Trump’s Kennedy Center Renovation Plan
Plans approved by the Kennedy Center Board include hiring an architecture firm that designs K-12 schools in Minneapolis, according to documents outlining the $250 million project.
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"One Nation Under God. And Snipers. And Drones."
Rendering of Trump's proposed Memorial Arch outside Arlington National cemetery visible on top is a winged female figure. The monument also bears the inscription " One Nation under God"
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Erin Dwyer aka Ginger Is A Construct @erindwyer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Man this is why everyone needs to study their history cause the first rule of underground railroads in use is don’t talk about underground railroads in use. There’s a reason why Frederick Douglass didn’t discuss exactly how he escaped North in his memoirs until AFTER Emancipation.
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Rachel Shelden @rachelshelden.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Terrific review of SUPREMACY by @nikobowie.bsky.social and @daphnarenan.bsky.social alongside my book, THE POLITICAL SUPREME COURT: 
Picture of this quotation from Pema Levy’s article “How the Supreme Court seized power to rule over the rest of us”:

“As Bowie, Renan, and Shelden show, this is not how its always been, or how it's supposed to be. To take back their power, the people must simply demand it.”
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 22/09/2024
1/ Five days after the Battle of Antietam, #otd in 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. In areas in rebellion against the US as of Jan. 1, 1863, Lincoln announced, "all persons held as slaves ... shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." 🗃️
image of a handwritten copy of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, from https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals_iv/images/emancipation_proclamation/preliminary_emancipation_page_1.html
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I love this: Trump: "Snipers! Ammo!! Drones!!!" Historic preservationists: "Wow, sounds like there may be some more 'adverse effects' to consider. Guess we need to pump the brakes." www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Historic preservationists participating in a required federal review process said they could not move forward until the administration clarifies Trump’s plans for the arch. Administration officials last week had asked Washington and Virginia’s preservation offices to agree to a memorandum of understanding (MOA) by Monday as part of that process, and they invited other preservationists to participate.

“This MOA is DOA,” Charles Birnbaum of the Cultural Landscape Foundation wrote in an email to the administration on Monday. An official for Washington’s historic preservation office also wrote in an email that the office needed clarity on Trump’s post. Both emails were shared with The Washington Post.
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Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם) @bestonetx.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A student informed me recently that they use ChatGPT to summarize books to save time reading them. I responded that I do the same with video games. So much faster than playing them.
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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
One goal for 2029? Let’s see if we can get the Oval Office back to
Standard
Tacky
35 x 55 in
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Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
DC statehood is an excellent idea that I strongly support, but to be clear - it wouldn't stop the Arch
thehill.com
Raskin attacks Trump’s proposed arch, calls for DC statehood
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Sunday went after President Trump for his triumphal arch and pressed for statehood for Washington, D.C. The president in a Truth Social post on Sunday said that the pla…
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21/09/2026
plenty of 20th century examples by my 19th century-pilled mind goes immediately to the railroads, which were HUGELY DISRUPTIVE and deeply enmeshed in politics in ways quite analogous to silicon valley and AI
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I swear to god this is almost every single historian I know
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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
other things found in an old photo folder: this remarkable headline about the time the Mets went all-out for one special fan
newspaper headline: "Mets Blow a Save and Fan 18 Times in Opening Loss"
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Neil Flanagan 🧱🗃️ @jgbollard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Trump's Triumphal Arch will be a traffic nightmare for Memorial Bridge—which crosses the Potomac in a very strange location. In fact, almost every plan to remake Washington before 1902 placed the crossing at the end of New York Avenue. www.thebirthofacapital.info/who-came-up-...
black and white drawing showing an alternative plan for Washington DC by Cass Gilbert. It features heavily clustered buildings at the Ellipse and between 14th and 8th street, a new white house at Meridian Hill, and a memorial bridge at New York Avenue
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