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Zachary Schrag

@zacharyschrag.bsky.social
2.1K followers 426 following 936 posts

Professor of History, George Mason University. Currently researching history of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. Views my own. zacharyschrag.com. historyprofessor.org orcid.org/my-orcid?orcid=0000-0003-…

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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Time to bring a forklift to the gym
Fitness center lobby with exercise machines and crates of bumper plates waiting to be moved
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Noah Kazis @noahkazis.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I have mostly switched to lurking here but some words are so good they must be shared. “Surface the viscerality of parking and of religion”
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Dr. Adeene Denton @spacewhalerider.com · 27/09/2026
It's me, the mythical STEM PhD who not only took history classes but got a whole history degree! Studying history is arguably one of the most important things STEM students can do. Science isn't done in a vacuum, and students should investigate the people, places, and events that shape it.
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I tried something like this with William F. Buckley's 1955 National Review manifesto. I had no idea that "Archibald MacLeish will have written ten heroic cantos about our age of terror" likely referred to a specific work. (MacLeish, The Trojan Horse, 1952).
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I'd love to read a history of historians' note-taking practices. In the meantime, enjoy Mark De Wolfe Howe's notes from the Oliver Wendell Holmes papers in the Library of Congress.
Howe, Mark DeWolfe. Research materials relating to life of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1858-1968. MDH research materials, Miscellaneous Biographical Information: Box 22, Folder 19, Library of Congress Collections, n.d. https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/catalog/law00239_law00239c00960 . 

Claude's best effort:

219 — New Orleans Ins. Co. v. Nickerson & others —

Lib. C[?] — Lowell J., Dist. Ct.

Δ's [defendants] — Joseph Nickerson, Frederick Nickerson, Thomas Nickerson, Jacob W. Seaver and George C. Lord — "merchants" — "a cause of bailment and affreightment, civil and maritime."

Respondents owners of ss. Concordia — at New Orleans contracted for shippers to Liverpool. Failed to carry goods taken on board. Vessel so negligently managed as to be lost & greatly damaged upon coast of Nova Scotia — Insurance paid — [inserted above the line: and after(?)] Ins. Co. sues as subrogee of a shipper — Agelasto[?]. Shipment was 95 bales of cotton —

R. H. Dana Jr. Proctor for Ins. Co.

Holmes associated with Shattuck and F. W. Hurd — but draft[?] (amended ans.) ft signed by OWH.

Apparently case lost by libellant & Dana appeals — March term[?] (1875).

Left margin, beside the Concordia paragraph (written at an angle):
[illegible] see [?] 220 & 221 & see [?] con[dition of?] goods on storage[?]

Left margin, beside the Holmes paragraph (written at an angle):
In 220 answer is [in?] autograph[?] of OWH[?] … hand[?] … "these[?] … and not[?] articulately … [illegible]"
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Erin L. Thompson @artcrimeprof.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I spent years tracking her purchases through the records she left in three archives. Finally, I found a missing notebook where she recorded exact prices and sellers for 513 objects — sometimes labeling the seller simply "chor." In Nepali, that’s “thief.”
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King Algamemnon @adamrothman.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Interesting essay about writing, history, and being open to criticism. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/07/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Puerto Rican Women I Left Out of My History of the Pill (Gift Article)
I wrote a book about the history of the pill. I never expected to be a character in a play telling the story of what I left out.
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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.
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Cameron Blevins @cblevins.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This MIT report on AI and teaching is rightfully getting lots of praise: aiandeducation.mit.edu/report/. There's a ton to like, but it exemplifies a trend I see on Bluesky around AI + pedagogy conversations: they tend to leave out online learning entirely.
Screenshot of MIT report on AI and education:
3.1.4. Build structured in-person social learning
into subjects
Because Al tools are disrupting longstanding patterns of social learning at MIT, every subject should include a regular in-person social component (not just sitting in lecture or recitation and quietly taking notes). Instructors should intentionally structure such interactions to achieve desired learning objectives and maintain quality, even in large classes.
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Your periodic reminder that young people can get a military education at a real university by joining the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets.
Virginia Tech cadets on parade. They look *good*
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Rachel Cole @rmartincole.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Cover of "Washington Regional Bikeways Study Final Report" from the Washington Council of Governments Transportation Planning Board. Illustration of DC Metro railcar on a track and a bicycle emerging from a doorway below.
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Jarrett Walker @humantransit.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Just got the publisher's OK to put the entire introduction of my book Human Transit online, where you can read it for free. Please share! humantransit.org/book
humantransit.org
Human Transit - Book — Human Transit
Below is the complete introduction of the Revised Edition my book Human Transit: How clearer thinking about public transit can enrich our communities and our lives.   You can read the preface and Tabl...
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SMH Historians @smh-historians.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The Board of Trustees of the Society for Military History has approved the following statement of protest regarding the recent closure of public access to the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC).
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Christof Spieler @christofspieler.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
(Transit Twitter voice): As the opening scene announces, the movie is really a parable about the inevitable compromises of using light rail as a rapid transit backbone, and how the entire system is morally corrupted as a result of that decision. youtu.be/MqRyngrXlXw?...
youtu.be
Heat (1995) - Opening scene
YouTube video by 1DaKo
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Technology in the news: 1. Some level of Virginia government has set up a huge electronic sign warning of an E-moto crackdown on the W&OD trail, where such vehicles are prohibited. 2. Zach doesn't know how to photograph an LED electronic sign with an iPhone.
W&OD Trail, Fairfax County, Virginia. August 19, 2026. On the left, the trail. In the center, reflective barrels and a large electronic sign mounted on a trailer. The display is unreadable because the phone camera only captures the portions of a few letters that are illuminated in the fraction of a second that the electronic shutter is open. On the right, a traditional printed sign with the trail rules.
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Julia Rose Kraut @juliarosekraut.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Honored to join Ellen Schrecker & Sam Lebovic in submitting the Historians' Amicus Brief in AAUP v. Rubio. 🗃️ The brief focuses on the First & Second Red Scares, & on the development of free speech jurisprudence. Read ⬇️ Grateful to @brennancenter.org & Counsel www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
brennancenter.org
Historians’ Amicus Brief in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio
Historians filed a brief supporting a challenge to the federal government’s policy of arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty on the basis of their speech and associations.
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RRCHNM @rrchnm.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Congratulations to John Turner, Professor of Religious Studies and History at George Mason University, whose book Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, has won the 2026 Evans Biography Award. Read more: ow.ly/ixWn50Zz0uq
ow.ly
Mountain West Center for Regional Studies Announces 2026 Evans Biography Award Winners
The  Mountain West Center for Regional Studies at USU awarded the Evans Awards to authors whose selected works focused on the importance of documenting individual lives and their impact.
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Drafting the Past @draftingthepast.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
DRAFTING THE PAST is expanding! Together, @katecarp.bsky.social and @mkn.bsky.social are creating a website and newsletter devoted to nonfiction history books. You'll find book reviews, craft essays, author interviews, publishing news, and more--plus the podcast you already know and love. 🗃️ 1/
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Citizen Cohn / Jonathan Cohn @citizencohn.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
This @drjoshs.bsky.social segment on MS NOW is such a calm, smart and respectful explanation of the science and why vaccines are so important It's kind of thing you can send to friends and family with questions or doubts, as a corrective to [sigh] what they might be hearing from the White House
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Aaron Fritschner @fritschner.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Video of an ICE agent pulling a gun on a wife and mother, who is a US citizen born and raised in the area, near Bailey's Crossroads in Northern Virginia yesterday. Chillingly, they claimed she “almost ran them over” until she told them she had video proving that was a lie.
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Rob Townsend @rbtownsend.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Notable observation from a paper read at the 1946 AHA annual meeting. Just imagine how hard it will be to keep up with the scholarly literature when it is freed from the constraints of print! (Full paper at bit.ly/4wledtE.)
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Equally, I'd like to think that all of our students are intelligent enough to know that when I assign the Code of Hammurabi, it is not because I am endorsing Hammurabi's divine right to rule Babylon in the name of the god Anu, the Sublime, King of the Anunaki and Marduk the over-ruling son of Ea.
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
There’s much to love in Daniel Okrent’s new biography, Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn't Easy. But I especially appreciate the way that Okrent presents the technical elements of Sondheim’s approach to composing, quoting an interview by Mark Eden Horowitz.
From Daniel Okrent, Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn’t Easy (Yale University Press, 2026), 113-114. 

More than forty years later, his extraordinary (if frequently
technical) conversations with the Library of Congress musicolo-
gist Mark Eden Horowitz demonstrated the problem. “Music
is a foreign language, which everyone knows but only musicians
speak,” Sondheim said in 2011. Here’s an example from his dia-
logue with Horowitz: “Musical harmony, as you know, moves
by bass line,” Sondheim began. Then he continued:

That is the motive that changes things. And it doesn’t matter how you screw around with the notes on top; if the bass remains solidly consistent, it’s going to sound that way through-
out. So, if you want to stay in C major, and you want some
variety, why not go to a C I6? Now the instability of first
inversions is something that’s very hard to deal with when
you’re so used to block harmony. I get scared sometimes when
I use a I6 that it’s all going to fall apart. Because, you know,
it’s so easy and satisfying to pound away at the I-V-I-V-I-V,
as most songs do. But when you get to the I6, it becomes a
little more interesting. Because the I6 chord tends not to
want to go back to the V, but to lead to a IV or even, some-
times, to a VI chord.

Point arduously proven. Technical analysis may work for musicians and musicologists, but for the rest of us it is at best opaque,
and often incomprehensible. It’s easy to talk about lyrics: we
use words to discuss words. But “the problem when you describe
music in words,” said Anthony Tommasini, the longtime classical music critic for the New York Times, “is that whatever you
say invites more words, more detailed explanation.
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Rebecca Spang @rlspang.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Crossroads of the Country. Where history goes to die.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Honestly, it was an honor just to be nominated.
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AAUP @aaup.org · 04/08/2026
BOOM. The AAUP is suing Texas A&M University System over their censorship policy that prohibits faculty from discussing topics & viewpoints related to race, sexual orientation, & gender. www.aclutx.org/app/uploads/... 1
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS, LEONARD BRIGHT, VANITA REDDY, LANDON SADLER, and AARON GEORGE,
Plaintiffs,
V.
ROBERT L. ALBRITTON, JAY GRAHAM, DAVID
C. BAGGETT, JOHN W. BELLINGER, JAMES R.
BROOKS, MICHAEL A. HERNANDEZ III,
WILLIAM MAHOMES JR., KELLEY SULLIVAN GEORGIADES, and SAM TORN, in their official capacities as members of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents,
Defendants.
CIVIL ACTION NO.
COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF
COMPLAINT
Plaintiffs American Association of University Professors ("AAUP"), on behalf of
its members in the Texas A&M University System ("Texas A&M"), and individually named member professors Leonard Bright, Vanita Reddy, Landon Sadler, and Aaron George (collectively, "Plaintiffs") challenge Texas A&M System Policy ("System Policy") 08.01's prohibition on teaching "gender and race ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation, and gender identity" in academic coursework (the "Censorship Policy" or the "Policy").
On its face, the Censorship Policy imposes a complete prohibition, in all core-
curriculum courses, on courses "advocat[ing]" particular disfavored views of race or gender, or
any topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity, but the Policy does not impose any corresponding ban on opposing views on these issues.
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Martin Austermuhle @maustermuhle.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
One part of Trump's $22 billion makeover of Dulles that's been missed is his big, beautiful, world-record 32,000-spot parking garage. That's *way* more parking than recent estimates show the airport needs, and it would tower over the historic terminal: www.notus.org/metro/dulles...
notus.org
Let’s Talk About the Massive Parking Garage Trump Wants to Build at Dulles
The 32,000-spot deck would surpass both existing parking capacity and what airport officials have said is needed.
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Reporters use AI to search through thousands or tens of thousands of relatively similar documents: SEC actions, diary entries, emails. Clearly relevant to some historical research, but less so for teaching undergraduates, whom we first must train to understand even individual sources.
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
The first students who were given these teaching machines were like, “Wow, this is cool. This is amazing.” And then after three weeks, they’re like, “Wow, this sucks.” — @audreywatters.bsky.social thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/can-the-clas... via @mitpress.bsky.social
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
Can the Classroom Ever Be Automated?
Long before AI, teaching machines promised to make education more efficient. Their forgotten history reveals why that dream keeps falling short.
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Marlène Aviation @aviationmarlene.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
In the mid-1960s, France was exploring the possibility of developing a small manned space shuttle launched by a carrier aircraft reminiscent of the Concorde. The project never got beyond the drawing board.
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Thiago Krause @thiagokrause.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
To the risk of being cancelled here on Bluesky, I'm sharing an interview with @leotranscribes.bsky.social on using LLMs in historical research. I hope to have sufficiently highlighted the necessary precautions. Glad to read your thoughts on the matter!
tryleo.ai
Thiago Krause on HTR, AI Agents and Archival Discovery
A historian working across 100+ archives on how HTR and AI agents surface documents no catalogue indexes — and why he now reads more manuscripts, not fewer.
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Highly recommend, perhaps especially for historians of technology 🗃️ Closes August 23. Beneath the Surface | National Gallery of Art www.nga.gov/exhibitions/...
nga.gov
Beneath the Surface | National Gallery of Art
Nearly two centuries of American photographs transport us to unexpected places to witness what powers our lives.
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
look. nobody here likes paying consultants. but the only alternative is paying *instructors*
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Hot damn, I've had a photograph published in the New York Times!
Caroline Gutman, portrait of Rebecca Tushnet, 2026. In the background,  Zachary Schrag, portrait of his children, 2009. Accompanying Emmy Martin, "When A.I. Invaded ‘Heated Rivalry’ Fan Fiction, the Meltdown Was Epic," New York Times, online, July 30, 2026
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will pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Some historical background to the fires in southwestern France, drawing on reading I did for my 2019 book about the moorlands, and lamenting the deeply depressing reality that we have known many of the causes of this ecological disaster for 150years 🗃️ williamgpooley.wordpress.com/2026/07/30/u...
williamgpooley.wordpress.com
Unintentional Arson
The fires in southwestern France are an appalling demonstration of the reality of climate change in 2026. But this is not the first ecological devastation in the region, and the role of human actio…
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Jonathan English @englishrail.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
There’s a whole generation of airports built for a supersonic age that never came. A few became mega-airports we transfer at today, many never got off the drawing board, and the most interesting exist as weird fragments. open.substack.com/pub/infrasto...
open.substack.com
Airports for the Supersonic Age
Infrastructure of an era that never happened
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LaDale Winling @lwinling.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I have been working on a book on race and real estate for a few years (Property Wrongs) and am in the course of revisions on it. One of my challenges (as with any book) is that there are SO MANY really excellent moments and people that I want to write about. Today I am going over... 1/n
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Where was Virgil’s writing credit?
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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
My book spends an inordinate amount of time on the Oppenheimer-Truman meeting in no small part because people kept asking me if Nolan's depiction of it was "accurate"
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Mark Tushnet @marktushnet.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
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Dr Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
My fellow historians, which single academic article of yours do you think 'teaches best', i.e. for both staff and students it's doing work that leads to a strong class discussion + students remember it? I am interested in how people see their own work. I'll go first. Hit reply and link your pick!
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Bradford Vivian @bradvivian.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
“an assistant professor affiliated with OSU’s legislatively mandated Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture and Society”
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
I'm proud to appear in Episode 5 of In Pursuit: Philadelphia and the Making of America. Catch me at 8:48 www.inpursuit.tv/blank
Screenshot of Zachary Schrag in Episode 5 of In Pursuit: Philadelphia and the Making of America, streaming at https://www.inpursuit.tv
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Organizing my files like a Marine Corps Commandant.
From US National Archives website. 
Record Group 127: Records of the U.S. Marine Corps
Series: Records Relating to Odds and Ends, 1970–1995
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Aden Y @adenyacobi.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Giving up the flashing circular platform edge lights for platform screen doors is not something I had considered. RIP
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Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 21/07/2026
just got an email from my (former) chair that the university has acted & the state has approved the formal closure of my department. this was done without any faculty input on the decision or the process, & has ended a vibrant, growing (!), humanities department that won teaching and research awards
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Zachary Schrag @zacharyschrag.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
😢
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John Schwartz @jswatz.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
An enraging story about what look like UT's efforts to kowtow to powerful conservatives. “I ask questions that maybe someone in a position of power might disagree with. … We ask these questions because we’re trying to get at what is the truth,” Chaar López said. www.statesman.com/news/educati...
statesman.com
UT border surveillance scholar was a shoo-in for tenure. UT denied him.
American Studies scholar Iván Chaar López fears UT’s unexplained tenure denial violated his academic freedom amid scrutiny of controversial fields.
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Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD DSc(hon) @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
History
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