Joyce Chaplin
LightNews LightNews
banner
joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin
@joycechaplin.bsky.social
5.7K followers 330 following 120 posts

Harvard professor, historian of science, technology, and medicine, plus food and environment 🜃
(https://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/joyce-chaplin)
New book: THE FRANKLIN STOVE (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374613808/thefranklinstove/) .. more

Videos

Joyce E. Chaplin is an American historian and academic known for her writing and research on early American history, environmental history, and intellectual history. She is the James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University. She was a Guggenheim Fellow and American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow of 2019. In 2020 she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. She is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the History of Ideas. .. more

Environmental science 19%
Philosophy 16%
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Mar 6
Greetings! Since I’m a historian of science, I thought my first post in this space should celebrate the cyanometer, the device Alexander von Humboldt (among others) used to determine just how blue any sky actually is

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · 3d
It was wonderful to talk Tom Paine and climate change last night—thank you @theitps.bsky.social and @noraslonimsky.bsky.social !

Reposted by Andrew Jacobs

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · 7d
Best books of 2025 so far…a list I did not expect to be on (and very happy to see it includes so many other titles about environment and energy!)

www.newyorker.com/best-books-2...
What We’re Reading
Reviews of notable new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
www.newyorker.com

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · 23d
#NoKings Boston! The Common is crammed, the posters are primo

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Sep 5
“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental…they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.” Orwell, “1984”

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Sep 2
First day of the semester, first day of a new class, a freshman seminar on “Moby-Dick,” the novel and its significance for the history of resource extraction: “wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?”

Reposted by Andrew Jacobs, Joyce E. Chaplin

bfworld.bsky.social
Ben Franklin's World @bfworld.bsky.social · Aug 25
Franklin didn’t just invent a stove—he invented five. Each one was designed to conserve fuel and control smoke. His final models in Europe? Built to burn coal cleaner.

Sound familiar? 📻 Listen to @joycechaplin.bsky.social‬ break it down: benfranklinsworld.com/412

#EnergyHistory #History
412 Joyce Chaplin, The Franklin Stove
How did Benjamin Franklin’s stove save energy? What does it reveal about wood, trees, and attempts to control the climate?
benfranklinsworld.com

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Anna O. Law, Jennifer A. Richeson , and 13 more

atrupar.com
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Aug 15
Sen. Hagerty on his legal rationale for not counting undocumented immigrants in the census: "There's a constitutional interpretation I think that has been misapplied that goes back to slavery days and what portion of a person is going to be counted."

Reposted by Margot C. Finn

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Aug 13
The first anti-vaxxers worried that the original vaccine, which used cowpox against smallpox, would turn them into cows, a bizarre fear depicted here by caricaturist James Gillray—today is his day.

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Aug 7
Maybe it’s bad travel karma to travel with a novel whose manuscript was traveling on a train when it crashed?

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jul 29
E pur si muove…
nytimes.com The New York Times @nytimes.com · Jul 29
Breaking News: The EPA is planning to revoke the scientific determination that underpins the government’s legal authority to combat climate change. The agency’s administrator said the move would be “the largest deregulatory action in the history of America.”
E.P.A. Plans to Revoke the Legal Basis for Tackling Climate Change
The agency’s administrator said in a podcast that the move would be “the largest deregulatory action in the history of America.”
nyti.ms

Reposted by Joyce E. Chaplin

nytimes.com
The New York Times @nytimes.com · Jul 29
Breaking News: The EPA is planning to revoke the scientific determination that underpins the government’s legal authority to combat climate change. The agency’s administrator said the move would be “the largest deregulatory action in the history of America.”
E.P.A. Plans to Revoke the Legal Basis for Tackling Climate Change
The agency’s administrator said in a podcast that the move would be “the largest deregulatory action in the history of America.”
nyti.ms

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jul 24
Thank you so much!!
bwaber.bsky.social Ben Waber @bwaber.bsky.social · Jul 22
Last was "The Franklin Stove" by @joycechaplin.bsky.social, who uses Ben Franklin as a lens into larger scientific, political, social, and industrial trends around heating/climate. This is one of the best histories I've ever read. Highly recommend

Full review: bookwyrm.social/user/bwaber/... (4/4)
The Franklin Stove
A Washington Post Noteworthy Book of March“[A] richly textured history . . . This story holds numerous lessons for our era.” —The New Yorker“From Joy...
us.macmillan.com

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jul 22
You may not have noticed, but today is the second shortest day in history—if we get many more days like this, by 2029, atomic clocks may have to register a negative leap second www.space.com/astronomy/ea...
Earth will spin faster today to create 2nd-shortest day in history
Our planet has been rotating at its fastest since records began in 1973.
www.space.com

Reposted by Joyce E. Chaplin

bwaber.bsky.social
Ben Waber @bwaber.bsky.social · Jul 22
Last was "The Franklin Stove" by @joycechaplin.bsky.social, who uses Ben Franklin as a lens into larger scientific, political, social, and industrial trends around heating/climate. This is one of the best histories I've ever read. Highly recommend

Full review: bookwyrm.social/user/bwaber/... (4/4)
The Franklin Stove
A Washington Post Noteworthy Book of March“[A] richly textured history . . . This story holds numerous lessons for our era.” —The New Yorker“From Joy...
us.macmillan.com

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jul 8
Many thanks!

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jul 8
I am so sorry Joanne, but also glad there are still people who are kind when kindness is needed

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jul 7
If we include natural history, Rachel Carson, David Attenborough…

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jul 4
Your annual reminder of science’s foundational role in US history: on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was first publicly read, in Philadelphia, from a platform originally built for astronomers to observe the 1769 Transit of Venus—science was the literal platform for revolution

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jul 2
“More than 98 percent of [Harvard] faculty who responded to the survey supported the University’s decision to sue the White House.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Faculty of Arts and Sciences Overwhelmingly Backs Harvard’s Fight Against Trump, Survey Shows | News | The Harvard Crimson
A decisive majority of faculty who responded to The Crimson’s annual survey of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences support the University’s lawsuit against the Trump administration’s federal fundin...
www.thecrimson.com

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jun 28
Bruce Lee, birthright citizen

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jun 25
Fantastic piece by @doctorvive.bsky.social about the climate crisis, a must-read and a necessary pushback to abundance-narrative delusions www.theguardian.com/environment/...
‘This is a fight for life’: climate expert on tipping points, doomerism and using wealth as a shield
Economic assumptions about risks of the climate crisis are no longer relevant, says the communications expert Genevieve Guenther
www.theguardian.com

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · Jun 7
Dogs and cats, living together… yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/06...
Yale backing Harvard in lawsuit against government
In a joint motion with 17 other universities, Yale argues that cutting federal funds to Harvard endangers the nation.
yaledailynews.com

Reposted by Joyce E. Chaplin

lizcovart.bsky.social
Liz Covart @lizcovart.bsky.social · Jun 3
🔥Did you know colonial Americans worried about climate change during the Little Ice Age?

Benjamin Franklin had a solution: a stove that used less wood, produced more heat, and filled the room without smoke.

🎧 Episode 412: benfranklinsworld.com/412

#EarlyAmerica #History #ClimatePast #USHistory

Reposted by Laura J. Martin

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · May 23
“This splendid account offers a rich new perspective on the origins of climate science”—wow, and thank you @publisherswkly.bsky.social for the starred review of my new book on the FRANKLIN STOVE

joycechaplin.bsky.social
Joyce Chaplin @joycechaplin.bsky.social · May 22
Since Harvard’s founding, its international students have spoken a great many languages, each of which would have apt and colorful expressions for telling the Trump administration where to get off with this blatantly prejudicial statement
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/u...
Trump Administration Halts Harvard’s Ability to Enroll International Students
www.nytimes.com