Bobby Lee
@bobbylee.bsky.social
Historian of the United States, mostly in the 19th c., colonialism, land, GIS. American abroad
Pinned
Bobby Lee
@bobbylee.bsky.social
· Jun 12
Justice for the Edifice: Praying Compensation for Rhode Island College, 1770–1800
In 1770, Rhode Island College, now Brown University, erected the biggest building in Providence. Donations tied to the slave trade funded the College Edifice, now University Hall. Some donors grew ric...
direct.mit.edu
My latest article just published and is open access, for now at least.
It’s about how Brown got reparations for property made by slaves after the American Revolution. 🗃️
direct.mit.edu/tneq/article...
It’s about how Brown got reparations for property made by slaves after the American Revolution. 🗃️
direct.mit.edu/tneq/article...
This whole thread is hilarious. Driving ‘round in Jon Voight’s car energy
"I own William Faulker's cake knife," a sentence that is both straightforward and true, and yet sounds completely deranged
December 28, 2025 at 2:35 AM
This whole thread is hilarious. Driving ‘round in Jon Voight’s car energy
Reposted by Bobby Lee
Here it comes!
You all, after YEARS of archival research and writing, my book is out in exactly ONE month and it’s my job to promote it. Please help me spread the word!! 😀📚#booksky
December 27, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Here it comes!
Kids got homemade positive affirmation Pokémon cards from grandma. Very confused faces lol. Happy holidays, and proceed to success!
December 25, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Kids got homemade positive affirmation Pokémon cards from grandma. Very confused faces lol. Happy holidays, and proceed to success!
Report the news, don’t become the news has had a rough month
December 23, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Report the news, don’t become the news has had a rough month
I cataloged manuscripts for a collection that had a copy of the Constitution signed by Benjamin Franklin, and it somehow got misfiled. Everyone was put to work in teams to find it by methodically checking every box in the vault. Took several nerve-racking days before it finally turned up.
I think we need a mega thread of everyone's craziest archive stories.
December 22, 2025 at 11:29 PM
I cataloged manuscripts for a collection that had a copy of the Constitution signed by Benjamin Franklin, and it somehow got misfiled. Everyone was put to work in teams to find it by methodically checking every box in the vault. Took several nerve-racking days before it finally turned up.
Looks very homemade but was good
December 20, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Looks very homemade but was good
#academicsky this is wild stuff
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
December 19, 2025 at 8:01 PM
#academicsky this is wild stuff
Reposted by Bobby Lee
Come work with me at the Minnesota Historical Society! We’re looking for our next Gale Scholar to join the Research team. Apply by February 16 for full consideration, and feel free to reach out to me with any questions!
workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau...
workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau...
Recruitment
workforcenow.adp.com
December 19, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Come work with me at the Minnesota Historical Society! We’re looking for our next Gale Scholar to join the Research team. Apply by February 16 for full consideration, and feel free to reach out to me with any questions!
workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau...
workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau...
Reposted by Bobby Lee
My forthcoming book—
For which I began research in 2006.
Is now posted on the website for Princeton University Press.
Cover will be added soon.
The King’s Slaves: The British Empire & the Origins of American Slavery
For which I began research in 2006.
Is now posted on the website for Princeton University Press.
Cover will be added soon.
The King’s Slaves: The British Empire & the Origins of American Slavery
The King's Slaves
A provocative account of how empire and absolutism institutionalized slavery in America
press.princeton.edu
December 18, 2025 at 11:14 PM
My forthcoming book—
For which I began research in 2006.
Is now posted on the website for Princeton University Press.
Cover will be added soon.
The King’s Slaves: The British Empire & the Origins of American Slavery
For which I began research in 2006.
Is now posted on the website for Princeton University Press.
Cover will be added soon.
The King’s Slaves: The British Empire & the Origins of American Slavery
Reposted by Bobby Lee
🗃️ My History Department is hiring for a tenure track position in Native American history. See link for details!
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...
Assistant or Associate Professor of History
jobs.colorado.edu
December 16, 2025 at 9:33 PM
🗃️ My History Department is hiring for a tenure track position in Native American history. See link for details!
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...
A talk at a California high school in the 1970s by the man who Ishi revealed himself to in 1911. 🗃️
m.youtube.com/watch?v=fmu4...
m.youtube.com/watch?v=fmu4...
Discovery of Ishi, the Last of His Tribe
YouTube video by Lee Lynch
m.youtube.com
December 17, 2025 at 8:24 PM
A talk at a California high school in the 1970s by the man who Ishi revealed himself to in 1911. 🗃️
m.youtube.com/watch?v=fmu4...
m.youtube.com/watch?v=fmu4...
This is GREAT news for students
Very welcome news today that the UK will join the Erasmus+ programme in 2027. This will enable greater opportunities for study abroad and contributions in UK universities, and is something we called for in our most recent Manifesto.
December 17, 2025 at 11:04 AM
This is GREAT news for students
There were thousands of exhibits at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. My favorite is an interactive map designed long before there was GIS: Ives’ Mechanical Map of US Territorial Acquisitions 🗃️
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Cl...
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Cl...
James Ives' Mechanical Map of U.S. Territory Acquisition
YouTube video by Leventhal Map & Education Center
m.youtube.com
December 16, 2025 at 8:00 PM
There were thousands of exhibits at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. My favorite is an interactive map designed long before there was GIS: Ives’ Mechanical Map of US Territorial Acquisitions 🗃️
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Cl...
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Cl...
Reposted by Bobby Lee
December 15 marks 10 years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its Final Report on residential school and called for changes to address the legacy of colonialism in Canada.
For justice and healing, remembrance must be matched with the full implementation of the Calls to Action. 🇨🇦
For justice and healing, remembrance must be matched with the full implementation of the Calls to Action. 🇨🇦
December 15, 2025 at 5:04 PM
December 15 marks 10 years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its Final Report on residential school and called for changes to address the legacy of colonialism in Canada.
For justice and healing, remembrance must be matched with the full implementation of the Calls to Action. 🇨🇦
For justice and healing, remembrance must be matched with the full implementation of the Calls to Action. 🇨🇦
The latest Western Historical Quarterly issue is up. Among other things, it’s got a doozy of an article on ‘rabbit drives,’ a once common but now obscure spectacle where men and boys slaughtered rabbits in pens by the thousands 🗃️
academic.oup.com/whq/article/...
academic.oup.com/whq/article/...
The Rabbit Drive: A Spectacle of Violence and Masculinity in the American West, 1880s to 1930s
Abstract. Between the 1880s and 1930s millions of rabbits were slaughtered across the American West in mass spectacles of pest control called rabbit drives
academic.oup.com
December 15, 2025 at 8:04 PM
The latest Western Historical Quarterly issue is up. Among other things, it’s got a doozy of an article on ‘rabbit drives,’ a once common but now obscure spectacle where men and boys slaughtered rabbits in pens by the thousands 🗃️
academic.oup.com/whq/article/...
academic.oup.com/whq/article/...
Reposted by Bobby Lee
Our 2025 ANCH journal prize goes to the exceptional @aishadjelid.bsky.social and her article on slavery and forced intimacy, which has now reached a simply staggering 82,000 VIEWS! Amazing work 🥳
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
“The master whished to reproduce”: slavery, forced intimacy, and enslavers’ interference in sexual relationships in the antebellum South, 1808–1861
This article examines the extent to which enslavers across the antebellum South forced enslaved men and women to reproduce. Using a spectrum of violence as a tool of coercion, enslavers coerced, ca...
www.tandfonline.com
December 14, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Our 2025 ANCH journal prize goes to the exceptional @aishadjelid.bsky.social and her article on slavery and forced intimacy, which has now reached a simply staggering 82,000 VIEWS! Amazing work 🥳
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Bobby Lee
US-Japan archaeological team argues strong similarities between very earliest US lithic technology and lithic tech from Hokkaido means that isolated groups on Hokkaido may have used boats to hop along Beringia coast to Americas 18-22K yrs ago (no walk across the land bridge at all). (From Oct.)
Characterizing the American Upper Paleolithic
Tool similarities link Late Pleistocene American and Northeast Asian lithic traditions.
www.science.org
December 14, 2025 at 3:37 PM
US-Japan archaeological team argues strong similarities between very earliest US lithic technology and lithic tech from Hokkaido means that isolated groups on Hokkaido may have used boats to hop along Beringia coast to Americas 18-22K yrs ago (no walk across the land bridge at all). (From Oct.)
Reposted by Bobby Lee
Great list of book recs from Charles C. Mann. Our research interests tend to be similar, so YMMV. I'll be scooping up his recommendations on new Stewart Brand and two books on Western rivers. Of the latter category, add The Dreamt Land by Mark Arax which blew me away this year. amzn.to/3XRpB1E
December 12, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Great list of book recs from Charles C. Mann. Our research interests tend to be similar, so YMMV. I'll be scooping up his recommendations on new Stewart Brand and two books on Western rivers. Of the latter category, add The Dreamt Land by Mark Arax which blew me away this year. amzn.to/3XRpB1E
Reposted by Bobby Lee
Reposted by Bobby Lee
Is not putting page numbers on essays a generational thing? This is a pet peeve hill worth dying on
December 12, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Is not putting page numbers on essays a generational thing? This is a pet peeve hill worth dying on
He must be a hoot at committee meetings
An academic disliked an Oxford Very Short Introduction (145 pages) in his field so much that he wrote a 200 page book review attacking it. www.pierre-legrand.com/ewExternalFi...
December 12, 2025 at 5:11 AM
He must be a hoot at committee meetings
Reposted by Bobby Lee
PLEASE SHARE WIDELY
Hello, Bluesky!
We want to fund your research!
Check out our grants and fellowships!
Here: www.hagley.org/research/gra...
We want to fund your research!
Check out our grants and fellowships!
Here: www.hagley.org/research/gra...
Grants & Fellowships
Hagley invites serious researchers to apply for one of our grants to defray the costs of an extended stay intended to use our collections. Grants and fellowships are administered by the Center for the...
www.hagley.org
December 8, 2025 at 9:38 PM
PLEASE SHARE WIDELY
Reposted by Bobby Lee
don’t miss the 2025 @contingent-mag.bsky.social book list! inclusive & welcoming as ever, Contingent curates a list where the hard part is not getting on it, but rather, the hard part is researching & writing a book while contingent contingentmagazine.org/2025/12/02/2...
2025 Contingent Book List
When you’re shopping for books this season, consider a contingent scholar.
contingentmagazine.org
December 5, 2025 at 9:41 PM
don’t miss the 2025 @contingent-mag.bsky.social book list! inclusive & welcoming as ever, Contingent curates a list where the hard part is not getting on it, but rather, the hard part is researching & writing a book while contingent contingentmagazine.org/2025/12/02/2...
Reposted by Bobby Lee
As fall comes to a close, the #JERPano would like to introduce another one of our authors—Daniel Carpenter.
Read Carpenter’s Fall 2025 piece, “Petitioning as Governance: The Scattered and Multinational World of the Early United States” at: muse.jhu.edu/article/969333
Read Carpenter’s Fall 2025 piece, “Petitioning as Governance: The Scattered and Multinational World of the Early United States” at: muse.jhu.edu/article/969333
Project MUSE - Petitioning as Governance: The Scattered and Multinational World of the Early United States
muse.jhu.edu
December 4, 2025 at 8:41 PM
As fall comes to a close, the #JERPano would like to introduce another one of our authors—Daniel Carpenter.
Read Carpenter’s Fall 2025 piece, “Petitioning as Governance: The Scattered and Multinational World of the Early United States” at: muse.jhu.edu/article/969333
Read Carpenter’s Fall 2025 piece, “Petitioning as Governance: The Scattered and Multinational World of the Early United States” at: muse.jhu.edu/article/969333