Pamela Toler (she/her)
@pdtoler.bsky.social
Writing unexpected history for smart adults and curious kids - and vice-versa. Author of Women Warriors and the forthcoming The Dragon From Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany. Kickass cook. www.pameladtoler.com
History can feel inevitable in hindsight. But people lived it forward—amid fear, pressure, and uncertainty. Understanding that doesn’t excuse harm, but it restores humanity to the past. I write about that often. 🗃️
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Pamela Toler
Pamela Toler Email Forms
tinyurl.com
January 5, 2026 at 4:04 PM
History can feel inevitable in hindsight. But people lived it forward—amid fear, pressure, and uncertainty. Understanding that doesn’t excuse harm, but it restores humanity to the past. I write about that often. 🗃️
Subscribe here:
Subscribe here:
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
🗃️
QUERY FOR HISTORIANS (Not directly on preoccupying current events): I’m making tweaks to syllabi. I want to show students in a Craft of History class how to analyze academic articles (& talk about what AI summaries miss or mangle). What’s your favorite article, esp. in terms of compelling writing?
January 4, 2026 at 4:14 PM
🗃️
Use a library card catalog
* Stand on a street corner yowling "Extree! Extree!" while hawking copies of the New York Journal-American
It's 2026.
Things many American school kids probably don't know how to do:
* Dial a rotary telephone
* Tell time from an analog clock
* Read or write cursive
* Decipher Roman numerals
* Navigate with a paper map or use a compass
* Balance a checkbook
(Please add more below)
Things many American school kids probably don't know how to do:
* Dial a rotary telephone
* Tell time from an analog clock
* Read or write cursive
* Decipher Roman numerals
* Navigate with a paper map or use a compass
* Balance a checkbook
(Please add more below)
January 2, 2026 at 4:47 PM
Use a library card catalog
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
just want to remind folks that pushback and public outrage stopped them from closing the CDC library. i bet pushback will stop them here, too
“The Trump administration is closing NASA’s largest research library on Friday, a facility that houses tens of thousands of books, documents and journals — many of them not digitized or available anywhere else.”
NASA’s Largest Library Is Closing Amid Staff and Lab Cuts
www.nytimes.com
December 31, 2025 at 11:12 PM
just want to remind folks that pushback and public outrage stopped them from closing the CDC library. i bet pushback will stop them here, too
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
On January 1, 1804, revolutionaries established the independent country of Haiti, the first nation to permanently ban slavery. As we begin a year engulfed by the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, it’s worth reading the Haitian Declaration of Independence in full. 🇭🇹
January 1, 2026 at 1:04 PM
On January 1, 1804, revolutionaries established the independent country of Haiti, the first nation to permanently ban slavery. As we begin a year engulfed by the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence, it’s worth reading the Haitian Declaration of Independence in full. 🇭🇹
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
I don’t know who needs to hear this but posting “new year, new me” on social media isn’t gonna fix you. That’s what pretty new notebooks are for obviously
December 30, 2025 at 4:12 PM
I don’t know who needs to hear this but posting “new year, new me” on social media isn’t gonna fix you. That’s what pretty new notebooks are for obviously
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
Impossible as it is to believe, the math doesn’t lie, & the math tells us with the end of 2025 we've completed 1/4 of the 21C. We’ve faced more than our share of historic events across these 25 years, & while each has felt unprecedented, they all nonetheless echo & extend prior American histories. +
December 31, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Impossible as it is to believe, the math doesn’t lie, & the math tells us with the end of 2025 we've completed 1/4 of the 21C. We’ve faced more than our share of historic events across these 25 years, & while each has felt unprecedented, they all nonetheless echo & extend prior American histories. +
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
The Angel Gabriel, who definitely has more of a comment than a question.
December 31, 2025 at 3:32 PM
The Angel Gabriel, who definitely has more of a comment than a question.
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read."
-- James Baldwin
-- James Baldwin
December 30, 2025 at 6:00 PM
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read."
-- James Baldwin
-- James Baldwin
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
It's here! Listeners shared some of their favorite history reads from 2025--inclusing one book published 90 years ago! draftingthepast.com/podcast-epis...
Episode 81: The Best History Books You Read This Year
Listeners call in to Drafting the Past to tell host Kate Carpenter about the best history books they read in 2025.
draftingthepast.com
December 30, 2025 at 1:10 PM
It's here! Listeners shared some of their favorite history reads from 2025--inclusing one book published 90 years ago! draftingthepast.com/podcast-epis...
We scaled back this year. Just lights on the tree, an angel at the top.
But the gatherings we couldn’t cancel brought a flicker of light we didn’t know we needed.
Wishing you peace, however you celebrate. I’ll be back in January.
🗃️ Read the latest newsletter. https://www.historyinthemargins.com
But the gatherings we couldn’t cancel brought a flicker of light we didn’t know we needed.
Wishing you peace, however you celebrate. I’ll be back in January.
🗃️ Read the latest newsletter. https://www.historyinthemargins.com
December 30, 2025 at 4:01 PM
We scaled back this year. Just lights on the tree, an angel at the top.
But the gatherings we couldn’t cancel brought a flicker of light we didn’t know we needed.
Wishing you peace, however you celebrate. I’ll be back in January.
🗃️ Read the latest newsletter. https://www.historyinthemargins.com
But the gatherings we couldn’t cancel brought a flicker of light we didn’t know we needed.
Wishing you peace, however you celebrate. I’ll be back in January.
🗃️ Read the latest newsletter. https://www.historyinthemargins.com
Did you know a 17-year-old Vietnamese girl once led an army on an elephant?
Should she get her own full post?
More stories: historyinthemargins.com 🗃️
Should she get her own full post?
More stories: historyinthemargins.com 🗃️
December 29, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Did you know a 17-year-old Vietnamese girl once led an army on an elephant?
Should she get her own full post?
More stories: historyinthemargins.com 🗃️
Should she get her own full post?
More stories: historyinthemargins.com 🗃️
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
Once more before this last Sunday of 2025 ends, here's today's #ScholarSunday thread. Please share widely to support all this great work, mine & theirs, & thanks! @hcrichardson.bsky.social 🗃️
I know I said last week’s #ScholarSunday thread was the year’s final one, but y’all did too much good work this week to ignore—so here’s a Christmas bonus, my 256th thread of public scholarly goodness from the past week! Add more below, share widely, & enjoy! 🗃️
blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...
blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...
#ScholarSunday Thread 256 (12/28/25) – Black and White and Read All Over
I know I said that last week’s #ScholarSunday thread was the final regular one of the year, but y’all did too much good work this week to ignore—so here’s a Christmas bonus, my 256th thread of public ...
blackwhiteandread.com
December 29, 2025 at 2:02 AM
Once more before this last Sunday of 2025 ends, here's today's #ScholarSunday thread. Please share widely to support all this great work, mine & theirs, & thanks! @hcrichardson.bsky.social 🗃️
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
A nice thread in which an actual expert patiently explains why the Secretary of Health and Human Service is not simply a liar, but an especially stupid one.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has stated that the 1918 flu pandemic was caused by a lab virus from vaccine research, a defective influenza vaccine. Let’s analyze what a lie this is. First, in 1918, 107 years ago, virology was in its infancy
December 28, 2025 at 6:06 PM
A nice thread in which an actual expert patiently explains why the Secretary of Health and Human Service is not simply a liar, but an especially stupid one.
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
“Whatever you have to say, leave
The roots on, let them
Dangle
And the dirt
Just to make clear
Where they come from.”
Charles Olson, born on this day in 1910
The roots on, let them
Dangle
And the dirt
Just to make clear
Where they come from.”
Charles Olson, born on this day in 1910
December 27, 2025 at 12:24 PM
“Whatever you have to say, leave
The roots on, let them
Dangle
And the dirt
Just to make clear
Where they come from.”
Charles Olson, born on this day in 1910
The roots on, let them
Dangle
And the dirt
Just to make clear
Where they come from.”
Charles Olson, born on this day in 1910
For anyone else who needs to hear this: It is not Monday.
December 26, 2025 at 2:56 PM
For anyone else who needs to hear this: It is not Monday.
Just ordered a specialty baking pan for a recipe that has been haunting me for several months. Obviously I have become unhinged.
December 24, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Just ordered a specialty baking pan for a recipe that has been haunting me for several months. Obviously I have become unhinged.
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
Church organ tuning books and climate change. If any #libraries and #archives have historic organ tuning books, these researchers would like to know!
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Organ-tuning books in English churches provide notes on a warming climate
Researchers have realised the records are a ‘goldmine’ to study changes in environmental conditions
www.theguardian.com
December 24, 2025 at 4:28 AM
Church organ tuning books and climate change. If any #libraries and #archives have historic organ tuning books, these researchers would like to know!
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
This is an almost shockingly wise essay. I'm glad I've finally read it.
There Is No Mary Problem in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’
George’s vision of his wife without him is essential to the film, but critics continue to miss its true—and profound—meaning.
open.substack.com
December 24, 2025 at 12:34 AM
This is an almost shockingly wise essay. I'm glad I've finally read it.
Seen on my ramble through the neighborhood this afternoon: two very young brass players in the park near our house fumbling their way through Christmas carols on sax and trumpet. Made me very happy
December 23, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Seen on my ramble through the neighborhood this afternoon: two very young brass players in the park near our house fumbling their way through Christmas carols on sax and trumpet. Made me very happy
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
This struck me too. As Anne Applebaum doesn’t mention, she wrote a classic history of the Gulag.
The CBS investigation portrays a modern concentration camp, similar to the Soviet GULAG (like CECOT, an acronym): sadistic guards, 24 hour lighting, isolation cells.
Americans once opposed this inhumane system.
The Trump administration sent innocent people there to suffer.
Americans once opposed this inhumane system.
The Trump administration sent innocent people there to suffer.
The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5
December 23, 2025 at 5:57 PM
This struck me too. As Anne Applebaum doesn’t mention, she wrote a classic history of the Gulag.
I can't respond to your emails about my availability to attend events next year at the moment. Ms. Whiskey is sitting on my calendar.
I can't prove this with a picture because she is also sitting on my phone.
I can't prove this with a picture because she is also sitting on my phone.
December 23, 2025 at 2:45 PM
I can't respond to your emails about my availability to attend events next year at the moment. Ms. Whiskey is sitting on my calendar.
I can't prove this with a picture because she is also sitting on my phone.
I can't prove this with a picture because she is also sitting on my phone.
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Seems like it's worth posting this one again.
Why Do Historians Still Have To Go To Archives?
Why do historians go to archives? Hasn’t everything already been digitized?
contingentmagazine.org
December 22, 2025 at 1:40 AM
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Reposted by Pamela Toler (she/her)
"Satirical use of historical themes."
Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer
@pdtoler.bsky.social!
Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe
www.historyinthemargins.com/2025/12/17/b...
Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer
@pdtoler.bsky.social!
Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe
www.historyinthemargins.com/2025/12/17/b...
Before Walt Disney… – History in the Margins
www.historyinthemargins.com
December 22, 2025 at 2:46 PM
"Satirical use of historical themes."
Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer
@pdtoler.bsky.social!
Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe
www.historyinthemargins.com/2025/12/17/b...
Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of #popularhistory. Congrats to writer
@pdtoler.bsky.social!
Read/subscribe to Damn History: damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe
www.historyinthemargins.com/2025/12/17/b...
As always, so much great stuff that I wouldn't have found on my own.
This is the final regular thread because next Sunday I’ll share instead our best-of-2025 year-end thread! There’s still time to add nominations, including (especially) your own work, so check out the call & email us suggestions please (which can include newly published or recent work)!
Announcements
If you have a talk coming up, a book on its way, a podcast trailer to drop, or an accomplishment to celebrate, we want to help you share it!
blackwhiteandread.com
December 22, 2025 at 4:47 AM
As always, so much great stuff that I wouldn't have found on my own.