Rebecca Koerselman

In the past few decades, professional historians have been in decline in the United States. Historians, professional organizations, and even non-historians have spent a great deal of time wringing their hands and kvetching about this decline.  Historian Gordon Wood identified…

The curmudgeonly journalist H.L. Mencken pronounced Puritanism as the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. In popular culture, the Puritans are generally considered devout and devoid of fun. Yet the Puritans were complicated and complex people, much like…

After World War II, colleges were full of GIs securing the benefits of the 1944 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (the “GI Bill”). Benjamin Samuel Bloom, a professor of education at the University of Chicago, worked with colleagues to organize the multiplicity…

Between 2015 and 2016, Sam Wineburg and his team tested students in twelve states and studied 7,804 responses. The team specifically analyzed online civic reasoning, the students’ ability to judge information that streams across smartphones, tablets, and computers. Sam WineburgMargaret…

The absence of space startled me. The longer I stood there, the more I was struck by the weightiness of that lack of space. Next, I became emotional, which surprised me. I have been listening to the discussions and debates…

If God incarnated himself in man, died and rose from the dead, All human endeavors deserve attention Only to the degree that they depend on this, I.e., acquire meaning thanks to this event. We should think of this by day…

It wasn’t a surprise. After all, simple math shows anyone who remembered the years of World War II would be well into their nineties. Albert Havinga was born in 1921 in the city of Groningen in the northern part of…

I love watching World Cup Soccer. This summer, I have had the pleasure of watching elite women’s teams battle it out on an international stage. Of course it doesn’t hurt to be a fan of the most dominate team, the…

I love a good museum. Public history and historical memory are avenues of historical research that I enjoy exploring. Doing research in the archives is great, but visiting a museum with other people is a way of doing history that…

From a collection of Puritan prayers: Resting on God O God Most High, Most Glorious,The thought of thine infinite serenity cheers me,For I am toiling and moiling, troubled and distressed,   but thou art for ever at perfect peace.Thy designs cause…