For anyone who doesn’t know, I’ve been a public school teacher for 13 years, special education and English lit. Recently, I’ve started dipping into history, and let me tell you: the “history teachers love to argue and think they know everything” stereotype? Unfortunately (or fortunately?) dead on.
Not too long ago, my colleagues and I were talking about most apt stereotypes for teachers of each subject. “Math?” asked someone. “Come on,” said another. “Obviously socially awkward.” Right. “English?” someone asked. “Bitches. Every class tangent is about themselves.” Damn it if it wasn’t true. “History?” Everyone mulled that one over. “They love to argue,” said a history teacher. “They think they know everything.”
Ding ding ding!
My budding career as a historian, or at the very least, history enthusiast has been all of two months so far. I can already tell you…no lies detected.
Let me be clear. I’m interested in history, and I’m interested in sex. I decided to blend the two together in what would be a slightly academic, but more importantly, entertaining account. I’m here to have fun and so are you. If not, may I direct you to the nearest Puritan diary collection.
Last week some guy popped into my Substack comments to debate Hamilton’s central banking plan. As if this is where we break down 18th-century monetary policy. Bro, I write about colonial sex toys. Wrong classroom.
The second was to refer to Hamilton as, “a seditious slave trader.” Here is where there’s room for a discussion, if only the guy who commented didn’t creep me out. If you are someone who feels that you cannot see humanity in a man who treated others as less than human, respect. That is a completely valid perspective, full stop. I’m not asking you to do so. I don’t expect you to do so. You are right.
I personally don’t like moral absolutism nor oversimplification. The academic in me tells me that both of those things are a dangerous, slippery slope. I am usually going to examine historical figures within the social and historical context of when they existed. That includes reckoning with enslavement. To ignore it would be dishonest; to reduce people only to it risks losing sight of how power, intimacy, and contradictions actually worked.
This guy then went on to essentially praise Jefferson for his agrarian ideals and desire for more state concentrated power. There’s a lot to be said there. Especially, again, considering the historical context. Too much for me to debate over with some weirdo on the internet.
I wanted to study history because I find it to be interesting. Facts and figures don’t do a whole lot for me personally, but the stories of people do. Here’s what I’m quickly learning that I hate about history.
There’s always going to be someone with deeply nuanced understanding of an area of history who’s going to catch an attitude. This is because you (obviously purposefully and totally full of ill intent) didn’t realize that The Starfish People of 1618 relied on a diet of pooka shells and shish kebabs not because of their hereditary low iron, but because their palates had evolved to only be able to digest meat after first crushing something hard between their teeth.
I’d argue, who’s the bigger loser here? Me for not knowing that nuanced fact? Or experts for spending money and time over the course of a decade to study something that nobody…really gives a shit about. (Spoiler - the experts) Oh good, someone dedicated their life to this. Civilization is saved.
It just never feels like history is much of a settled matter. Maybe this will make more sense in my historical research class in the fall. But, for every historian or historical resource that says with absolute certainty that things happened this way, there’s always an equally credible historian or historical resource that says it happened that way. And if you cite historian “B” over historian “A?” Congratulations, you’ve just signed your own execution order. Blindfold optional.
I’m here for stories, especially about sex, relationships, and women’s lives in early America. I’ll bring as much fidelity as possible, and I welcome (respectful) debate. Even better? Share resources, share weird facts, share the things that make history human. That’s the kind of conversation I want here. If you came for dry timelines and tax ledgers, I hear Jefferson’s ghost runs office hours down the hall.
