Happy Easter! Given the pandemic and the necessary stay-at-home order we are under, this is not a normal Easter. On a typical Easter, we would be getting together with family to eat a nice dinner and socialize. It would also be somewhat warmer. Instead, we are all in our individual homes doing homely (in the British sense of the word) things and it’s around freezing in Minnesota, with snow in the metro. I am writing…
This week I exploded two websites. Not really, but that’s kinda what it felt like. I decided, in what felt like a spur-of-the-moment decision, that I no longer wanted to keep up two personal blogs. While I had been blogging weekly at The Pragmatic Historian for about two years, my blogging at this site, maryewarner.com, has lagged. If I didn’t have a job and other obligations, sure, I could write for two blogs, but that’s…
One of the key points I keep making about history is that it is part of our infrastructure. Each community has a foundation of history, as does each state, and the nation as a whole. The unique history of each community, the events, people, organizations, and even its geography, gives the place its special character. These are the features that affect how the community develops. They also draw people to the community. The history of…
In July 2019, which feels so veeeeery long ago now, I discussed the importance of the census, how getting an accurate count of everyone who lives in the United States is important for the distribution of government funding, figuring out how many representatives states have in Congress, and for future historians wanting data about who was living where and with whom. Guess what? It’s census time RIGHT NOW! April 1, 2020 is Census Day. It…
March 13, 2020 A mere month ago I wasn’t thinking about COVID-19, let alone thinking of blogging about it. Now, it’s pretty much all I can think of, along with mitigation efforts to #FlattenTheCurve in order to slow the spread and not overwhelm our healthcare system. I’m writing this on Friday, March 13, 2020. It’s important to note the date because the situation is changing rapidly. We’ve got 14 people in the state who have…