Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · 6d

Happy to see my Sandhill Cities book displayed at the Urban History Association conference. For those interested in smaller and midsized cities and/or the modern US South, check it out at the Scholars’ Choice table in the book exhibit. #UHA25LA @lsupress.bsky.social

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Urban History Association (the official account) @urbanhistorya.bsky.social · 7d

Finally, FRIDAY 10/10 from 10:45am-12:15pm you'll have the chance to speak w @charlotte-leib.bsky.social about her research that reconstructs historic #Lenape wild rice彡stands near #Manhattan, in the #Meadowlands, using digital #webmaps @bplmaps.bsky.social Come try the map! bsky.app/profile/urba...

Urban History Association (the official account) @urbanhistorya.bsky.social · 9d

⑵ Besides posting here during #UHA2025LA @charlotte-leib.bsky.social will be sharing a digital project this #Friday in #LA Titled "Wild Rice and Munsee Lenape Lifeways in the New Jersey Meadowlands," it is part of #OurLandOurStories our-land-our-stories.libraries.rutgers.edu/exhibits/sho... #envhist

Screenshot of a digital interactive map. The map comprises of several components. In the background are two side-by-side basemaps occupying different portions of the screen.

The one at the left comprises of historical black & white aerial imagery from the 1930s. It shows a patchwork landscape of urban development, rivers & meadows as seen from a considerable distance above the earth, as in a satellite image (except in this case, the historic black & white imagery was taken from a plane and later stitched together to form the complete "layer" shown on the map).

The basemap that appears beside it is a more recent satellite image, from the 2020s, that appears in color. The actual landscape shown is one landscape represented partway by the black & white aerial imagery, and partway by the color aerial imagery. Viewers familiar with New York City's geography will recognize the large rectilinear Central Park in Manhattan, which appears on the map's right-hand side. At left is the part of the landscape represented by the black and white historical aerial imagery, which comprises of Newark, Secaucus, Jersey City, and other towns along the Hudson River and Passaic and Hackensack Rivers. The layers comprise a large metropolitan landscape past and present.

Upon the map, 2 areas are highlighted in beige and purple opaque layers.

Atop is the purple layer, a white pop-up box with black text reads:
" Sëkëxkuk: 'Place of the black snakes.' Departing from Munsee Lenape tradition, colonial settlers rendered Sëkëxkuk as Sikakes. Today, the spot is known as Secaucus in a further phonetic and orthographic distortion of the phrase. The historic presence of snakes in this area, where freshwater and saltwater once met at the penultimate bend of the Hackensack River, is reflected in original Munsee place name and in the name of nearby Snake Hill."

Several placemarkers also appear on the map in blue. At the bottom right is a control bar with different map layers that the user can toggle.

This image is a detail of the larger map project described in the last alt-text entry. This image is taken at a closer scale and different layers are turned on within it to show slightly different information. The layer that is turned on shows historic Munsee Lenape settlements along the Passaic River in New Jersey, and another layer, overlapped beneath it, shows historic Lenape place names (i.e. "Passayack, Atchunk, Espating, Wiehaekse, Meghegtecuck").

Atop these map layers are the same beige and purple highlighted areas. Two blue placemarkers are visible on these layers. There is also a dashed purple line stretching from the southernmost Lenape village represented on the basemap, along the Passaic River, to the southernmost tip of the two areas highlighted in beige and purple.

Coming up from the blue placemarker that sits atop the purple layer is a pop-up box. The white pop-up box features a detail image of a herbarium specimen. That specimen is a dried wild rice plant. It appears with beige fronds and dense seedheads, strapped down by a piece of white paper.

In the pop-up box where this herbaria specimen appears, there is a title. It reads: " pèhpastèk | Zizania aquatica. Collector: J. V. Monachino. Date: August 11, 1936. Location: "Near Union City". Hudson County. Source: New York Botanical Garden.

On the upper left corner of the map is a plus/minus tool for zooming in and out. There is also a button for expanding full screen.

At the bottom right are the Layer Opacity and Map Layer control bars.

Along the bottom border of the image are some credits. They read: "Leaflet. Source: Kevin Wright & Bergen County Historical Society. Source: Newark Museum. © MapTiler & OpenStreetMap. A small Ukrainian flag icon appears next to the Leaflet label, inline with the small text. This text sits at the bottommost part of the map in small font.

The main feature of the image is the wild rice herbarium specimen, and the map layers.

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Reposted by Mark Souther

Urban History Association (the official account) @urbanhistorya.bsky.social · 7d

SOUNDSCAPES NYC is an educational programming project rooted in a popular #podcast about how music created in #NewYork has shaped the city & how the city itself has been an incubator in which music has blossomed.

Learn more about Purcell's project here: themetropole.blog/2024/12/10/s... #UHA2025LA

Soundscapes: The Music that Created New York

Launched in 2024, Soundscapes N.Y.C. is a podcast about how music created in New York has shaped the history of the city and how throughout its history the city itself has been an incubator for new…

themetropole.blog

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Reposted by Mark Souther

Urban History Association (the official account) @urbanhistorya.bsky.social · 7d

Green Book Cleveland is a #digitalhistory project by the Center for #PublicHistory & #DH @Cleveland State. It combines Victor H. Green’s famous travel guides, pub'd from 1936-1966, w/ new research on #Black entertainment, leisure&rec in Cleveland & NEOhio. Author: Mark Souther greenbookcleveland.org

Green Book Cleveland

The history of Black entertainment, leisure, and recreation in Northeast Ohio. A project of the CSU Center for Public History + Digital Humanities.

greenbookcleveland.org

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Reposted by Mark Souther

Urban History Association (the official account) @urbanhistorya.bsky.social · 7d

Stop by the Gold Room 9am-5:30pm TOMORROW Fri. 10/10 and Sat. 10/11 during the conference for hands-on #demonstrations and #conversations with these projects' digital creators.

Featured projects in the #UHA2025LA Digital Projects Exhibition include the ones posted to this thread + many more! ⤵ ⤵ ⤵

Ornate historic ballroom with a grand piano centered on a circular patterned carpet beneath chandeliers. The room features high ceilings with decorative gold panels, tall arched windows draped with gold curtains, and intricate wall moldings. A balustrade and a short staircase with potted plants frame the raised stage area, giving the space a formal and elegant atmosphere. The rug is super ornate and has a flower theme.

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Urban History Association (the official account) @urbanhistorya.bsky.social · 7d

Envisioning Seneca Village blends historical research w/ #digitalmapping + rendering to present an interactive 3D model of what #SenecaVillage might have looked like in 1855, two yrs before its destruction to build Central Park. Co-Authors: Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin & Myles Zhang

A 3D reconstruction map of Seneca Village overlaid on a historic street grid of Manhattan, with labeled streets including 82nd Street, 86th Street, and 8th Avenue/Central Park West. The rendering depicts fields, gardens, houses, and roads that made up the 19th-century community. At the top of the image, large black text reads: “Envisioning Seneca Village — Through the tools of archives, archaeology, and virtual reality.”

A digital reconstruction of a 19th-century rural community landscape, depicting Seneca Village. In the foreground, a small stream winds through grassy terrain with wildflowers and wooden fences. A large two-story white house with columns and lit windows stands prominently to the right, with smoke rising from its chimney. Nearby are smaller houses, gardens, and fenced areas with animals, set against a backdrop of dramatic clouds and trees, including willows. The scene evokes a peaceful, lived-in environment. It is a working landscape and the color palette is serene, with yellows, greens, beiges, white-painted homes and a sky with what looks like coal smoke on one side and large cumulus white clouds on other, looming above the horizon.

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Reposted by Mark Souther

Urban History Association (the official account) @urbanhistorya.bsky.social · 7d

#BunkerHillRefrain provides scholars and the general public with an opportunity to reimagine the history of #LosAngeles by telling the stories of a neighborhood erased by #urbanrenewal. Co-Authors: Mats Borges, Meredith Drake Reitan, Curtis Fletcher and students #UHA2025LA

A detailed 3D wireframe model of a dense urban neighborhood, showing a mix of early 20th-century residential and commercial buildings. The scene includes multi-story apartment houses with bay windows and decorative façades in the foreground, as well as row houses, small shops, and mid-rise buildings receding into the background. The model is rendered in pastel colors with visible polygon edges, suggesting it is being viewed in a 3D modeling environment.

Closer-up view of the same model referenced in the last image, now at just above building-height.

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Reposted by Mark Souther

Urban History Association (the official account) @urbanhistorya.bsky.social · 7d

Get ready to explore the future of urban history at #UHA2025LA! Tomorrow and Saturday, the UHA conference's Digital Exhibition Floor in the #BiltmoreHotel 's Gold Room will showcase cutting-edge research that’s transforming how we understand urban places.

Los Angeles cityscape collage near city hall in hues of red, brown, ultramarine, and beige, with the hashtag #UHA2025LA on top and a palm tree behind. The #LA hashtag is in a blue circle with an abstract city street grid.

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Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · Aug 7

My newest book, Sandhill Cities, published by @lsupress.bsky.social, is now available! Looking outward from Atlanta or Charlotte, the fall-line cities might seem peripheral, but their histories are inseparable from that of an emerging modern South. Learn more at lsupress.org/978080718489....

Sandhill Cities

Sandhill Cities is a comparative history of Augusta, Columbus, and Macon, Georgia, in the twentieth century. Weaving together southern, urban, and environmen...

lsupress.org

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Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · Dec 16

Anne, I’m so sorry to hear of your loss. Wishing you comfort and peace.

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Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · Dec 10

Just happened upon this nice collection of Cincinnati Better Housing League photos of tenements and alleys, many from the Progressive Era but also some later ones from the Depression digital.cincinnatilibrary.org/digital/coll...

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Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · Nov 24

Great read. Yes, how telling that the files are locked away from public access. Just subscribed to your Substack. I’m also enjoying seeing the digital project as it develops.

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Researching Urban Renewal (formerly 98 Acres in Albany) @urbanrenewal.bsky.social · Nov 24

A revealing Christmas skit by the firm hired by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to oversee relocation, site management, and demolition of Lincoln Square urbanrenewal.substack.com/p/lincoln-ce...

Cover image from “A Day at Lincoln Square,” a play by Charles D. Atkinson, illustrated by Midgette. The iconic design of Lincoln Center overshadows a family of six, bags packed and dog in tow, presumably on their way out. Braislin, Porter & Wheelock is printed on their bags. Rockefeller Archives.

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Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · Nov 22

Kind of excited that I have nothing scheduled this weekend! For the previous five weekends, I’ve had one or more band or orchestra rehearsals or concerts to top of the usual semester stuff.

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Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · Nov 22

Ahh, the first lake effect snow warning of the season! Winter is paying Cleveland an early visit.

Weather radar showing snowfall and warning area in NE Ohio

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Cassandra Good @cgoodhistorian.bsky.social · Nov 16

Here’s my latest, First Family: George Washington’s Heirs and the Making of America

bookshop.org/p/books/firs...

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Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · Nov 21

I enjoyed your discussion of your book on Ben Franklin’s World, and we talked about it in my public history class earlier this month.

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Reposted by Mark Souther

Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · Nov 15

Totally exciting to see this brand new book by @sethrockman.bsky.social out on the table at the Harvard Bookstore

Picture of Seth’s book, Plantation Goods: A Material History of Slavery

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Reposted by Mark Souther

Brenden W. Rensink 📚🏃‍♂️⛰ @brendenwrensink.bsky.social · Nov 15

American West friends - here's a new profile for the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at BYU: @byureddcenter.bsky.social. Follow and share!

bsky.app/profile/byur...

bsky.app

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Reposted by Mark Souther

David Hochfelder @dphochfelder.bsky.social · Nov 15

1) Currently working on digital exhibit for NYS public library system on urban renewal; plans for a book on UR (@urbanrenewal.bsky.social).
2)How to find and count people displaced involuntarily for other govt programs besides UR (esp urban expressways but also TVA, dams, NYC water, etc)

Eddie Valentin @evalentin25.bsky.social · Nov 15

Bluesky academics, let's get to know each other! Quote this & tell me: 1) a project you’re working on & 2) an idea/theory you aren't working on but keep thinking about.

1) Currently working on a book about Black soldiers in the U.S. Army during the post-Civil War era (based off my dissertation).

Dr. Jamie LH Goodall @lhistorienne.bsky.social · Nov 15

Bluesky academics, let's get to know each other! Quote this & tell me: 1) a project you’re working on & 2) an idea/theory you aren't working on but keep thinking about.
1) Currently writing a book titled A Spirited History of the Taverns, Inns, & Public Houses of Virginia

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Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · Nov 15

1) Currently working on the Green Book Cleveland DH project and working through the in-press production stage of my next book on GA fall-line cities.

2) Wondering if there were other Black-owned beach resorts on the Great Lakes similar to the two we’ve researched on Lake Erie in NE Ohio.

Eddie Valentin @evalentin25.bsky.social · Nov 15

Bluesky academics, let's get to know each other! Quote this & tell me: 1) a project you’re working on & 2) an idea/theory you aren't working on but keep thinking about.

1) Currently working on a book about Black soldiers in the U.S. Army during the post-Civil War era (based off my dissertation).

Dr. Jamie LH Goodall @lhistorienne.bsky.social · Nov 15

Bluesky academics, let's get to know each other! Quote this & tell me: 1) a project you’re working on & 2) an idea/theory you aren't working on but keep thinking about.
1) Currently writing a book titled A Spirited History of the Taverns, Inns, & Public Houses of Virginia

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Reposted by Mark Souther

Urban History Association (the official account) @urbanhistorya.bsky.social · Nov 13

"To the Latin American immigrants who made up a growing share of the surrounding community, MacArthur Park was a place for survival ... 'In my country it is not a crime to be a vendor,' protested a man from El Salvador who sold toys." L.A. immigration, street commerce, McArthur Park and the LAPD

The “World City” at Work: How Street Vendors Transformed Global L.A

By David Helps Jorge Cruz Cortes was still a teenager when the Los Angeles Police Department arrested him for selling household goods without a license in 1989. The eighteen-year-old from Oaxaca, M…

themetropole.blog

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Reposted by Mark Souther

Chris Cantwell @cdc29.bsky.social · Nov 13

My department is running a tenure track search in Public History for someone who focuses on Latine or Indigenous History. PLEASE share widely; and reach out with questions. I'm more than happy to sell the benefits of joining our really vibrant program.

www.careers.luc.edu/postings/29664

History, Assistant Professor of Public History, Tenure Track

The candidate will have a PhD in History or a closely related field at the time of appointment. Candidates for the position must demonstrate clear potential for excellence in research and teaching, ob...

www.careers.luc.edu

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Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · Nov 12

Please add me too. Thx!

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Mark Souther @marksouther.bsky.social · Nov 11

For those in #Cleveland, you can see me play with the Cleveland Winds this Sunday, Nov. 17. Why is there a moth on this poster, you ask? Because our portion of this joint concert with CSU Wind Ensemble opens with Viet Cuong’s “Moth.” Concert info: facebook.com/events/s/csu...

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