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Reposted by Catherine McNeur

Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 24d

Portland State U historian @catherinemcneur.bsky.social is doing a very cool series of local history posts on TikTok. Portland folks will be especially interested in them, but so might many others out there. This one is about the horseshoe courts in Laurelhurst Park.
www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8SXnEWH/

Horseshoe tossing was the pickleball of 100 years ago. Are we overdue for a horseshoe revival or do you think the city should repurpose these spaces? #portland #portlandparks #historytok #history #hi...

TikTok video by Catherine McNeur

www.tiktok.com

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · 24d

Thanks, Seth!

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Reposted by Catherine McNeur

Daniella M. @farsouthhistory.bsky.social · Jul 9

Check out @catherinemcneur.bsky.social's review of‪@mike-stark.bsky.social's "Starlings: The Curious Odyssey of a Most Hated Bird," published in 2025 @univnebpress.bsky.social; review now available @hnetreviews.bsky.social #envhist #envhum #birds #animalhist
www.h-net.org/reviews/show...

www.h-net.org

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Mar 5

That essay is phenomenal.

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Mar 2

What role should journalists be playing at this moment when so much is at stake? @saratexas.bsky.social’s article is a clarion call to us all, journalists, writers, citizens: nonprofitquarterly.org/when-journal...

When Journalism Becomes a Weapon: A Call for Ethical Reporting - Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly

A call from NPQ's editor in chief for ethical reporting and journalism to defend democracy, civil society institutions, and civil rights.

nonprofitquarterly.org

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Feb 17

All of us deserve to have a place in our country’s history without fear of erasure. These are the books on my shelf that I go to for the history of trans Americans. What else would you add, historians?

They were here, they are here, they will be here.

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Feb 17

Referring to the NPS’s erasure of trans participation in the 1969 Stonewall riots, Hugh Ryan writes “All autocracies attempt to control the past in order to control the future.” When you erase the past, it makes anything happening now seem too new, an aberration. It is not.
slate.com/news-and-pol...

The Trump Administration Just Deleted Part of American History. If They Get Away With It, We Could Be Headed to a Very Dark Place.

This is far more serious than the loss of a few letters.

slate.com

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Feb 17

Always a great day when I get to hang out with the best Seths—Seth Cotlar and Seth Rockman—historians extraordinaire, particularly at Powell’s, particularly during an extended celebration of Seth Rockman’s fantastic new book, Plantation Goods. Worth a read!

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Jan 29

Really honored to be included on this list! literary-arts.org/2025/01/anno...

ANNOUNCING THE 2025 OREGON BOOK AWARDS FINALISTS AND SPECIAL AWARDS RECIPIENTS

Literary Arts is thrilled to announce the finalists for the 2025 Oregon Book Awards. The winners of each category will be announced live at the 2025 Oregon Book Awards Ceremony,

literary-arts.org

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Jan 27

www.loc.gov/item/event-4...

Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science

Join historian Catherine McNeur as she discusses her recent book, "Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science," with Manuscript Division historians Josh Levy a...

www.loc.gov

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Jan 27

On Wednesday, February 12th at 12pm Eastern (9am Pacific), I’ll be joining the Library of Congress’s Manuscript Division historians Josh Levy and Elizabeth A. Novara for a talk about Mischievous Creatures, live-streamed at zoomgov.com (and recorded for later viewing). #envhum #envhist

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Nov 28

Same here. On the flip side, it makes me incredibly grateful when students fully show up eager to actually write. I took that for granted before, to a certain extent.

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Nov 28

What I hate about ChatGPT is how suspicious it has made me. Not-so-polished writing tends to make me think it was written by a human (🤪) or pieces that hew close to the readings/sources we used (🎉). Otherwise it seems impossible to know anything for sure.

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Reposted by Catherine McNeur

Finis Dunaway @finisdunaway.bsky.social · Nov 10

Unfortunately, this seem an apt time to share: A group of historians annotated sections of Project 2025, contextualizing and commenting on its plans to undermine environmental protections, exacerbate inequalities, and burn, burn, burn more fossil fuels. #envhist 🌎

Project 2025 Annotation: A Summary – Environmental Data and Governance Initiative

Eighteen environmental historians from EDGI's Environmental Historians Action Collaborative working group are annotating environmental chapters and sections from Project 2025. For all the discussions ...

envirodatagov.org

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Sep 9

Looking forward to joining Boston University’s Andrew Robichaud next week (9/17 at 5:30) at the Massachusetts Historical Society to talk about Mischievous Creatures! Boston friends: I hope to see you there! www.masshist.org/events/misch...

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · May 7

More here:

The Woman Who Solved a Cicada Mystery--But Got No Recognition

Margaretta Hare Morris discovered that the hordes of chirping insects that will emerge en masse this spring come in more than one species

www.scientificamerican.com

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · May 7

For those of you lucky to live near the cicadas, I hope you feel the thrill Margaretta Morris felt when she studied these curious creatures. And should you hear the rattling trill of Cassin’s cicada, you might be rebellious & call it Morris’s cicada, or perhaps, better yet, something entirely new.

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · May 7

Even better, maybe we can follow the model of the American Ornithological Society and disconnect human names from the names of creatures. These names tell stories of power, more often than they tell stories of the plants and animals themselves. And these names sometimes hide more than they show.

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · May 7

And then two of those men—John Cassin and James Coggswell Fisher—went on to name that cicada after themselves: Magicicada cassinii (Fisher), or Cassin’s cicada.

We are overdue to correct the record. Perhaps we could refer to the smaller buzzy creature as Morris’s cicada.

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · May 7

The cicadas are emerging now, and amid all the buzz there is a story of a stolen name that is not making it into the news.

In 1846, Margaretta Hare Morris had told the men at the Academy of Natural Sciences of her discovery of a new species. She even gave them specimens! …

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Reposted by Catherine McNeur

Dr. Hilary Rose Dawson @hilaryrosed.bsky.social · Apr 27

If you're looking for a good book about women and nature, I just finished these three fabulous new books and highly recommend them.
#WomenInScience 🧪🌾🌎

Three books sitting on a chaotic garden wall: Soil by Camille Dungy, Radiant: the dancer, the scientist, and a friendship forged in light by Liz Heinecke, and Mischievous Creatures: The forgotten sisters who transformed early American science by Catherine McNeur

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Reposted by Catherine McNeur

Michael D. Barton @darwinsbulldog.bsky.social · Apr 10

Who knew the story of 2 sisters in 19thC America, one an entomologist & the other a botanist, could be so engrossing. Really enjoying historian @catherinemcneur.bsky.social's Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science, even by book light.

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Apr 3

Thank goodness for artisanal everything: garbled sentences, wonky stitches, wobbly lines, all of it.

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Catherine McNeur @catherinemcneur.bsky.social · Apr 3

What ChatGPT has done to me (besides making me grumble when I spot its use by students) is made me love human errors so much more. This wobbly line brought me joy when I was walking past because it was so clearly the work of a human with an elbow that jerked at the wrong moment.

Lane dividing line on showing imperfection.

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Reposted by Catherine McNeur

Melanie A. Kiechle @melaniekiechle.bsky.social · Jan 20

January is moving swiftly--don't miss your chance to apply to be the founding editor of ASEH's new online publication, Environmental History Review. 🗃️📗 Details here, to read and share widely: aseh.org/Environmenta.... Applications due to search chair @catherinemcneur.bsky.social by February 1.

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