Adam Arenson
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adamarenson.bsky.social
Adam Arenson
@adamarenson.bsky.social
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Writing and teaching history for a wider public. Black North American border-crossing after the Underground Railroad; Civil War and Reconstruction in the West; Mid-Century Modern art and architecture from Millard Sheets. Californian in NYC. adamarenson.com
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Reposted by Adam Arenson
drsurekhadavies.bsky.social
I went through a literary agent for HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY, published earlier this year as a lead trade-list title by
@ucpress.bsky.social. Working with an agent has been great; it's essential for trade-list pubs. Don't underestimate the due diligence required! buttondown.com/surekhadavie...
How I got a literary agent
On what I did en route to getting offers of representation from three New York City literary agents.
buttondown.com
December 10, 2025 at 9:36 AM
Reposted by Adam Arenson
mjsdc.bsky.social
By the end of the ratification debates, everyone understood that the 14th Amendment would grant birthright citizenship to the children of immigrants. The only live question was whether that was a *good* thing. Some senators argued it wasn’t. But they lost! applyliberally.substack.com/p/birthright...
However, the reality - which Justice Horace Gray notes in the Wong Kim Ark decision - was that precisely that debate did arise. During the debate over the ratification of the 14th Amendment in the 39th Congress, it was proposed that the initial clause was unacceptable because it denied states the capacity to deny citizenship either to Chinese or 'Gypsy residents - the unsuitability of both groups described at great length by a Senator Cowan from Pennsylvania. Senator John Conness of California -himself an immigrant from Ireland - replied to this objection that "The proposition before us, I will say, Mr President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States"
December 7, 2025 at 7:26 PM