Category Archives: History

At the Precipice

Posted on May 10, 2013 by LaDale Winling

After six weeks of grief, logistics planning, and dealing with bureaucracy, I may finally be ready to dust off my historian’s hat. Am I ready to take the leap? My hold on historical knowledge has never felt so slippery as … Continue reading →

Posted in History | Leave a comment

New Work with Census Data in GIS

Posted on December 12, 2012 by LaDale Winling

NHGIS, one of the digital efforts of the Minnesota Population Center, is totally wonderful. Since I learned about it as a graduate student, it has been an essential source when I need demographic data from the U.S. Census and to … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital History, Geography, History, Maps | Leave a comment

Lincoln

Posted on November 25, 2012 by LaDale Winling

My wife and I went out on Thursday for just the third time since our son’s birth, this time to see Lincoln. Several historians chimed in with their opinions and evaluations at film’s release. Kate Masur, a historian of slavery … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, History, Politics, Public History | 1 Comment

Berkeley in the 60s

Posted on October 27, 2012 by LaDale Winling

Aaron Bady and Mike Konczal have a piece up at Dissent on the reuse of the Reagan playbook at the University of California, linking the 1960s to the 2000s. The last few years that point has been broadly made several … Continue reading →

Posted in Bay Area, Berkeley, History, Politics | Leave a comment

Historian’s Road Trip

Posted on October 23, 2012 by LaDale Winling

This summer my family took a road trip out to the western Chicago suburbs to support some research I have been doing on the creation of Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne was located near Lemont along the Illinois and Michigan Canal … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Chicago, Cities, Higher Education, History, Research | Leave a comment

The Obama Presidential Library, Part One

Posted on August 2, 2012 by LaDale Winling

Discussion about the location of the Obama Presidential Library and Museum has been surfacing in a handful of media sources (and fan sites). Most recently, the Chicago Sun-Times published an article with pre-emptive criticism of an effort to bring the … Continue reading →

Posted in Chicago, History, Public History, University of Chicago | 1 Comment

HOLC Maps

Posted on July 29, 2012 by LaDale Winling

At least since Ken Jackson’s 1980 article in the Journal of Urban History, historians have been fascinated by the security maps created by the security maps created by the Home Ownership Loan Corporation and the process of state-sponsored segregation in … Continue reading →

Posted in Cities, History, Housing, Maps | Leave a comment

The Power Elite

Posted on June 29, 2012 by LaDale Winling

A brief foray into the collections of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library brought two minor surprises today, both from his pre-presidential papers. While he was a senator, Kennedy was a member of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, … Continue reading →

Posted in Federal Policy, Higher Education, History | Leave a comment

Historic Aerial Photography – Soil Conservation Service

Posted on June 16, 2012 by LaDale Winling

Next up in blogging the book project is a return to aerial photography. Background: during the New Deal, agriculture was a key priority, and soil a specific component of that — see, for example, Don Worster’s The Dust Bowl. So … Continue reading →

Posted in Chicago, Cities, Digital History, History, New Deal, Photography, Research, University of Chicago | Leave a comment

Blogging the Book Project

Posted on June 6, 2012 by LaDale Winling

It’s the summer of the book manuscript, so I’m going over my existing draft, looking through the primary research I’ve already conducted, reflecting on my existing publications, doing more secondary reading, and planning for new research. In short, I’m knee-deep … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogosphere, Books, Digital History, History, Internet | Leave a comment