This website has been sixty years in the making but it is finally just now seeing the light of day. I hope this will be an interesting ride for people who already know me (or at least think they do!) as well as people who have only found me through this website.
You can find here stories, fully illustrated, some funny, some more adventure than funny, that I have told my students (at least in part) for the last fifteen years. I’m writing more everyday!
Some students and I videotaped four of these stories last spring and, as they are completed, I’ll post them here as well as on my YouTube channel. As a sample of what we did, check out the Featured Video below “Dr. Baird Dunks a Basketball”, directed and edited by Country Day senior Nina Dym. My YouTube channel is “Dr. Baird Online” at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfVTPZr6D_DXwAtXMw_oisQ
The bulk of the website is devoted to research that I’ve been working on for the past couple of decades and continue to work on. Some of these page were articles actually published in journals, books, and newsletters. Some were talks I gave at various conferences while others were term papers for graduate classes. I’ve thrown in some personal reflections on the state of history and other topics that I wrote back in the 1990s.
But most of the research I’ve posted here are the workings of a half-dozen books on, I’m sure you would agree, a quite eclectic range of topics, like “Capitalism and the Myth of Maximizing,” “Dueling and the Origins of the Old South,” “In Search of Pliny’s Fountain,” and “Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie, and the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol.” These are books that I have started and never quite finished. But with the ease of posting my writing on the website, I’m actually feeling a lot more motivated!
I should, however, warn you that some of this writing is pretty dense with tons of endnotes, not for the fainthearted, only to be taken in small doses. And most of my more recent research is definitely a work in progress, unfinished and in need of a thorough editing. But I decided, rather than keep this research hidden until it is finished to my satisfaction – whenever that may be – that I would just put it out there so that others who are interested can build on what I have here as part of what I call “open source history.”
I’ll also have regular posts updating you on anything new added to the website as well as news articles of interest and personal essays where I’ll wax philosophical about the state of world and other topics. I’ve started with posts of the most recent Octagon articles that have featured me over the past few years.
While I’ve got you here, check out the Video of the Week and Photo of the Week. I’ve kicked off the Video of the Week feature with one of my favorite short videos. These photos and videos will rotate on a weekly basis so you always have something new to look forward to. By the way, if you have any short videos (either ones you made or ones you found online) or photos that you think would be appropriate, please send them along so I can include them in the schedule for future postings!
Finally, if you have any ideas or suggestions to improve this website, please leave a comment below this post or you use the contact form at the bottom of the page. I look forward to hearing from you!
Love your website! You’re 100% correct— small doses are all us plebs can handle!
; )
Interesting about South and dueling.
So you probably know Jeff Davis — arguably the biggest cowards in US history –challenged the Governor of Illinois, William Bissell to a duel. Note that Davis challenged Bissell.
Davis then, like a coward, weaseled out.
Davis had been boasting of his own bravery, leading his men (supposedly) in battle. The battle he named, Bissell knew well — he was there. And he knew the Donald Trump of lying (Davis) was not there, and did not lead anyone.
Davis had no clue Bissell might accept, because Illinois had not only made dueling itself a crime, but specifically stated no one who fought in a duel could hold office in the state. Davis thought Bissell would not accept a challenge because of that.
Indeed Bissell knew of Davis’s cruelty to Mexicans civilians -meaning their slaughter.
But what to you expect from a man who — according to his own wife, admitted in her letter to Blairs, that Davis was dressed as a woman, and ran away when bullets flew — not bothering to protect her or her children.
As Varina’s letter reveals, “I said it was my mother,” then according to her letter, too, she ran to Davis, and protected him. He protected no one
So too did Jeff Davis’s nephew admit Davis ran away in women’s clothing, and apologized for helping him do so.
An amazing aspect of this — is that Davis had to be dressed in women’s attire already, because Davis ran immediately upon hearing shots fired some distance away. One does not put on women’s clothes within a few seconds, then grab a woman’s ratigan, but on fancy boots and stirrup, and run to a horse already saddled and ready to flee)
But back to the duel. Unlike almost every “scholar” writing about that episode, (example being Northernpublicradio.org 021-02-22, “Illinois-history-the-governor-who-nearly-dueled-jefferson,” Bissell was fed up with Davis and his boasting of how brave he was (he was a coward) in the invasion of Mexico, and the killing sprees that followed.
Bruce, I would like to contact you outside of your website contact form. Would you please email me.
Thanks,
Kent Lambert
Clear Lake High School
Texas A&M University
Bruce, I too would like you to contact me outside of this website. Please email me —
Brenda Zimpfer
Clear Lake High School
& more
Hey Bruce-
Like Brenda and Kent, I too would like to hear from you, perhaps for similar reasons. Thanks, hope you are well and reasonably happy!
Kerry