Virginia Olmsted McGraw

Old Icelandic Literature - slightly cheating, cause I was a history major, so the fact that this was an english class that was very heavily history was part of the appeal. My none cheating answer is Indo-European Linguistics, which was just a fascinating class.

My friends and I used to describe our undergrad soviet history professor as “a man with a drawer full of screams” and somehow… I did not learn a lesson from that.

Unfortunate discovery 5 years after finishing my doctorate in Soviet history: I don’t think learning more about the Soviet Union is good for my mental health. This shocking revelation brought to you by a lit review of the years 1944-1950.

Historical price conversions are a core area of concern and interest in costume studies. For fashion historians, curators, or reenactors, the question is: how does one explain the equivalent price of something worn in the past to someone in the present? I suggest a more quantitative understanding of historical prices will help researchers, professors, writers, and others better interpret the garments they examine, both within the field of costume studies as well as other disciplines such as literature, art studies, and sociology. The ambition of this paper is to showcase an alternative tool for fashion researchers to translate and explain historical fashion prices to a contemporary audience beyond simple Consumer Price Index tracking. The instrument this paper proposes is called Measuring Worth, which offers the possibility of wage tracking over time as another way to interpret historical prices.

Image 1: Purple silk velvet and satin court gown made by Charles Frederick Worth for Frances Fairchild, wife of Wisconsin Governor Lucius Fairchild. Image 2: Black and white photographic portrait in front of painted backdrop of Frances (Bull) Fairchild (1845-1924), wife of Wisconsin Governor Lucius Fairchild, wearing a court gown designed by Charles Frederick Worth of Paris, France. Worn at the Spanish court of King Alfonso XII and Queen Teresa, Madrid, Spain, 1880.

My first academic article is live!!

Published with Fashion Studies, “What is a ‘Worth’ Worth? Developing a Methodology of Historical to Modern Day Price Conversions for Dress” asks how we can better explain clothing prices in the past to people in the present. The approach explored is wage data.

I think a lot of people today are so far removed from the past that they forget that infant mortality was once so high that it skewed life expectancy down to 35.

How Much Money Do Historians Make From Their Writing? In general, academic writing doesn’t earn you anything, and most of the time, it costs you.

"If you’ve ever wanted to read an academic journal article, though, you may have noticed that it costs money to download it—anywhere between $5 and $90. The article’s author isn’t getting that money."

I contributed this article to a special issue of the Journal of the Early Republic on "Free State" slavery. It previews one of my book's principle interventions: the concept of hereditary term slavery during the age of gradual abolition.

It is a privilege to appear in print with my co-contributors.

“Provocatively put, too often ‘decolonizing history’ designates certain areas as legitimate and interesting and excludes others. But decolonization is an approach, not a geographical boundary; power hierarchies are always relational.”

A light blue diagram depicting the sea, with the water's surface at the top, and just below it is an outline of the Mary Rose, with the depth (12m, 40ft or 6.7 fathoms). There is a line showing the seabed, which takes a rapid dive into the vertical...

On the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we thought we'd answer a question that's often asked,

"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"

Allow our scaled diagram to explain...

Everyone on this site has a library card

Looking forward to seeing everyone at ASEEES 2024 in just over a week. My panel is on Sunday afternoon, so I’ll be there for the long haul!

Book cover of Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe. A print shows a courier with a walking stick and heavy winter clothing in front of a blue background.

Sneak peek of the new cover for Postal Intelligence! 🤫📯🤩 Featuring a lovely image of the "German Courier" by Enea Vico (mid-16C). I like to think he is crossing the Alps.

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

#earlymodern #16thC #17thC 🗃️ @cornellupress.bsky.social @bethanywasik.bsky.social

Assistant Professor of Naval and Military History | US Naval Academy Annapolis, Maryland, The USNA History Department invites applications for a tenure-track, Assistant Professor (Naval and Military History) position to begin as early as July 2025. The position is open to all candidates who have attained a Ph.D. degree in…

New History Job Posted Today: Assistant Professor of Naval and Military History | US Naval Academy

Assistant Professor (Middle Eastern History) Assistant Professor (Middle Eastern History) page for Human Resources at USNA.edu. Updated Tue Jul 30 15:02:48 EDT 2024.

My department is hiring a historian of the Middle East for a Tenure Track job! Review starts Sept 30.

#medievalsky

I showed my students a Bluesky post today and they asked if it was "twitter but only for historians."

Assistant Professor (Middle Eastern History) Assistant Professor (Middle Eastern History) page for Human Resources at USNA.edu. Updated Tue Jul 30 15:02:48 EDT 2024.

My department is hiring a historian of the Middle East for a Tenure Track job! Review starts Sept 30.

I completely forgot to post here, but my book was officially released yesterday! Thank you very much to those who have already bought it. I look forward to hearing what you think!

Cover page of Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communication Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cornell University Press: 2025)

Book proofs submitted! 🥳📯 Just in time for the @emdigit.bsky.social conference and #DH2024, what an exciting week!

I grew up on a farm in a valley in Appalachia and because my parents weren’t from the area, I still only qualify as Southern. My husband who grew up in town (pop: 4000) can jokingly say he’s a redneck, but no one would call him hill people. People really don’t get how specific these terms are.

As I turn my attention to planning a fall graduate “Introduction to Digital Humanities” class, what DH scholarship published in the past 3-4 years would you insist should be included on such a syllabus?

The worst stage in writing is when a negative wordcount is the goal.

Me *writing in academia*: word counts are evil and bad and should never be applied to an exemplary wordsmith such as myself
Me *reading anything over 30 pages in academia*: what the HELL is THIS???