AUTHOR’S NOTE: my journey into learning US history is a series for paid subscribers. The first entry is not paywalled, and will give you an example of what the series will be like. If you’d like to subscribe and read them all, as well as gain the ability to comment, I’ve put annual subscriptions 10% off at this link. As always, if you can’t afford a paid subscription, email and I’ll give you a free year. hollymathnerd at gmail dot com.
I told a friend about this project, who said, “This will either grow your Substack or kill it, and I really have no idea which, though I suspect it may be the latter.” He may be right (gulp). We’ll see. But I’m enjoying this more than I’ve enjoyed anything in a long time, so I’m hooked.
TONS of pictures in this one — go to the Substack website if your email client freaks out.
In the first post in this series, I asked if anyone had a suggestion for how I could get a dictionary from the era when the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and other founding documents were written. A very generous reader bought me a copy of the 1828 edition of the dictionary, which is 50-ish years after the founding documents were written, but language changes a lot faster nowadays than it did back then (for one thing, the dictionary didn’t make any changes to please Twitter mobs), so this dictionary represents the best way I’m aware of to get some insight into what words meant to the Founders. This post is just sharing some of the cool stuff I found in flipping through it.
Going forward, I will be referring to it in all the coming US History essays. Enormous thanks to the reader who bought this for me—we’re all going to benefit!
The difference in some definitions in the last 195 years boggles the mind. I looked up some words that are mentioned in the founding documents, some words related to the culture wars, and then some words related to things I’m interested in. This is really fascinating (and often hilarious).