A new item coming to a Free-Range Historian blog near you – a series, Word Count! Each quarter, as I type up my latest column for Western Pennsylvania History magazine, I check the handy dandy word count tool in Microsoft Word…and swear just a little. I’m over my limit, again. I do what I can to rein in… Continue reading Word Count: Julien Bryan
Historians are often accused of having their noses stuck in a book. Guilty. As. Charged. It’s hard to find something better than a good book, unless perhaps it’s a book you’ve designed and written yourself! That’s been my project this summer: creating an art catalog from scratch and managing its production from initial photography to… Continue reading Hot Off the Presses
When I told my Alabama-born, SEC-loving loving history professor (who delighted in looking down on “Yankee” college football) that John Heisman was from my Northwestern Pennsylvania town, he almost didn’t believe me. He certainly laughed at my willingness to trash talk right back to him, young freshman that I was. But yes, world, John Heisman is one… Continue reading That Heisman?
If things have been quiet around these parts, it's because your Free-Range Historian has indeed been traversing the wilds of Northwestern Pennsylvania throughout 2022! Before I burst into a stirring rendition of "I've Been Everywhere, Man" (Hank Snow and Johnny Cash are far more qualified than I for that job), I want to highlight another… Continue reading New Year, New Look
St. Patrick’s Day is always a fun celebration in my house, filled with music and hearty food and stories from the past (ok, maybe that’s most days, but hey that’s the risk you take when the lady of the house is a historian). However, a family that traces its descent from Ulster Scot Presbyterians and… Continue reading Roots
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