Craig Fehrman was working on a book about the Lewis and Clark expedition when he was attacked by a dog. He recovered, but the violent experience—which was something the expedition crew was no stranger to—ruptured the boundaries between his life and his subjects’ lives. Names and dates were important, but they were also an abstraction of sorts; his solution was to dig for the crux of what people actually experienced.
I was trying to find the human side of history, and humans were often my best source. When I thought about Sacajawea in the Rockies, trying to keep her infant son alive, I thought about my own kids at that age—about my wife breastfeeding them, both parties always hungry, always thirsty. Breastfeeding burns an extra 500 calories a day, and the Rockies were a time of serious hunger for the expedition. The men ended up killing and eating some of their horses. When I interviewed Shoshone people, though, they told me that eating horse flesh was a Shoshone taboo.Â
More stories about history
Skill Nostalgia
“Is all the beekeeping, baking and leatherwork just escapist fantasy or the start of a radically human approach to work?”
Semiquincentennial Blues
“I am yearning to reject something that is not even being sold to me.”
Tunnel 13
“A botched train robbery in Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains left four men dead, led to an international manhunt, and helped usher forensic science into the modern age.”
Made in the USA
“Pete Hegseth is the product of an essentially American ethos—which means we have no choice but to ask what to do with him, and what to do with ourselves.”
Shall We Play a Game?
“Historian Jon Peterson traces the route from Prussian military headquarters to Gary Gygax’s basement.”
The First Tomato to Know Everything
“On gray literature and Webster’s Timeline History books.”
