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Black and white headshot of author Megan Kate Nelson

Megan Kate Nelson

Megan Kate Nelson is a writer, historian, and cultural critic. She has taught American history and American studies at Texas Tech University, Cal State Fullerton, Harvard University, and Brown University. She writes for the New York Times Disunion blog and Civil War Times in addition to JSTOR Daily, and is the author of Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War (Georgia, 2012) and Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp (Georgia, 2005). Her blog, Historista, examines the surprising, cool, and weird ways that people engage with history in everyday life.

Sketch of a Thanksgiving celebration in a military camp in 1861
(Un)catalogued

Meat and Potatoes: The Reminiscences of Alonzo Davis

In April 1863, the men of the 4th California infantry were hungry. They were posted at Drum Barracks ...
Side-by-side black and white photographs from the mid 1800's of two ladies sitting across from each other and dabbling in divination as a specter-like presence hovers between them
(Un)catalogued

Waking the Spirits: The Diaries of John A. Clark

During the fall and winter of 1861-1862, Clark and many other officials in Santa Fe attended at least eight séances.
Small mountain range in New Mexico
(Un)catalogued

Searching for Emmett Mills

In spring 1920, three men disembarked from a train in a high desert town. They had come on behalf of their friend Anson Mills, who had asked them to find his brother's grave.
Grassy area in front of a small mountain range
(Un)catalogued

Making Claims

How claims records and other documents serve as historical sources.
Confederate officer, John Robery Baylor from the Civil War time period
(Un)catalogued

A Complicated Man: John Baylor’s Letters to His Family

How could John Baylor have done such terrible thing and simultaneously be so effusively affectionate in his letters home?
The Organ Mountains in New Mexico
(Un)catalogued

Reading the Landscape

For the past two months, I have been on a researching road trip through the West and Southwest—Colorado, ...
Older and worn illustration of Mesilla, New Mexico
(Un)catalogued

Visualizing History

Nineteenth-century visual images, then, had power to move people to action, to convert ideas into policy.
Excerpt of letter from Alexander Murdock detailing the geography of the Battle of Gettysburg
(Un)catalogued

Finding Your Place in Letters

For scholars of American history, letter-writing makes historical research possible.
A map of Kansas from 1862 showing boundary lines as recorded by O.B. Gunn and D.T. Mitchell.
(Un)catalogued

Finding Your Place by Looking at Maps

American maps in the early 19th century.
Card catalogue drawers
(Un)catalogued

Adventures in Historical Research

Megan Kate Nelson, a historian of Civil War and the American Southwest, is behind the (Un)Catalogued Column for JSTOR Daily.

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