Author: Mark Thomas
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Why Levi Isn’t Eating His Vegetables
This October 28, will mark the 214th anniversary of Quaker Abolitionist Levi Coffin’s birth. Among his many involvements in what were at the time the nation’s most prominent social developments, Coffin was active in the ill-fated Free Labor Movement. At the heart of that movement rests a central issue as compelling today as it was…
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Nostalgia – History’s Greatest Nemisis
Nostalgia has its rightful place at reunions, on anniversaries and within the pages of dusty photo albums; it has no place in the practice of history. Not be egregious, but words have meaning. They have precision. Words also have implication, a more subjective state of meaning, but one that demands the user bring to bear…
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The Faults of Others
Officially, I’ve been a volunteer guide at the Levi Coffin House State Historical Site since 1974. I tagged along with my mother who was one of the original guides for the site and then our Scout Troop began diligently manning one or two rooms as docents of which I was a regular volunteer. The house…
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The Gas Boom Redux?
If today you were to look for the town of Harrisburg, Indiana, you’d find an unincorporated location northeast of Connersville, Indiana. Any map reference would detail no more than a rural intersection, one of what are likely hundreds of little burgs that once had ambition enough to to attract naming, but not the commerce and…