Tegan Kehoe

As I mentioned last update, I'm switching to semi-annual posts on this website, because I started a monthly newsletter. Descriptively named Links and Things from Tegan, it's where I share reviews and recommendations of books, articles, podcasts, databases, and other fun things for general audiences, history lovers, and museum professionals. If you sign up , you'll get one email a month from me, and I won't swap or sell your address. In addition to the newsletter, here are some museum reviews I've written lately: History Happening in Manhattan: the African Burial Ground Public History, Public Health: The Public Health Museum When I'm not writing, one of the things I'm doing is serving on the board and the outreach committee of Digital Commonwealth , an online repository for historical materials from libraries, museums, archives, and historical societies across Massachusetts. I'm part of our social media team, so check us out on Facebook , Twitter ,...

My biggest update this quarter is that I started a monthly newsletter !  It's descriptively named Links and Things from Tegan Kehoe. In it, I'll be sharing short reviews and recommendations of books, articles, experiences, and more, both things that have come out in the last month, and things that are not new, but worth a view. I'll also share information on my own ongoing and upcoming projects. If you sign up , you'll get one email a month from me, and I won't swap or sell your address. It's possible I'll want to send more than one per month in the future, but if I change to more often, that will be opt-in. Because of the newsletter, I'm going to reduce how often I post selections of my recent work here. I encourage you to follow along with what I'm up to in "The Me Section" in the newsletter each month.  In addition to the newsletter, here are some things I've written lately: A Museum Takes a Stand: Review of "the Davis...

September Links and Things from Tegan Welcome to Links and Things from Tegan! This is the inaugural “issue,” and I hope you enjoy it. Most months it will be email-only, so please subscribe here if you haven't already! I'll never sell or trade your information. In General I've been reading the blog Ask a Manager regularly for maybe a year now, and it’s one of my favorite blogs. It’s a daily advice column about work situations … hiring, firing, being hired/fired, fights over the office microwave, really anything that can come up. Some posts are very straightforward and useful, and others have a lot of human drama in them, as people who write in share some extreme things that have happened in their workplaces. The thing that makes it special is that the columnist, Alison Green, is really great at looking at many perspectives on an issue, and helping people figure out what they can change in their workplace, what they can influence, and what they need to figure out whet...

Hello, all! This is a preview of my new monthly e-newsletter, descriptively named Links and Things from Tegan Kehoe. In it, I'll be sharing short reviews and recommendations of books, articles, experiences, and more, both things that have come out in the last month, and things that are not new, but worth a view. I'll also share information on my own ongoing and upcoming projects. If you sign up, you'll get one email a month from me, and I won't swap or sell your address. It's possible I'll want to send more than one per month in the future, but if I change to more often, that will be opt-in.  Without further ado... Links and Things! In General I recently read The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton , a compilation published in 1937. The first time I picked up this slim volume I didn’t think much of it, but this time it was just what I was in the mood for. Some of the stories are scary, and some have twist endings, but some of them have that creeping feelin...

Probably the most important things I've written since the last time I posted a quarterly update have been regarding civic participation. As regular readers know, civic participation as an individual and as part of my responsibility as a historian and museum professional is very important to me. In these polarizing times, participating is more important than ever. There are 12 known active hate groups in my state of Massachusetts ; staying out of the fray would do nothing to combat their violent messages. One of the causes I care deeply about is making sure that everyone has a chance to be involved, and in that vein, I posted an open letter last month (which I also sent to a number of news outlets) asking for more coverage of nonvoters.  This past week, I had the opportunity to visit the much-publicized exhibit "the Davis. Without Immigrants," also known by its hashtag #ART-LESS, which was up over Presidents Day weekend. I reviewed it on my blog , describing my experience ...

I am sending this to a number of my favorite media sources. I encourage you to share this verbatim with attribution, or to write your own letter with mine as a model. I’m writing to ask for more coverage of the Americans who did not vote in the presidential election in November. Trump voters have gotten a lot of media attention, and rightly so, but their voices are disproportionately amplified. 42% of eligible voters did not cast a vote (fivethirtyeight.com). This proportion has become typical, and it’s a serious problem in American democracy. This year saw new restrictions in many states, ostensibly to prevent voter fraud. How do people caught in red tape feel about the election? How do people who never vote feel? To understand our political climate, your audience needs to hear their stories. We need coverage of people who were prevented from voting by legal or illegal, intentional or unintentional means. People whose registrations were rejected. People who were turned awa...

Since my last update in August, I've been working on a couple of longer-term projects, so I have a bit less public-facing material to show for my work, but I'm happy with where things are going on them. If you get a chance to stop by the Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, we recently put up an exhibit on Walter Guralnick, a retired oral surgeon who recently celebrated his 100th birthday, and on bits of the history of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at MGH. Earlier this fall we did an exhibit on Visual Thinking Strategies, which is an art education technique that's now also being used in healthcare education. A smaller version of the exhibit is still in our second-floor gallery, and we will be moving the exhibit to a case in the main lobby of the hospital sometime in the new year. We are about to mount our first exhibit specifically designed for the hospital's research buildings in the Charlestown ...