Joyce Chaplin

Greetings! Since I’m a historian of science, I thought my first post in this space should celebrate the cyanometer, the device Alexander von Humboldt (among others) used to determine just how blue any sky actually is

The program is now available for Environmental Histories of New England, 1600-2026, sponsored by The New England Quarterly and @mhs1791.bsky.social, with support from @bplmaps.bsky.social. We will meet in Boston on Friday, September 18 for papers and a keynote by @joycechaplin.bsky.social.

I am honoured—and amazed!—to be one of five finalists for the George Washington Book Prize, a nomination that says “The Franklin Stove” is one of 2025’s best books on the founding of the United States www.mountvernon.org/about/news/n...

250 years ago today, Thomas Jefferson…bought a thermometer. And he recorded Philadelphia’s highest temperature that day: 76 degrees. Today’s heat-dome, climate-change high is 99.

One year later, it’s another big box of books day (paperback edition)

Ah, Harvard colleagues—raise a taco with me tomorrow

🎙️ Did you miss Episode 3 of the APS podcast, Useful Knowledge? Tune in to hear from @joycechaplin.bsky.social about the life and work of Benjamin Franklin including his pivotal invention, the Franklin Stove. 🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://bit.ly/4r3au1p or Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/45oTgmS

Benjamin Franklin, born on this day 1706: “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”

“Over the past four decades, Republican and Democratic administrations have used different estimates of the monetary value of a human life in cost-benefit analyses. But until now, no administration has counted it as zero.”

It was wonderful to talk Tom Paine and climate change last night—thank you @theitps.bsky.social and @noraslonimsky.bsky.social !

Best books of 2025 so far…a list I did not expect to be on (and very happy to see it includes so many other titles about environment and energy!) www.newyorker.com/best-books-2...

“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental…they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.” Orwell, “1984”

First day of the semester, first day of a new class, a freshman seminar on “Moby-Dick,” the novel and its significance for the history of resource extraction: “wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?”

Franklin didn’t just invent a stove—he invented five. Each one was designed to conserve fuel and control smoke. His final models in Europe? Built to burn coal cleaner. Sound familiar? 📻 Listen to @joycechaplin.bsky.social‬ break it down: benfranklinsworld.com/412 #EnergyHistory #History

The first anti-vaxxers worried that the original vaccine, which used cowpox against smallpox, would turn them into cows, a bizarre fear depicted here by caricaturist James Gillray—today is his day.

E pur si muove…

You may not have noticed, but today is the second shortest day in history—if we get many more days like this, by 2029, atomic clocks may have to register a negative leap second www.space.com/astronomy/ea...

Your annual reminder of science’s foundational role in US history: on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was first publicly read, in Philadelphia, from a platform originally built for astronomers to observe the 1769 Transit of Venus—science was the literal platform for revolution

“More than 98 percent of [Harvard] faculty who responded to the survey supported the University’s decision to sue the White House.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Bruce Lee, birthright citizen

Fantastic piece by @doctorvive.bsky.social about the climate crisis, a must-read and a necessary pushback to abundance-narrative delusions www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Dogs and cats, living together… yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/06...

🔥Did you know colonial Americans worried about climate change during the Little Ice Age? Benjamin Franklin had a solution: a stove that used less wood, produced more heat, and filled the room without smoke. 🎧 Episode 412: benfranklinsworld.com/412 #EarlyAmerica #History #ClimatePast #USHistory

“This splendid account offers a rich new perspective on the origins of climate science”—wow, and thank you @publisherswkly.bsky.social for the starred review of my new book on the FRANKLIN STOVE

Since Harvard’s founding, its international students have spoken a great many languages, each of which would have apt and colorful expressions for telling the Trump administration where to get off with this blatantly prejudicial statement www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/u...

And today’s award for National Leader Maintaining Extraordinary Grace under Egregious Trump Pressure goes to South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05...

This is bad www.wbur.org/news/2025/05...

Now we’re cooking

The pope has no airplane. The pope flies on chartered commercial aircraft. The plane he uses is, for the duration of the flight, designated as: Shepherd One.

Having blood drawn to see if I have measles antibodies—as one now does

Recalling today the graciousness with which President Abraham Lincoln declined King Mongkut of Siam’s proposed gift to assist US transportation: “a stock from which a supply of elephants might be raised.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/u...

This is exactly the thing NOAA would never say unless it needed to signal it was being held hostage

Good news is rare—but here’s some from Maryland, sometimes described as “America in miniature” and in this case, here’s hoping www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/c...

Oldest university in United States sues most outrageous administration in US history www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/u...

Delighted to find my new book briefly noted @newyorker.com which, in about 100 words, gets the book exactly right

Really happy and really grateful about this extract from my book, THE FRANKLIN STOVE, in the new issue of the Harvard Magazine—this is from the book’s intro, explaining why, in a changing climate, we must “make haste slowly” www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/05/fran...

It was a pleasure to talk about the history of unplugged, wood-burning stoves on History Unplugged www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-unpl...

Fight fiercely, Harvard! www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Statement from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: “Our founders were also the founders of the nation…we are a great nation because we have invested in the arts and sciences while protecting the freedom that enables them to flourish.” www.amacad.org/news/board-s...

“UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

“America runs on RESISTANCE”—Senator Ed Markey says in Boston, at the Massachusetts #HandsOff demonstration, where gazillions of people are still showing up, despite the rain

Because it would be boring to have just one massive economic threat, right? www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Climate history: more than just hot air… news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

For #WomensHistoryMonth: Mary Norris, an early American woman of #science, loaned her telescope to Philadelphia’s observation of the 1769 Transit of Venus (part of an international astronomical effort). Norris was formidable—John Adams said that if she’d been his wife, “I should have shot myself”

There’s a lot going on right now…but I want to take time to thank @harvardbookstore.bsky.social for hosting an event for my FRANKLIN STOVE book and my wonderful colleague @agr.bsky.social for her expert comments and discussion leading into the Q&A—the book is in the wild!

Today, on the anniversary of Harvard being named for John Harvard (#otd 1639), we are rallying at Harvard to defend all places of higher education in the United States

Eric Williams, CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY, on the modern history of profiting financially from exploitation and human suffering, is one of the most important books I read in grad school, and I’m passing on the favor in my grad seminar today

@joycechaplin.bsky.social on how the origins of an iconic American invention began with Benjamin Franklin’s cold feet.

On Boston Common, below the historic State House, today was a beautiful day to #StandUpForScience (but it’s beautiful to do that any day)

So happy to be shared here @parisreview.bsky.social and delighted they picked the paragraph of my FRANKLIN STOVE book that emphasizes the value of a (stove-heated) room of one’s own