Kate Carpenter

@katecarp.bsky.social

4544 Followers 1590 Following

Historian/writer. Creator, @draftingthepast.bsky.social podcast. History of science PhD candidate at Princeton, based in KCMO. Working on a history of storm chasing. https://draftingthepast.com/ http://kathrynbcarpenter.com/

Photograph of a sign for "Orchid Jungle" in Homestead, Florida.
A medium sized brown dog napping peacefully on a leather couch, but DON'T LET HER FOOL YOU.
Screenshot of an email from Google Workspace that reads "Dear administrator, We’re preparing to release a new feature in Google Vids that will allow users to create a personal avatar using their own face and voice, safely and securely. This feature will be available starting no sooner than July 14, 2026, and you have the option to disable it at any time. We’ve provided additional information below to help you understand this rollout and the Administrative controls available to you."
A hand holding keys in front of a wall of post office boxes.
An image showing the base of a green porch side table with matchbox cars in various colors lined up along two sides.
A screenshot of a Scrivener document's project targets notification, showing that the user wrote 1,139 words today out of a goal of 1,000.
Photograph of a Princeton doctoral hooding ceremony. The woman in the center is wearing Princeton's black and orange robes, while the two professors flanking her wear black robes with light blue capelets, blue domed caps surrounded by long blue fringe, and blue cuffs with white lace.
Close up photograph of a page showing handwritten lines from left to right and up and down.
Hand holding a uncorrected page proof copy of the book Night Hawk: A Nineteenth Century Superhero and the Dawn Of American Culture, by Matthew Warner Osborn.
An Instagram post from the NEH with a graphic that advertises a grant deadline for Curriculum Development: Western Civilization.
Screenshot of a quote from the top of a newsletter that reads "'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' - Jesus." No context is offered for why this quote kicks off the newsletter.
Handwritten note in blue ink on inside book cover that reads "1988. Too gloomy & black"
Image of an airport book display with only Stephen King and Emily Henry novels.
Screenshot of an article excerpt. Text reads: "Even the “A5 wagyu katsu sando” ($68), a dish my server tried to dissuade me from ordering, was well-composed. The “sando” is in fact four stamp-sized bites arranged on the plate like modernist finger sandwiches—Girl Dinner, but for Marie Antoinette. Each bite of wagyu was buttery and plump, with a super thin crust to give the beef a hint of structure. A swoop of Osetra caviar on top added brininess to the richness. A sleaze of gold leaf added gold leaf. The dish was fine. Does anyone really want to eat like this? The main trouble with 1587 Prime isn’t its child-like idea of luxury. It’s that it’s a steakhouse that doesn’t nail the steaks."
Screenshot of an ad (?) for clearly AI-generated garments. In the top two images, thin blonde women with long earrings are wearing tight mini sweaterdresses with fluffy cats and roses "knitted" onto them. In the bottom two images, legs that don't match any real human anatomy are wearing allegedly knit leggings in pale pink, with fluffy white cats featured prominent in the knit design on the upper thighs. Your guess as to what happens when you click this ad is as good as mine.
A hand holding a book with an illustrated cover of images emerging from the pages of a book while a hand appears to be drawing them. The title is "Making Nonfiction Comics," by Eleri Harris and Shay Mirk.
Two twisted balloon animals, a blue dog and a purple rabbit, on a brown couch.
A children's book cover with a line illustration of a child on a rhinoceros.
Woodcut-like illustration in red of a frowning, severe dee woman with foldes hands standing in front of a town with a church on one side and a saloon on the other. The text reads "Carry Nation by Herbert Asbury, Alfred A. Knopf New York 1929"
Hand holding a book with a red cover with two beige figures embracing, a beige fault line running between them. There are also yellow stamps resembling passport stamps or postage cancellation. The title reads "A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart," by Nishant Batsha
Hand holding a copy of Mary Stolz's "The Seagulls Woke Me," with an illustration of stylized birds, with small buildings and boats in the foreground.
Cover of Mary Stewart's 1964 book "This Rough Magic," with extremely '60s lettering and a dolphin jumping in front of a castle.
Hand holding a brown book with the title "Carry A. Nation"
Hand holding "Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook" with a red cover with white decorative illustration.
Open book with marbled endpapers.
Hand holding a copy of "Kansas City: A Place in Time" book. White cover with rectangular orange and yellow tinted photographs of KC landmarks.
Screenshot of Bluesky post with new share icon circled in blue
Screenshot of an article from the Kansas City Star with a byline attributed to "Kansas City Star Weather Bot" and an editor's note that reads: "The creation of this content included the use of AI based on templates created, reviewed and edited by journalists in the newsroom."
A medium sized blond dog laying on top of a folded up pink blanket on an ottoman
Image from above of a small toddler wearing a blue shirt flipping through an ARC os Seth Rockman's new book, Plantation Goods. Trust water bottle is close at hand.
A cropped screenshot showing the navigation bar of a browser. In the spot where the number of open tabs is usually listed, the infinity symbol appears instead.
Small child reading a zine with a photograph of beans on one page and Rancho Gordo founder Steve Sando on the other.
A pile of black walnuts and related products from Hammons against a brown background.
Screenshot of an email that reads "We would love tog et our filmmaker, Jeff Hays, to appear in your show to market the Bobby Kennedy Jr. Documentary, The Real RFK JR. Please let me know how we can get this done." The words "market the Bobby" are in an inexplicably larger font size.
Fred Armisen as the head of the Venezuelan delegation in Parks and Recreation, with a caption that says "straight to jail."
Hand holding a book titled "Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism" by Jason A. Heppler
Screenshot or Publisher's Weekly deal announcement for Kate Brown's new book, Tiny Gardens Everywhere: A Kaleidoscopic History of the Food Sovereignty Frontier.
Hand holding a mug with Harry Truman's face rendered in tiki mug style, with terrifying results.
Screenshot of a quote from the Washington Post weekly news quick. It reads "The trailer looks amazing! It looks like a realistic depiction of up-close tornado chasing and extreme field science." -- Reed Trimmer, extreme meteorologist and star of Discovery's "Storm Chasers" series, which was canceled in 2012
Letters in end zone spelling "Chefs," a still from a classic Snickers commercial.
A man stands at a podium in front of a presentation screen.
Conférence nametag with a Drafting the Past sticker added to the bottom.
Front door and windows of a restaurant. The door sign reads "Booches, Since 1884." Inside, tables and neon signs are visible.
8 books standing on a shelf. The titles are Midwestern Good, The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook, Way makers, Dangerous Fun, Girl in the Window and Other True Tales, The Apple II Age, Lies of the Land, and Sins of the Shovel.
Two smiling women, a mother and daughter, with brown hair, one wearing sunglasses. They are wearing stickers with a historic photograph of a man and holding a program that reads "J & J Blair: A Family Affair."
Portion of a browned, curled and torn page. In script, someone has written Mr John Blair December 21 1861.
Image taken from a balcony showing a room full of seated people and a projection screen (plus malachite...thing).
Graphic card with an image of a smiling woman with light brown hair on the left side. On the right, dark teal text on a light teal backgrounds reads: "Drafting the Past, a podcast on the craft of history. Episode 28: Melissa Sevigny"
A woman with light brown hair and glasses smiles at the camera. Text reads "episode 27: Carly Goodman."