Zachary Schrag
@zacharyschrag
Professor of History, George Mason University. Currently researching history of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. Views my own. zacharyschrag.com. historyprofessor.org
There’s much to love in Daniel Okrent’s new biography, Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn't Easy. But I especially appreciate the way that Okrent presents the technical elements of Sondheim’s approach to composing, quoting an interview by Mark Eden Horowitz.
It's gorgeous! I don't think I ever rode in an arrangement this perilous, but my father describes commuting with my older brother, then about 2 years old, c. 1969.
That seems a little unfair. Rear cyclist appears to be wearing jeans or some other non-skin-tight long pants, and both have rear racks. That said, 1974's "Bicycling for Everyone" (from the Office of the Secretary, not FHWA), is friendlier.
Meanwhile, here's a speech in defense of immigrants from Congressman Jefferson Davis. www.google.com/books/editio...
Great to see the recreated scenes of the riots of 1844. If Christopher Nolan wants to expand them into a feature film, I'm reachable.
I'm proud to appear in Episode 5 of In Pursuit: Philadelphia and the Making of America. Catch me at 8:48 www.inpursuit.tv/blank
In June 2026, nearly eight years later, I got my records. The main thing I learned was that OSTP was not much involved in early deliberations. Those were taking place in “Zeke’s group.” (Zeke being Ezekiel Emanuel, Special Advisor for Health Policy within the Office of Management and Budget.) [3/4]
George Washington University Special Collections has posted six more Metro films from the WMATA collection. These are from the 1970s, when you didn't have to get past jersey barriers, military vehicles, and troops to tour a mockup Metro car. archive.org/details/gwul...
So many US DOT Inspector General documents on Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority from 2011-2015. Then Frank Wolf retires, and it dries up. If Wolf had stayed on the job, what would we have learned about Phase 2 of Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project?
In the 1990s, planners also considered going off the median (and into the W&OD right-of-way) to serve the heart of Reston Town Center. This was probably only considered for light rail.
But the median did not *dictate* the alignment. Notably, in the early 2000s, planners rejected the decades-old idea of running rail along the median with a single stop at the north end of Tysons, preferring to divert into Tysons itself.
Transportation planners make their own alignments, but they do not make it as they please. Yes, the median had been sitting their since 1962.
Production Wage (from MeasuringWorth.com) in 1950 was $1.55, and a bottle of vodka was about $2.69 at a DC liquor store. After taxes, it took about maybe two hours to earn the vodka. A bit longer in Pennsylvania, where Kerr et. al get their data. But not six hours (75 percent of a day).
"The tramway company . . . argued that it would be more sensible if the pram manufacturers adapted their devices to suit public transit rather than expecting transit vehicles to accommodate prams." Elise Perrault and Martin Emanuel. "Making Passengers Work," dx.doi.org/10.1353/tech...
As I try to shift into writing mode for the summer, I was delighted to encounter some of Mason alum Kate Fitzpatrick's "artists' books" on display in Fenwick Library. Books are so beautiful, so terrifying. And words keep slipping off the page. @katesfitzart.bsky.social
Congratulations to Kevin Brett on bringing a Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission marker to the site of the 1844 Kensington riots.
Apparently jokes, like many works of history, can benefit from a three-act structure. historyprofessor.org/writing/joke...