SHGAPE Blog

Minding the GAPE – December 2025

January 6, 2026

Minding the GAPE – December 2025

By Laura Crossley and Andrew Varsanyi

“Filmitis” in the early days of cinema, Christmas recipes from the Gilded Age, suffrage bake sales, the assassination of James A. Garfield and the American news cycle, the origins of New Year’s resolutions, and much more.

Tribute to Lloyd Ambrosius

November 11, 2025

Tribute to Lloyd Ambrosius

By Dr. Jeannette Eileen Jones

The following is a tribute to Lloyd Ambrosius (1941-2024) by Dr. Jeannette Eileen Jones, who will be chairing the panel “Lloyd Ambrosius and His Historical Legacies” at the 2026 meeting of the Organization of American Historians in Philadelphia. The panel, solicited by SHGAPE, reflects upon and commemorates the tremendous accomplishments and broad impact of Lloyd Ambrosius, a leading expert on Woodrow Wilson and Wilsonian statecraft.

Minding the GAPE – October 2025

November 2, 2025

Minding the GAPE – October 2025

By Andrew Varsanyi and Laura Crossley

Ghost stories from historic sites, creepy clowns, murder ballads, asylums and conservatorship, the New Lost Cause, the origins of off-year gubernatorial elections, and much more.

SEX RADICAL: A New Film About a Woman Who Battled the Comstock Regime

October 28, 2025

SEX RADICAL: A New Film About a Woman Who Battled the Comstock Regime

By Dr. Chelsea Gibson

Historians of the Gilded Age are certainly familiar with the nefarious deeds of the evangelical “vice-hunter,” Anthony Comstock, but they may not know the story of Ida Craddock, a sex educator, scholar, and sexual mystic who challenged Comstock face-to-face, and who inspired her contemporaries by her courage. SEX RADICAL, the latest film from award-winning writer/director Andy Kirshner tells Craddock’s remarkable story. It will premiere at the end of this month, both theatrically and online.