The Grave Series at 2,000

I generally hate navel gazing, but the grave series hitting 2,000 posts is kind of a moment to think about this project.

I started this as what I considered the dumbest idea I ever had. And then it became a massive part of my career. A few things about it. First, there is nothing like this in the history of the internet. People start things, but people aren’t good at sustaining things. I am very, very good at sustaining things. Why would I stop this series until this blog dies or I die? There’s no good reason. There’s certainly no shortage of Americans, good and very bad, to cover. It’s not boring to me. It helps organize my travel. It gives me something to do. There’s no real downside to it. And it’s at least a semi-scholarly thing that I can talk about in terms of the larger impact of my career. It’s also an incredible bank of material for me to use on everything from other blog posts to future books. Many of the chapters of Organizing America came from grave posts, for example. This reminds me as well that not only do I find just endless blogging about “Trump did this again” to be boring (if necessary at times), but also useless for me since anyone can talk about that stuff, but who else can turn weird little internet series about the past into books?

I’m am a little concerned at what I see as declining interest in the series here. What I get out of this site is obviously very different than many of the commenters, who really do want to just talk about Trump Bad or Team Good Dems. Yes, there’s value in this too. And of course Trump is bad–he’s the worst person in American history. But again, this site has the expertise and interest to do some different things, in addition to Trump Bad and Dems Good, and I’m filling some of that role here. And if you think things like this keeps one sane in dealing with Trump’s America, well I am here to tell you that for me, it’s medicine.

That said, comments on many grave posts–even the really awful people who are at least somewhat known and used to be what really drove the series–seem to be declining. Donations for the grave series have really plummeted. Every now and then, some saint gives $50, a couple times a month people give $5 or $10. The whole donation thing started because people kept asking me to see this or that person and I said, “well, sure, if you want to pay for my travel” and then people did. But now they mostly don’t. I suppose it’s the routine of this being here for you every day and people forget about it or take it for granted.

And maybe you don’t have interest in seeing labor leaders or scumbag senators profiled, I don’t know. But I sure don’t think the quality of the graves have declined much. We’ve recently not only seen fascinating people who fought for social change such as Frank Little and Clara Lemlich, but deeply problematic if not outright bad Americans such as Richard Daley and George Meany, terrible racists or CIA scum such as Howard Smith and Dick Helms, athletes such as Jim Jeffries, scientists such as Linus Pauling, and a nice variety of Brits coming from my London trip a few months back (next few days will be leaning into these heavily). Sure, sometimes I cover some chemist or historian and no one cares and that’s fine, those are deep cut posts. But I think the overall quality of Dead American is still pretty damn high for 2,000 posts in. And the future does not suggest that changes, looking at the 200 or so graves I have not written up yet, as well as the extensive list of people who are on my list to visit.

Given the 200 future posts are coming without me seeing another grave, I can’t say that this series is going away or anything, but your support for it is most certainly appreciated.

Again, this has been a big part of my career and really my life. It’s both ridiculous and glorious at the same time and at the very least makes me more unusual than your average American historian. Who the hell would think of doing this shit and then do it almost every day for the rest of their life? Here’s to another 2,000 graves and my utterly ridiculous life!