Guest Editor's and Editor's Notes
- Guest Editor's and Editor's Notes
I confess I have no idea how to write this note.
It is January 2021. Two days ago, I learned of the death of Sarah Schuetze. She was a gifted scholar and teacher, much beloved by many people. But she was much more than that, to me. She was my friend, my guide, my sister.
We met as fellows at American Antiquarian Society. I loved her immediately. She was funny and warm and snarky. She took notes by hand, in fat spiral notebooks. We sat across from each other in the reading room for months, interrupting each other, passing notes. "Finding a new friend is so funny," she said to me once. "It's kind of like falling in love." And it was.
Her work was about disease, and she could tell you gnarly things about syphilis and typhoid and scurvy. She loved writing. She wrote expansively and fearlessly. She wrote long meditations on things, on texts, confident that she would find the way, and she usually did. She gave excellent advice. She listened endlessly to my research dilemmas, and she generally had very little patience for my insecurities, which helped me, always.
This issue was her idea. When she told me she wanted to do this, and that she wanted me to coedit with her, I was reluctant. I knew it would be a lot of work. But Sarah's enthusiasm for things was irresistible. She liked to try new projects. Building things. Planting roses. Layer cakes from scratch. She took things on wholeheartedly, without betraying an ounce of reservation. She once threw herself a raccoon baby shower, to collect necessaries for the baby raccoons she was fostering. There was even a registry.
So I said yes. And it was not easy. But this issue is a testament to her and to our friendship. It is surreal to think that she won't see it in print. The past year has been full of disruption and shock. But her death, to me, is the cruelest interruption of all. Words fail. [End Page 1]
I am grateful to Sarah Schuetze, Katherine Grandjean, Linda Coombs, and the many anonymous readers who made this special issue possible.
And with this first issue of the calendar year, thanks are due to several EAL editorial board members who conclude their five-year terms with volume 55: Matt Cohen (University of Nebraska–Lincoln), Paul Downes (University of Toronto), Gene Andrew Jarrett (New York University), Meredith Neuman (Clark University), and Christopher Phillips (Lafayette College). As a field, we owe you a debt of gratitude for your acumen and your generosity of spirit. I would also like to welcome our new board members: Wendy Bellion (University of Delaware), Lisa Brooks (Amherst College), Sarah Chinn (Hunter College, CUNY), Andrew Newman (Stony Brook University), and Derrick Spires (Cornell University). Thank you in advance for the unique contributions each of you are prepared to make. I look forward to working with you. [End Page 2]
katherine grandjean is an associate professor of history at Wellesley College. She is the author of American Passage: The Communications Frontier in Early New England (Harvard UP, 2015). Her essays have appeared in the William and Mary Quarterly, American Quarterly, and Early American Studies, and her work has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Philosophical Society, and others. She is currently working on a new book about the violent legacies of the American Revolution.
