Heather Cox Richardson tells Madison crowd the past makes her optimistic for future

In 2019, Boston College History Professor Heather Cox Richardson began writing daily essays, chronicling her observations of American politics and the changes she has noticed.

What she has seen in the five years since, she said, gives her a detailed perspective on the direction in which this country is going. 

“I really do live in history,” Cox Richardson told a crowded audience during the last evening of the eighth annual Cap Times Idea Fest.

She was joined on stage at the University of Wisconsin’s Shannon Hall by fellow author, historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Maraniss.

Her collection of email newsletter essays, “Letters from an American,” have gained a remarkable national following. These daily notes follow acts of Congress, the state of partisan politics, international news such as Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, and historical losses such as the death of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on Dec. 1. 

A renowned scholar of political history, Cox Richardson uses her knowledge of America’s past to comment on today’s political landscape, which she says is a service to her community rather than a writing project for her own fulfillment. 

“It’s us. It’s the community. It’s not me,” Cox Richardson said. “I’m the coffee pot that everyone is gathered around.”

Cox Richardson effortlessly crafted a sense of optimism for the future by exploring how a decade-long period between 1854 and 1863 changed the course of the country — from a time when slaveholders sought to expand enslavement into the West, to the presidency of Lincoln, who delivered the Emancipation Proclamation and promoted a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

“In less than 10 years, you went from ‘The enslavers get it all’ to ‘They get nothing and we’re recreating American society,'” Cox Richardson said. “When I look at this moment, when we see somebody like Vice President Kamala Harris reaching out to everybody to join a pro-democracy movement and says ‘There’s room in our party for you in this moment, and we’ll sort it out later,’ that’s what this moment looks like to me.”

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Editor’s Note: This article is provided courtesy of a content partnership with The Capital Times, an independent news organization based in Madison.